tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/sinn-fein-3097/articlesSinn Fein – The Conversation2024-02-06T12:06:12Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2227852024-02-06T12:06:12Z2024-02-06T12:06:12ZHow Sinn Féin reinvented itself from IRA associations to realistic leftwing alternative<p>Addressing the newly restored Northern Ireland Assembly, Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle O’Neill assured everyone that she would be working equally for “<a href="https://www.derryjournal.com/news/people/this-historic-day-represents-a-new-dawn-northern-ireland-first-minister-michelle-oneills-speech-in-full-4504168">Catholics, Protestants and dissenters</a>”.</p>
<p>This iconic quote from the founder of Irish Republicanism, <a href="https://research.tees.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/16053350/Democracy_religion_and_the_Political_Thought_of_Theobald_Wolfe_Tone_submitted.pdf">Theobald Wolfe Tone</a>, needs no contextualisation in Ireland. It was not just meant to reassure those among unionists who might have misgivings about a Sinn Féin-led government. O’Neill was also addressing her own rank and file. She was guaranteeing that while the party will do its utmost to make Northern Ireland work, it has not lost sight of the ultimate prize – Irish unity.</p>
<p>In a carefully crafted speech full of optimistic prophecies, O’Neill announced a “new dawn” and the start of a “decade of opportunity” for Northern Ireland. She wasted little time in clarifying that she believes there will be a referendum on Irish unity within the next decade. Sinn Féin party president <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/03/26/referendum-on-irish-unity-within-a-decade-mary-lou-mcdonald-says/">Mary Lou McDonald</a> echoed the same sentiments almost immediately in Dublin.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Michelle O'Neill’s first speech as first minister.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The Good Friday Agreement provided that the governance of Northern Ireland is predicated on a power-sharing system. While this theoretically made it possible for the party most opposed to the very existence of Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin, to lead its government, it was an unimaginable scenario at the turn of the century. Unionism remained solid and politically dominant in a system <a href="https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/partition-of-ireland-explained-477342/">designed to make it so</a>. Sinn Féin equally still had a number of obstacles to overcome on its road to respectability and power – not least shedding its controversial image of a party <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526154569/">closely linked to the IRA.</a></p>
<p>Throughout the peace process, Sinn Féin developed a carefully crafted, two-pronged strategy. It would keep the party strongly rooted in its traditional message while developing a socio-economic programme that could win over the electorate from both constituencies. This has now started to pay off. Sinn Féin surged to win the popular vote in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/10/sinn-fein-declares-victory-irish-general-election">2020 general election in Ireland</a>, even though other parties went on to form the government.</p>
<p>The trend was confirmed in the 2022 Northern Ireland assembly election, when it became the biggest party for the first time, giving O'Neill the right to claim the position of first minister. But the Democratic Unionist Party made their participation in the executive conditional on the renegotiation of the 2021 Brexit deal. A more recent <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-53724381">deal</a> brokered by prime minister Rishi Sunak and the EU broke the deadlock, with the DUP agreeing to participate in a Sinn Féin-led government.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in the Republic, under the leadership of Mary Lou MacDonald, and a team of high-profile spokespeople on issues such as housing (Eoin Ó Broin having made a name for himself as an expert in the field) and finance (Pierce Doherty’s alternative 2024 budget was described <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/10/04/sinn-feins-alternative-budget-is-carefully-calculated-not-to-scare-off-the-middle-ground/">by Irish Times</a> political editor Pat Leahy as “comprehensive and painstakingly costed”), the party reinvented itself. It succeeded in providing a credible, leftwing alternative to the two-party system that had seen Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael dominate Irish politics since independence.</p>
<h2>In government and opposition</h2>
<p>As the only political party organised throughout the island (with the exception of People Before Profit, which holds four seats in the Republic and one in Northern Ireland), much of Sinn Féin’s work on one side of the border is scrutinised on the other.</p>
<p>Being in government on one side and in opposition on the other, all at the same time, will therefore be a delicate balance to sustain. In the Republic, Sinn Féin has kept the two main parties, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, on their toes. But while it has retained its lead over its two rivals, <a href="https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/ireland/">opinion polls</a> show that the gap is slowly narrowing. Sinn Féin dropped from an all-time high of 33% in September 2023 to 27% in January 2024 – though it is still ahead of the other parties by a comfortable margin. Sinn Féin’s capacity to prove that it can govern consensually and efficiently in an environment as politically divisive as Northern Ireland will be a useful test ahead of the next general election in the Republic.</p>
<p>In the North, the work of the newly nominated executive will be focused on bread-and-butter issues, such as addressing the crisis in the <a href="https://www.channel4.com/news/inside-a-northern-ireland-health-and-social-care-system-in-crisis">NHS</a>, which is reaching breaking point. The political vacuum created by the Democratic Unionist Party’s boycott of the institutions has compounded the problems faced by an ailing economy which <a href="http://qpol.qub.ac.uk/comparing-living-standards-north-and-south/">lags behind the Republic</a> in terms of salaries and living standards. The British government has offered a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-67968994">£3.3bn funding package</a> as part of the deal to restore power sharing in Northern Ireland and this will undoubtedly help to address the more immediate questions of public sector pay, which has <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-150-000-public-sector-workers-in-northern-ireland-have-been-on-strike-221455">stagnated</a> since the start of the decade and is the lowest in the UK.</p>
<p>Now that it holds the key ministries of finance, economy and infrastructure, Sinn Féin will have the opportunity (or face the challenge) to demonstrate its ability to make a difference. During their visit to Belfast to mark the restoration of the power-sharing executive, on February 5, Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Leo Varadkar and his British counterpart Sunak played down the <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/02/05/real-work-starts-now-rishi-sunak-tells-stormont-leaders/">prospects of a united Ireland</a> and insisted on the importance of day-to-day matters. </p>
<p>Indeed, only the secretary of state for Northern Ireland can decide on holding of a referendum on the constitutional future of Northern Ireland. But Sinn Féin is determined to make this happen. O'Neill has pledged that she will not ask anyone in Northern Ireland to surrender their identity. However,‘ we can expect her and her colleagues to continue to put Irish unity at the top of the agenda.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222785/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Agnès Maillot does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>O'Neill has pledged to represent ‘Catholics, Protestants and dissenters’ but has made plain that she sees that as compatible with a referendum on Irish unity within a decade.Agnès Maillot, Associate Professor, School of Applied Languages and Intercultural Studies, Dublin City UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2223332024-01-30T20:17:52Z2024-01-30T20:17:52ZNorthern Ireland deal to restore power sharing after two year gap – how it happened and what comes next<p>The Democratic Unionist party (DUP) leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, has finally moved to restore power sharing in Northern Ireland after nearly two years of protest.</p>
<p>The DUP, which has the second most seats in the Northern Ireland assembly, collapsed the government in February 2022 over the terms of the Brexit deal. Many unionists felt that the checks on trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland served to separate the region from the UK, and so undermined the Union.</p>
<p>UK prime minister Rishi Sunak attempted to address these concerns via the <a href="https://theconversation.com/windsor-framework-why-rishi-sunak-was-able-to-secure-the-brexit-deal-that-others-couldnt-200853">“Windsor framework”</a>, negotiated with Brussels last spring. This agreement minimised checks on goods coming into Northern Ireland. But the DUP insisted that the UK government had not addressed all of its concerns, and power sharing remained in abeyance.</p>
<p>Now, after months of further talks, Donaldson has decided that he has won enough concessions (or that he will not get any more). He has made clear his intent to lead the DUP back into power sharing with Sinn Féin, the largest party in the assembly, after <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-northern-ireland-politics-68031910">agreeing a deal</a> with the UK government.</p>
<h2>What’s likely to be in the deal?</h2>
<p>Details have not been released, but Donaldson claims it will further limit checks on goods entering Northern Ireland, and the extent to which the region <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/30/stormont-power-sharing-restart-northern-island-dup-deal">follows EU law</a>. Both of these elements were part of the original Brexit deal, which was designed to avoid the UK’s departure from the EU creating a “hard border” in Ireland. Such an outcome would have destabilised the Good Friday agreement and Northern Ireland peace process.</p>
<p>Donaldson also claims that the UK government will now pass legislation that will <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-68136950">“strengthen the union”</a>. This is his main tool to reassure unionist voters. </p>
<p>Any legislation passed by the UK government that affects Northern Ireland’s constitutional position will have to be consistent with the Good Friday agreement. If it is not, there will be protests from the nationalist community. And any changes to the rules on goods entering Northern Ireland would need to be consistent with the Brexit deal and Windsor framework – otherwise the EU will be in opposition. </p>
<p>This might suggest that such changes are largely cosmetic, likely already approved by Brussels, or are practical changes that primarily address traders’ complaints about the complexity of the existing arrangements, but which also can be sold as gains for Donaldson.</p>
<h2>Political fallout</h2>
<p>But none of this will go through without fierce debate, particularly within unionism. Even the DUP meeting that led to the announcement of Donaldson’s deal was a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-68137351">fraught affair</a>, the location kept secret from party members until three hours before in order to avoid a media melee and loyalist protests.</p>
<p>Donaldson still has a significant challenge ahead to convince the wider unionist community that his deal really is a significant improvement on current arrangements.</p>
<p>His task will not be aided by the fact that the DUP will be returning to power sharing with Sinn Féin now holding the position of first minister. The DUP’s travails over Brexit have seen a <a href="https://theconversation.com/northern-ireland-election-despite-sinn-feins-historic-win-over-unionists-things-may-not-be-as-they-seem-182652">fall in its support</a>, so the party can now only claim the role of deputy first minister. In practical terms, these roles have equal power, but even titular subservience to republicanism is ideological anathema to many unionists. </p>
<p>Symbolism remains important in Northern Ireland politics, and Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill leading the Belfast assembly as first minister would powerfully signal the end to what unionists once claimed was a “Protestant parliament for Protestant people”.</p>
<h2>What happens next?</h2>
<p>The UK government is <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-67726389">expected to publish the details of the deal on Wednesday</a>, with legalisation following on Thursday. The Stormont assembly could then be called as early as Friday, when a new speaker would be elected. This, in turn, would allow eligible parties to nominate their ministers to the power sharing executive, as per the rules of the Good Friday agreement. </p>
<p>We can be certain that Donaldson will not be the DUP’s nomination as deputy first minister, as he leads the party as an MP in Westminster and does not currently sit in the Stormont assembly.</p>
<h2>Donaldson’s decision</h2>
<p>Donaldson has clearly decided that it is more damaging to unionism, and to Northern Ireland’s future, to remain in constant protest. The absence of government for two years has seen further pressures mounting on the public sector particularly. </p>
<p>Workers striking over continued pay erosion have recently directed their protests towards the DUP, particularly as the UK government <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/secretary-of-state-returning-executive-can-unleash-northern-irelands-potential">offered a £3 billion</a> support package to help address wage claims in an effort to restore power sharing.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-150-000-public-sector-workers-in-northern-ireland-have-been-on-strike-221455">Why 150,000 public sector workers in Northern Ireland have been on strike</a>
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<p>However, there was also debate within the Conservative party over whether the British government might soon abandon these efforts, suspend devolution to Northern Ireland, and run the region <a href="https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/sir-robert-buckland-comments-former-ni-secretary-villers-says-there-is-no-role-for-dublin-in-running-ni-as-tory-mp-calls-idea-unacceptable-4475468">directly from Westminster</a>.</p>
<p>Under the terms of the Good Friday agreement, that would mean the Irish government would have a say in Northern Ireland’s affairs, and <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorials/2023/09/28/the-irish-times-view-on-the-latest-opinion-poll-all-still-to-play-for/">recent opinion polls</a> have suggested that Sinn Féin could soon take power in the Republic for the first time. Donaldson might tell unionists it is better to share power with Sinn Féin in Belfast rather than accepting their dictates from Dublin.</p>
<p>He will certainly argue that unionism must do more than protest, and instead become proactive to protect its voice and interests. But many unionist leaders have tried the same before, and all have been ousted at some point. </p>
<p>And Donaldson acts from a position of weakness, with unionists no longer holding a majority in the Belfast assembly for the first time in its history. He will need exceptional political skill to avoid the fate of his predecessors.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222333/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter John McLoughlin has received funding in the past from the AHRC, Leverhulme Trust, the Irish Research Council, and the Fulbright Commission. He is a member of Greenpeace.</span></em></p>Northern Ireland has been without a government since the executive collapsed in February 2022.Peter John McLoughlin, Lecturer in Politics, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2201702024-01-03T17:41:24Z2024-01-03T17:41:24ZHow Israel failed to learn from the Northern Ireland peace process<p>There is no peace in the Middle East because there is no effective peace process. This isn’t because the Palestinians and Israelis do not know how to make peace. They do. The Good Friday agreement which brought peace to Northern Ireland a quarter of a century ago, provided a <a href="http://www.peacepolls.org/peacepolls/documents/002903.pdf">clear guide</a>. They have to do what the negotiating teams, of which I was a part, did in Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>The problem is Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his ally, the United States of America, who have failed to apply the lessons of Northern Ireland to Middle East peacemaking.</p>
<p>To fully understand the tragedy this represents, it’s necessary to go back in time to the negotiations that achieved the Good Friday agreement in 1997. At the time I was working, together with two other Northern Ireland-based academics, <a href="https://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/NBE/Research/research-centres-and-institutes/CentreofCanadianStudiesCCS/AffiliatedStaff/">Fred Boal</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/tom-hadden-1397964">Tom Hadden</a>, developing a range of public polls to gauge opinion about how to achieve peace. </p>
<p>As the principal investigator on the Peace Building and Public Policy in Northern Ireland project – independent of government and funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT) – my role was to develop relations with all the parties to the Northern Ireland peace process and act as an informal negotiator and manager of public opinion and public diplomacy. The public was kept informed through reports and articles in the local newspaper, the <a href="http://www.peacepolls.org/cgi-bin/generic?instanceID=10">Belfast Telegraph</a>. It was key to the process that people of all shades of political opinion were not only involved, but were fully informed at all times.</p>
<p>Critically, all the parties to the conflict in Northern Ireland were democratically elected to participate in the peace negotiations there, including the Irish Republican Army represented by Sinn Féin, and the Ulster Volunteer Force and Ulster Freedom Fighters represented by their political leaderships, the Progressive Unionist Party and Ulster Democratic Party respectively. </p>
<p>In all, I had to work with eight political parties negotiating and agreeing questions for public opinion polls designed to resolve issues in the formal negotiations that had yet to be settled.</p>
<h2>How ‘peace polls’ work</h2>
<p>These <a href="http://www.peacepolls.org/peacepolls/documents/008880.pdf">“peace polls”</a> were unlike “partisan polls” designed to underline the public’s support for a particular policy favoured by one party or another (most commonly a government). Instead, the polls – which I developed with a partner from each of the eight political parties elected to the formal negotiations – aimed to fairly and objectively measure the public’s support, from both sides, for every possible policy option across the political spectrum. The objective was to determine the precise points of common ground, where they existed, or effective compromise where it was needed for peacemaking. </p>
<p>Public opinion polls are an American invention and, fortunately for me, Bill Clinton’s special envoy to Northern Ireland and the “talks” chairman, Senator George Mitchell, took the polls very seriously and gave me every possible support. </p>
<p>When the British offered to run the polling project for the parties, the parties rebelled and insisted on working with me with JCRT funding. So I always made a point of hand delivering the reports to Mitchell and the parties the day before they were published. And each time the polling reports were published, deals got done until we reached an agreement that we knew could <a href="https://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/fref98.htm">pass a referendum</a>, which was eventually held on May 22 1998.</p>
<p>The legitimacy of the Good Friday agreement was ensured by the full democratic participation of all the parties to the agreement and the people of Northern Ireland. Through public opinion polls the people gained a seat at the negotiating table, and through a referendum the deal was made.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Colin Irwin explains peace polls and how they might have affected the Brexit referendum.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Tragically, the peoples of Israel and Palestine have been prevented from learning and applying these same peace lessons to the resolution of their conflict.</p>
<h2>When it all went wrong</h2>
<p>In January 2009, the newly elected US president, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/22/hillary-clinton-obama-israel-palestine">Barack Obama, appointed Mitchell</a> as his special envoy for Middle East peace, in the hope he could bring the success of the Good Friday agreement peace process to Israel and Palestine. Expecting Obama to appoint Mitchell to this post following his successful election in 2008, I was invited to run a <a href="http://www.peacepolls.org/peacepolls/documents/000571.pdf">peace poll in Israel and Palestine</a>.</p>
<p>I was flown to Washington in June 2009 along with my Israeli and Palestinian polling team. Presentations were arranged for us in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6q2hyaKjs0">US House of Representatives and Senate</a>, and various thinktanks to brief all the politicians and experts with an interest in Middle East peace.</p>
<p>I had been in touch with Mitchell and met him in his office at the State Department. At that time I had also been running peace polls in <a href="http://www.peacepolls.org/cgi-bin/generic?instanceID=18">Sri Lanka</a> with support from the Norwegians. They were a generous and reliable funder and had indicated they would be willing to support my work in Israel and Palestine if Mitchell wanted them to. </p>
<p>Mitchell welcomed the Norwegian offer, arrangements were made to take it up, but it all fell through – my gut feel was that the State Department wanted to have control of the research to meet their own agenda. So I did not get the funding and Mitchell eventually resigned his post without achieving peace in May 2011.</p>
<p>Of course, it can be argued that even if I had brought the lessons of the Northern Ireland peace process to Israel and Palestine I would have failed. But I had made all necessary preparations and contacts with all the parties to the conflict to make it work. I knew what I was doing – as did Mitchell when he accepted his appointment from Obama.</p>
<p>Over a period of two months of interviews to develop the questionnaire in November and December 2008 I had private meetings with all the relevant stakeholders including the then Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and president, Shimon Peres, on the Israeli side. My pollster Mina Zemach was a good friend of Peres and had been his pollster when he led the Labour party.</p>
<p>On the Palestinian side, the non-governmental organisation organising the project, <a href="https://www.onevoicemovement.org/">OneVoice</a>, had close connections with Fatah, the political party founded by Yassir Arafat and others in the 1950s, which was at that stage dominant within the Palestinian Authority. So I arranged to meet with Hamas via an introduction from <a href="https://ecfr.eu/special/mapping_palestinian_politics/ghassan_khatib/">Ghassan Khatib</a>, an independent Palestinian politician and director of the <a href="http://www.jmcc.org/index.aspx">Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre</a>. </p>
<p>Speaking with Hamas was like speaking with Sinn Féin. They had an extreme negotiating position but that is all it was: a negotiating position. Like Sinn Féin they had a legitimate grievance and said they would be happy to cooperate with the peace polls. Of course the impact of the Hamas attack of October 7 and Israel’s assault on Gaza has profoundly reshaped public opinion on all sides.</p>
<p>Violence on both sides of the Troubles that continued <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/04/02/how-murder-of-two-best-friends-spurred-final-push-for-peace-in-north/">even as the talks were progressing</a> meant that at times many thought we would never achieve a peace agreement in Northern Ireland. But such tragedies can either doom negotiations or inspire renewed effort. People have a choice. We carried on. </p>
<p>Significantly, the one key interlocutor who refused to meet with me in December 2008 was Netanyahu. He only consented to send his chief of staff. Zemach said this was because he would refuse to compromise on sharing Jerusalem as part of any peace agreement. And when he became Israel’s prime minister in March 2009 he also refused to include Hamas in any peace negotiations.</p>
<p>My experience told me that excluding Sinn Féin and the other paramilitary organisations from peace negotiations in Northern Ireland had only brought failure, while their inclusion had enabled the peace settlement. </p>
<p>Other parties essential to the success of the Northern Ireland peace process had been the centre <a href="https://www.allianceparty.org/peace_process_papers?locale=en">Alliance Party</a> and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/1/northern-ireland-peace-deal-womens-role-finally-recognised-says-activist">Women’s Coalition</a>. </p>
<p>The politically equivalent party in Israel was Meretz, a left-wing socialist party and strong supporter of the <a href="https://peacenow.org.il/en">Peace Now</a> movement. When I met with them, like Alliance, they told me they would be pleased to be part of a fully inclusive peace process but they were excluded from negotiations as they were not part of Netanyahu’s coalition government.</p>
<p>The establishment in Washington did not have a problem with my contacts with Hamas. In 2009, I had also been working on a <a href="http://www.peacepolls.org/cgi-bin/generic?instanceID=22">project in Sudan</a> with the US Institute of Peace. Although Hamas was a proscribed terrorist organisation, the Institute for Peace lawyers said it was OK for me to meet and talk with them providing I did not give them any assistance. They advised me “not to even buy them a coffee”. I took this advice. Hamas provided the coffee.</p>
<p>But without inclusive negotiations that also drew on the public’s desire for an end to the bloodshed, peace was not achieved. </p>
<p>In 2013, when I was in New York for meetings at the UN I took the opportunity to visit Mitchell at his law office and asked him why he had resigned. He said it was because he was not getting sufficient support from the State Department. I had planned to reveal this in a <a href="http://www.peacepolls.org/peacepolls/documents/008880.pdf">book I was writing</a>. But a trusted colleague and friend advised me against it, as it could reflect badly on the former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, when she was campaigning to be president in the run-up to the 2016 election.</p>
<p>Accordingly, I watered down the quote to saying something about the lack of sufficient support in Washington. It was not untrue, but it was not the whole truth.</p>
<h2>Misplaced optimism</h2>
<p>In my optimism at the time, I thought perhaps that Clinton – if she became president – would send her husband to the Middle East as her special envoy. Bill Clinton had got very close to making an agreement some years earlier with the “<a href="https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/Peace%20Puzzle/10_Clinton%20Parameters.pdf">Clinton parameters</a>”, but he ran out of time. And then Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump – and so we are where we are.</p>
<p>It is just as likely that my optimism was misplaced and that Clinton and possibly Joe Biden – who has always been a very strong supporter of Israel – did not want to oppose Netanyahu for domestic political reasons.</p>
<p>When the Good Friday agreement was struck 25 years ago, both Mitchell and I thought Israel and Palestine would be our next challenge. But Al Gore, who we had hoped might set his sights on a peace deal, lost to Bush and then 9/11 happened, and the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq took all the political oxygen out of peacemaking. </p>
<p>Then, 15 years ago, we thought it would happen when Obama was elected. It should have. Another opportunity may well arrive when the present war is over, the Hamas’ attack on October 7 and Israel’s response have raised the stakes for peace considerably. Elections in the US, Israel and Palestine may also put the peace process on hold yet again. But this must not prevent people of goodwill from talking peace. And it can work, history tells us as much.</p>
<p>Sadly, Israel and Palestine are not alone in their cycles of violence and grief. All over the world the lessons of the Northern Ireland peace process are ignored. Frozen conflicts remain frozen at best and with increased frequency become unstable and violent. Over centuries, the cost of war has often been measured in “blood and treasure”. It’s fair to say that since 2009 in the Middle East and elsewhere we’ve seen “blood” in thousands of lives lost and “treasure” in billions of dollars wasted, again and again.</p>
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<p><em>This article originally stated that the author’s work had been funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. This was incorrect. Colin Irwin received funding from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, which is a separate entity. The error was introduced in the editing process and has now been corrected.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220170/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Colin John Irwin receives funding from: Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in South East Europe, Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, OneVoice, Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (now FCDO), Economic and Social Research Council (UK ESRC), United Nations, InterPeace, Health and Welfare Canada, Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), British Academy, Norwegian Peoples Aid, The Day After, No Peace Without Justice, US Department of State, Local Administrations Council Unit (Syria), Asia Foundation, Department for International Development (UK DFID), OpenAI, Atlantic Philanthropies, Universities: Dalhousie, Manitoba, Syracuse, Pennsylvania, Queens Belfast, Liverpool. Also member of the World Association of Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) which promotes freedom to publish public opinion polls and sets international professional standards.</span></em></p>The main stumbling block to Middle East peace is the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.Colin John Irwin, Research Fellow, Department of Politics, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2142192023-11-09T21:22:03Z2023-11-09T21:22:03ZNew law sidesteps British culpability in Northern Ireland’s Troubles<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/new-law-sidesteps-british-culpability-in-northern-irelands-troubles" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3160">Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act</a> became law in the United Kingdom on Sept. 18. It is an attempt to resolve the many open investigations into murders committed during the 30-year armed conflict in Northern Ireland known as <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/the-troubles-of-northern-ireland-history">the Troubles</a>.</p>
<p>The new law calls for setting up an independent commission to deal with the hundreds of killings that remain unsolved to this day. It would offer <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/4/uks-controversial-ngorthern-ireland-legacy-bill-all-you-need-to-know">conditional amnesty</a> to those who co-operate with the commission’s investigations.</p>
<p>The act was passed despite <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/09/06/northern-ireland-troubles-legacy-bill-what-it-means-for-victims-families/">widespread condemnation</a> from the communities of Northern Ireland and broader international parties. The British government says the act will “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-57829037">draw a line under the Troubles</a>” and achieve reconciliation. But this claim is questionable and the act raises concerns regarding colonial legacies and the government’s culpability.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/amnesty-for-troubles-related-crimes-to-become-law-why-many-people-in-northern-ireland-oppose-the-bill-213029">Opponents of the act</a> argue that it violates the Good Friday Agreement by putting “<a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/commissioner/-/united-kingdom-adopting-northern-ireland-legacy-bill-will-undermine-justice-for-victims-truth-seeking-and-reconciliation">victims’ rights at risk”</a> in ceasing all open criminal investigations. Sinn Fein, the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, said the act is a “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-66634919">denial of human rights of victims and their families</a>.” Critics also say it will not achieve its purported goals of reconciliation and may actually “<a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2022/11/22/primates-of-all-ireland-say-legacy-bill-will-deepen-divisions-in-northern-ireland/">deepen divisions</a>” between the communities of Northern Ireland. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/amnesty-for-troubles-related-crimes-to-become-law-why-many-people-in-northern-ireland-oppose-the-bill-213029">Amnesty for Troubles-related crimes to become law – why many people in Northern Ireland oppose the bill</a>
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<h2>A “Legacy and Reconciliation” Act</h2>
<p>The act seeks to promote reconciliation through a loosely defined “Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery.” This language of reconciliation and independent commissions appears on the surface to be <a href="https://www.unpo.org/downloads/ProfKnoops.pdf">based on notions of transitional justice and reconciliation</a>. Supporters note that the 1998 <a href="https://education.niassembly.gov.uk/post-16/snapshots-devolution/belfast-agreementgood-friday-agreement-1998">Good Friday Agreement</a>, which brought an end to the Troubles, also declared a goal of reconciliation.</p>
<p>Truth and reconciliation commissions are a <a href="https://www.ictj.org/truth-and-memory">key component of peace processes</a>, helping societies transition out of conflict and into peaceful relations. <a href="https://theconversation.com/do-truth-and-reconciliation-commissions-heal-divided-nations-109925">Despite their varying effectiveness</a>, they are generally seen as a positive step forward. </p>
<p>However, three factors reveal how the U.K. government’s agenda is disingenuous: the definition of justice, the dilemmas of colonial legacies and the government’s own culpability.</p>
<h2>The people should define justice</h2>
<p>Opposition to the act’s amnesty provision reflects a wider debate in peace processes between <a href="https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=ijps">retributive and restorative justice</a> and the role of amnesty. Retributive justice reflects the idea that perpetrators of crimes should be punished accordingly under the law. In Ireland, criminal justice for perpetrators — or retributive justice — is frequently described as inherent to victims’ rights. </p>
<p>Restorative justice emphasizes shared dialogue between the perpetrator and victim. However, offering perpetrators amnesty — or what some critics label impunity — to garner their participation is often criticized for <a href="https://www.beyondintractability.org/library/reconciliation-through-restorative-justice-analyzing-south-africas-truth-and-reconciliation">not always delivering justice</a> to victims.</p>
<p>South Africa, for example, selected a restorative justice process of <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20211226-desmond-tutu-s-truth-commission-rejected-retributive-justice-in-favour-of-healing">truth-telling, with amnesty</a>, to encourage perpetrator participation. But while dialogue occurred, action to implement the recommendations that followed was never taken, leaving many feeling justice had not been served.</p>
<p>The U.K.’s legislation suggests it is using amnesty to encourage perpetrators to come forward with the truth. However, one of the act’s other controversial moves includes <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/9/11/shut-it-all-down-uk-legacy-bill-threatens-troubles-era-atrocity-inquests">shutting down existing investigations</a> to shift all cases over to the new framework.</p>
<p>British military personnel are subject to a <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8352/">number of open investigations</a> for their role in over 3,500 deaths of the Troubles. In simultaneously applying amnesty and closing investigations, the act clearly serves the interests of the British government. The legislation’s claims to restorative justice become a way to prevent the truth of government’s culpability coming out.</p>
<h2>Reconciliation and colonial legacies</h2>
<p>Northern Ireland faces another issue similar to <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/en-ca/resource-library/truth-reconciliation-0">Canada’s truth and reconciliation process</a>. There has been no transition of the imperial or colonial institutions. Simply put, the colonial state’s that perpetrated violence are still in power. The problems of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0924051921992747">non-transition</a>, colonialism and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/iju004">structural violence</a> are widely critiqued by scholars of transitional justice in an Indigenous context. These criticisms carry important lessons for Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>The U.K. government that has passed this legislation — without the consent of the Northern Irish people — still claims sovereign authority over the territory. While a transition of sorts occurred with the creation of the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1998, there has been no transition of the Westminster government. Nor any transition of the Crown, whose imperial presence has been felt in Ireland for hundreds of years.</p>
<p>In Canada, despite being forced <a href="https://nctr.ca/about/history-of-the-trc/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-of-canada/">by legal settlement</a> to co-operate with Indigenous groups, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s <a href="https://ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Volume_6_Reconciliation_English_Web.pdf">final report</a> noted the government still retained a colonial lens of reconciliation in maintaining its “Crown Sovereignty.” The U.K. government is also defining reconciliation in a way that does not respond to the interests or appeals of the people of Northern Ireland. </p>
<h2>Historicizing crimes</h2>
<p>In seeking to draw a line under the conflict and relegating the issues to history, the act appears even more self-serving. The U.K. government is highly culpable in the Troubles — particularly in the <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/bloody-sunday-in-northern-ireland">1972 Bloody Sunday massacre</a> — lending to greater outcry at the notion they may be allowed to absolve themselves of responsibility through legislation.</p>
<p>When former British prime minister David Cameron <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jun/15/bloody-sunday-report-saville-inquiry">apologized for Bloody Sunday</a> in 2010, it was made clear that there was a distinction between the two regimes: his, and that of 1972. Records show that ministers as early as 1997 were aware of the impact of such an apology underpinning the <a href="https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2022/12/28/news/sir_patrick_mayhew_said_british_government_would_not_apologise_over_bloody_sunday-2960402/">liability of the British government</a> and calls for justice.</p>
<p>Proponents of restorative justice processes could argue that an amnesty approach is a possible step toward healing and reconciliation. But such processes must align with the demands of the communities, victims and survivors.</p>
<p>Outcry about the act in Northern Ireland represents the challenge of doing reconciliation without real institutional transition. And of ignoring the legacies of history without addressing the demands for justice in the present day.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214219/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samantha Twietmeyer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Opponents of the U.K. government’s Northern Ireland Troubles Act argue it violates the Good Friday Agreement by denying victims their right to justice.Samantha Twietmeyer, Research fellow, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2046952023-04-28T13:03:26Z2023-04-28T13:03:26ZSinn Féin at the coronation: how to understand Michelle O'Neill’s decision to attend King Charles’s big day<p>Sinn Féin vice president Michelle O'Neill’s acceptance of the offer to attend the coronation of King Charles III may come a surprise to some. It is standard protocol for such an invitation to be made to all significant political parties in the UK, including those in the devolved regions, and Sinn Féin is now the largest party in the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-61355419">Northern Ireland Assembly</a>. However, history is a complicating factor in this case, and even today Sinn Féin still refuses to take its seats in the Westminster parliament. This is an expression of its refusal to recognise British sovereignty over Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>Sinn Féin will argue that attending Charles’s coronation is merely a mark of respectful neighbourly relations rather than any act of fidelity. It is, of course, also a gesture to Ulster unionists. Indeed, on <a href="https://twitter.com/moneillsf/status/1651194550029897729">announcing her intention to attend</a> the event, O'Neill said as much, declaring that it was “time to respect our differing and equally legitimate aspirations” in Northern Ireland. While still emphasising her own republicanism, she also recognised that “there are many people on our island for whom the coronation is a hugely important occasion”. </p>
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<p>By invoking an all-Ireland context, O’Neill was implicitly restating her refusal to accept the country’s partition. But her words also suggest there is a wider audience for Sinn Féin’s gesture. It is not only a signal to unionists and neighbours across the water but to voters in the Republic of Ireland. Indeed, it was arguably the latter who prompted Sinn Féin’s shift in position regarding the British crown in recent years. This is a change that started in 2011 with Queen Elizabeth’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-13420053">visit to the Republic of Ireland</a>.</p>
<p>On that occasion, Sinn Féin quickly realised that it was out of step with southern Irish opinion. Still holding to a traditional republican stance, the party was boycotting the Queen’s visit but then seemed surprised at how she was received by ordinary people, who <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/may/19/queen-ireland-visit-respect-adams">cheered and applauded her at various engagements</a>. Seemingly in response to this, Michael Browne, Sinn Féin mayor of Cashel, decided to defy the party’s instructions by meeting the Queen and shaking her hand.</p>
<h2>Symbolic meetings</h2>
<p>Rather than being reprimanded, Browne’s actions pointed the way forward for his party colleagues. When the Queen visited Northern Ireland the following year, Martin McGuinness was equally eager to meet her and shake her hand. The Queen’s reciprocation provided an <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-22079975">enduring image of the Northern Ireland peace process</a>, and a move that was rich in symbolism. McGuinness was a former commander in the IRA, the organisation responsible for killing the Queen’s cousin, Lord Mountbatten, in 1979. The Queen was head of the British armed forces, whose soldiers had killed 14 civil rights protesters in McGuinness’s hometown in 1972. Their meeting demonstrated to all that this violence was in the past. Both figures showed tremendous leadership in this moment.</p>
<p>A further two years on and McGuinness was also raising a glass to toast the Queen’s health during a banquet at Buckingham Palace, the occasion celebrating the first state visit to the UK by an Irish President, Michael D. Higgins. Other such gestures followed from each side, and even before he became King, Charles showed that he was eager to continue his mother’s efforts to advance peace in Northern Ireland. He met and shook hands with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/19/prince-charles-and-gerry-adams-share-historic-handshake">Gerry Adams</a> in 2015, an act which also had personal resonance given Charles’ closeness to Lord Mountbatten, who had acted as something of a mentor to the young prince in the 1970s. </p>
<p>Now King, Charles’ invitation to Sinn Féin to attend his coronation is in keeping with this process of reconciliation and the normalisation of relations between Britain and Ireland.</p>
<h2>Smart politics</h2>
<p>Sinn Féin’s acceptance of the invitation is part of the same effort, but also has a more political intent. Since the Queen’s visit in 2011, the party’s support has gradually grown, surging in the last Irish election in 2020, and with all <a href="https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/ireland/">polls suggesting</a> it will win the next. Sinn Féin is thus eager to show voters in the Republic that it is now ready to lead the country, and to reassure those who might feel it lacks the necessary political tact and diplomacy to represent Ireland on the world stage. Good relations with its nearest neighbour, whatever the difficult past, or the more recent tensions over Brexit, are essential to this. By attending King Charles’ coronation, Sinn Féin is demonstrating that it is up to the task.</p>
<p>Dissident republicans will claim that O’Neill is “selling out” in attending King Charles’ coronation, but Sinn Féin will argue that it is still advancing its core mission. Majority mandates in both parts of Ireland will bolster its demands to hold referendums on Irish reunification in the two jurisdictions – as is permitted under the terms of the <a href="https://www.dfa.ie/media/dfa/alldfawebsitemedia/ourrolesandpolicies/northernireland/good-friday-agreement.pdf">Good Friday Agreement</a>, the deal that ended the conflict in Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>Indeed, this intent is encoded in O’Neill’s statement on the issue. Saying that it was “time to respect our differing and equally legitimate aspirations” meant recognising unionists’ desire to remain part of the UK, but also nationalists’ to unite Ireland. O’Neill continued by saying it was also “a time to firmly focus on the future and the opportunities that the next decade will bring”. Sinn Féin regularly insists that referendums on Irish reunification should be held within the next decade, so its supporters know what is being inferred.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the party will continue to use its growing power in both parts of Ireland to press for greater co-operation and alignment between the two jurisdictions, suggesting that this will smooth the path towards their eventual unification. The IRA once claimed that it was engaged in a “long war” to force the British state from Northern Ireland and unite with the Republic. Sinn Féin, by contrast, is playing a long political game, but one geared towards the same end goal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204695/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter John McLoughlin has received funding in the past from the AHRC, Leverhulme Trust, the Irish Research Council, and the Fulbright Commission. He is a member of Greenpeace.</span></em></p>Sinn Féin refuses to sit in the Westminster parliament because that would mean recognising the British crown. Here’s why the coronation is a different matter.Peter John McLoughlin, Lecturer in Politics, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2029862023-04-06T09:51:58Z2023-04-06T09:51:58ZGood Friday Agreement: the early 1990s back-channel between the IRA and British government that made peace possible<p>In February 1990, in the midst of the Troubles, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness publicly invited the British government to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022343311417982">reopen a back-channel</a> used during previous phases of contact with the IRA in the 1970s and during the 1981 hunger strike.</p>
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<p>If [the British government] think there is something to be lost by stating publicly how flexible they would be, or how imaginative, we are saying they should tell us privately … there is an avenue which they are aware of whereby they can make what imaginative steps they are thinking about known to the Republican movement.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was a crucial early step on the road to the Good Friday Agreement.</p>
<p>The British government, acting in conditions of the greatest secrecy, took McGuinness up on his offer the following year. An MI5 officer who went by the name Robert McLaren liaised with intermediary <a href="https://www.derryjournal.com/news/people/brendan-duddy-a-life-in-the-shadows-3254147">Brendan Duddy</a>, a Derry businessman who had played this role on several occasions since 1972. The aim was an <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/peace/pp9398.htm">IRA ceasefire</a> followed by political negotiations. On the British side only prime minister John Major and a handful of senior officials knew of the initiative. Duddy told me in 2009: “the very moment Robert appeared, the very second he appeared, I knew: the British government don’t send Robert to me unless they want to do business.”</p>
<p>The prospect of a negotiated end to the IRA campaign had first been explored more than a quarter century earlier. In June 1972, William Whitelaw, the British secretary of state for Northern Ireland, told his cabinet colleagues that, after three years of conflict and almost 400 deaths, “it was inescapable that some understanding would have to be reached with the ‘Provisional’ IRA; no solution seemed possible unless their point of view were represented.”</p>
<p>But although Whitelaw met secretly with IRA leaders in London in 1972 and Labour PM Harold Wilson sanctioned secret talks again in 1975, for most of the 30 years of conflict, orthodox thinking held that the IRA and the political party associated with them, Sinn Féin, would never compromise and that any settlement would have to exclude them.</p>
<p>Perhaps the biggest stumbling block was the Republicans’ central ideological demand – that the British government “acknowledge the right of the Irish people to determine their own future without let or hindrance.”</p>
<p>But as early as 1972 British officials considered whether it might be possible to accommodate them. After Whitelaw’s meeting with the IRA a senior civil servant noted that “the formula of the IRA was very close to the position of Mr Lynch [the Irish prime minister], that the future of Ireland should be decided by the people of Ireland as a whole.”</p>
<p>The question, though, was how this could be squared with the principle that Ireland could only be reunited if a majority in Northern Ireland agreed. In the 1990s a way would finally be found to do it.</p>
<h2>Secret talks</h2>
<p>The secret contacts that started in 1991 culminated in an IRA ceasefire offer made through the back-channel in early 1993. But the British government didn’t respond by agreeing to talks, as the Republicans had expected they would. After a period of recrimination the back-channel fell into disuse and was then dramatically revealed by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1993/nov/28/northernireland">Observer newspaper in November 1993</a>. Ironically, this exposure helped to accelerate movement towards a compromise peace settlement.</p>
<p>Speaking in 2020, not long before his death, John Chilcot, permanent under-secretary in the Northern Ireland Office in the 1990s and perhaps the single most important driver of the peace process on the British side, told me of the sense of deep uncertainty created by the revelation of the back-channel, and the subsequent sense of relief:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The whole thing came to a head I think on the Monday after the Observer revelations … it wasn’t known whether the House of Commons would call for [secretary of state Patrick Mayhew’s] head on a platter and possibly John Major’s as well, instead of which the reverse happened. The whole of the House of Commons, or all of it that mattered, rose up to say ‘thank God. This is the right thing to be doing’ … my heart was in my mouth that Monday, same as Patrick Mayhew’s. I was in the House of Commons, in the official box and it was a wonderful moment actually.</p>
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<p>Chilcot felt a sense “of immense relief and coupled with, I think, something more positive, elation really, that it really looked as though the thing was going to take wing and who knows, succeed. It took a long time after that, but nonetheless, that was a turning point.”</p>
<p>Within weeks the British and Irish governments had issued the <a href="https://www.dfa.ie/media/dfa/alldfawebsitemedia/ourrolesandpolicies/northernireland/peace-process--joint-declaration-1993.pdf">Downing Street Declaration</a>. It included a British acknowledgement, for the first time, of a right to Irish self-determination, albeit one that was heavily qualified and subject to the agreement of a majority in Northern Ireland/</p>
<p>In August 1994, the IRA finally announced an end to its campaign. There were further twists and turns before the Good Friday Agreement, including a return to IRA violence in 1996 before they finally ended their campaign in July 1997.</p>
<p>Nine months later, on April 10 1998, the Belfast Agreement – or Good Friday Agreement as it became popularly known – was signed after intensive talks chaired by <a href="https://theconversation.com/good-friday-agreement-how-the-us-came-to-be-a-key-broker-in-northern-irelands-peace-deal-202584">US special envoy George Mitchell</a>. The settlement guaranteed a place in government to all parties that enjoyed significant electoral support, including Sinn Féin. It opened the way to conflict resolution measures aimed at bedding down the peace – including police reform, the removal of troops from the streets, and the early release of paramilitary prisoners. The text on self-determination from the Downing Street Declaration, with a few embellishments, was incorporated word for word into the Good Friday Agreement and endorsed by all of the parties to the Agreement.</p>
<h2>Going official</h2>
<p>The 1998 agreement was the achievement of the British and Irish governments, of all the political parties in Northern Ireland (with the exception of the DUP), and of external actors such as the then US president, Bill Clinton. But the ending of the IRA’s armed campaign was a prerequisite for the inclusive negotiations that produced the agreement. And ending the IRA campaign had required engagement between the British government and the IRA. As Chilcot told me in a 2010 interview: “Ultimately … the basic players in this game are the British government and the republican movement.”</p>
<p>The back-channel may have collapsed in public acrimony in late 1993, but it had helped to establish the foundations for the agreement that followed. The argument within the IRA for a ceasefire to facilitate talks had been won. The argument within the British state for a negotiated settlement that included Republicans had been significantly advanced. This was no trivial achievement at a time when powerful forces in the British state continued to oppose contact.</p>
<p>The back-channel made it possible for both sides to nurture trust and understanding. They learned about the constraints within which the other party was operating and gradually became willing to make the moves and concessions that would allow the other party to move in turn.</p>
<p>It was through the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/deniable-contact-9780192887535?lang=en&cc=gb">back-channel</a> that the British government and Sinn Féin began to build a new and less conflictual relationship. This was crucial to the ending of violent conflict.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202986/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Niall Ó Dochartaigh received funding from the Irish Research Council </span></em></p>Secret, behind-the-scenes talks were going on years before the official Belfast Agreement was signed – and made the whole thing possible.Niall Ó Dochartaigh, Professor of Political Science, University of Galway, University of GalwayLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1909972022-09-21T10:53:15Z2022-09-21T10:53:15ZFrom Queen Elizabeth to King Charles: how Northern Ireland’s unionists feel about the monarchy<p>Monarchism is embedded in Northern Ireland’s Ulster unionist identity. There is probably no such thing as a “republican unionist”. Many unionists descend from <a href="https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/troubledgeogs/chap2.htm">Protestant settlers from Britain</a> who colonised Ireland four centuries ago. Loyalty to the monarch was an essential qualification for those making the journey, and the basis of that loyalty was the Protestantism of the crown, which provided a bulwark against the Catholicism of the Irish and much of Europe.</p>
<p>As Britain’s global reach grew, Protestants in Ireland shared in what was believed to be the God-ordained prosperity and power of the empire. As Irish nationalism grew in the late 19th century, Protestants clung to the union with Britain to avoid absorption into what they feared would be a hostile all-Ireland state.</p>
<p>To this day, unlike the many people around the world who see the British monarchy as a symbol of oppression, unionists view it as the embodiment of their political and religious liberty.</p>
<p>After the partition of Ireland in 1921, as <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-british-studies/article/abs/james-loughlin-the-british-monarchy-and-ireland-1800-to-the-present-cambridge-cambridge-university-press-2007-pp-xv398-10200-cloth/5EE2FEB771B5796807DEBFBFBC9C629D">James Loughlin</a> writes in his history of the British crown in Ireland, “continued Unionist anxieties about constitutional security put a primacy on an enhanced identity with the monarchy”. Royal visits were used by the unionist government to legitimise their regime and affirm, for people at home and in Britain, their rightful place in the UK.</p>
<p>In Queen Elizabeth, unionists found a strong supporter. At her coronation in 1952, apparently at her wishes, war-time generals, aristocrats and politicians from Ulster held prominent ceremonial functions. Royal honours were bestowed on Northern Ireland subjects. Two swans were donated to Portadown.</p>
<p>But as Loughlin argues, royal endorsement merely stoked unionists’ complacency about their unjust practice of government. That practice was unsustainable and ultimately disintegrated amid the violence of the Troubles which began at the end of the 1960s.</p>
<p>In that conflict, unionist or “loyalist” paramilitaries were imprisoned in droves by the very state for which they were fighting. Their fidelity to the Queen but not her government led to them being described, in the title of a classic 1977 book on Ulster loyalism, as <a href="https://www.ucdpress.ie/display.asp?isbn=9781904558880&">Queen’s Rebels</a>. “Their only crime was loyalty,” went a loyalist slogan.</p>
<h2>After the Troubles</h2>
<p>In the peace process era, royal paraphernalia was inevitably drawn into Northern Ireland’s cultural battles. Unionists believed that republicans and nationalists wanted to eliminate all monarchical trappings, as had happened in the Republic of Ireland. </p>
<p>The proposal made in 1999 by the <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/police/patten/patten99.pdf">Patten Commission</a> on police reform to remove the title “Royal Ulster Constabulary” from the police and the crown symbol from the police badge met with universal unionist anger. Nationalists countered that the equality mandated by the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-belfast-agreement">1998 Good Friday Agreement</a> meant that British cultural ascendancy had to end.</p>
<p>Today, few unionists would point to the Protestantism of the monarchy as the foundation of their political allegiance. That said, Queen Elizabeth’s Christian faith, expressed especially in her Christmas speeches, enhanced her personal appeal within the unionist community where there remains an affinity with Protestant evangelicalism and a respect for public piety.</p>
<p>While the Queen’s death has been deeply felt in unionist areas, Northern Ireland’s royalists and loyalists will be reassured by King Charles’s promises of continuity with his mother’s approach to the role. The Queen will remain in the unionist imagination, along with other figures from the past, as an exemplar and beacon of their Britishness.</p>
<p>But rather than being an unyielding symbol of continuity, the monarchy will reflect changing political circumstances. King Charles is at ease in the Republic of Ireland and appears unperturbed by the rise of Sinn Féin in the North (he actually seemed to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-62878272">congratulate Sinn Féin</a> on becoming the largest party when he visited Northern Ireland in the days following the Queen’s death).</p>
<p>While footage of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-62849205">the Queen’s historic 2011</a> visit to Ireland has been replayed again and again, a less remembered but just as potent episode was the visit of the then-Prince Charles <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-32811732">to Mullaghmore in County Sligo</a> in 2015. He attended a service of reconciliation, shook hands with Irish republican leader Gerry Adams, and went to the location where his great uncle <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/from-the-archive-blog/2015/may/19/mountbatten-lord-prince-charles-ira-1979">Lord Mountbatten</a>, with whom he was close, was killed by the IRA in 1979. His visits to the Republic have become routine.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, unionists are reluctant to recognise the Irish identity of nationalists in Northern Ireland and to act as deputy to a Sinn Féin first minister since republicans’ success in May’s Assembly election. Their attitudes towards the Irish government have hardened since Brexit. </p>
<p>In a future referendum on Irish unity, unionists must maximise the electorate’s identification with the UK. This suggests that emulating the generosity towards traditional enemies shown by their revered late queen and her successor would be unionists’ most effective political strategy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190997/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Mitchell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The death of Queen Elizabeth will not weaken the attachment of Northern Ireland’s unionists to Britain. But it is a morale blow at a time of political uncertainty.David Mitchell, Assistant Professor in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1826522022-05-07T19:30:21Z2022-05-07T19:30:21ZNorthern Ireland election: despite Sinn Féin’s historic win over unionists, things may not be as they seem<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/northern-ireland-election-despite-sinn-feins-historic-win-over-unionists-things-may-not-be-as-they-seem-182652&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p><em>You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/audio-narrated-99682">here</a>.</em></p>
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<p>It is clear that Sinn Féin has achieved a <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/utv/2022-05-07/sinn-fein-confirmed-as-northern-irelands-biggest-stormont-party-for-first-time">historic result</a> in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Stormont">Stormont</a> election. For the first time in Northern Ireland’s history, a nationalist party is set to claim the most seats in a political system that was <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/irish-partition-was-a-deliberate-process-on-the-part-of-the-british-1.4557195?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fculture%2Fheritage%2Firish-partition-was-a-deliberate-process-on-the-part-of-the-british-1.4557195">originally designed</a> to guarantee a unionist majority.</p>
<p>Yet this does not reflect any surge in support for Sinn Féin. The party secured only a marginal increase in its vote since the last Stormont election in 2017. The party’s steady progress is made more spectacular by the collapse of the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) and the broader divisions within unionism.</p>
<p>Indeed, by combining all their votes, the unionist parties can still claim a fractional advantage over their nationalist rivals. However, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-northern-ireland-protocol-unionists-b1798025.html">demographic trends</a> continue to favour the latter. Sinn Féin’s achievement has long been predicted, and unionists must realise that there will be no return to their past dominance.</p>
<p>The other notable trend is the considerable growth of the cross-community <a href="https://www.allianceparty.org/?locale=en">Alliance party</a>. Its vote is up by a third since 2017, and its seats have doubled. However, suggestions that this shows a significant growth in the moderate middle ground are somewhat misleading. The Alliance party’s gains come at the expense of other cross-community alignments like the Greens, who have lost all their representation at Stormont.</p>
<p>The Alliance has also taken votes from moderate nationalist and unionist parties. The <a href="https://www.uup.org/">Ulster Unionist Party</a> (UUP) leader, Doug Beattie, is clearly trying to steer the party in a more progressive direction, but <a href="https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/election-2022-doug-beattie-in-scrap-with-alliance-to-retain-his-upper-bann-seat-3684656">very nearly lost his seat</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the moderate nationalist <a href="https://www.sdlp.ie/">Social Democratic & Labour party</a> (SDLP) has had a harrowing election. Despite producing an array of young and able leaders, it seems that liberal nationalist voters have either defected to the Alliance or decided to punish unionists for their political intransigence by voting Sinn Féin.</p>
<p>The DUP has clearly tested the patience of many nationalists – resisting legislation that would support Irish language speakers, backing Brexit, then <a href="https://theconversation.com/sinn-fein-could-become-the-biggest-party-in-northern-ireland-on-may-5-heres-what-it-means-for-power-sharing-181674">rejecting the deal that was negotiated</a> – and the SDLP is a casualty of this.</p>
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<h2>Problems ahead</h2>
<p>Analysts who see great political progress in the Alliance party’s advance may be misreading the overall results of the election. There is certainly political flux and changing of alignments across the moderate middle ground, but as yet no hugely significant erosion in the overall support for more traditional parties.</p>
<p>Turnout was slightly down on the last Stormont election, with more than a third of all registered voters exercising their democratic right to stay at home. They are likely the citizens most disillusioned with the political status quo in Northern Ireland, but without their engagement things remains the same.</p>
<p>And this applies to the prospects for power-sharing at Stormont. Despite Sinn Féin success, without DUP agreement, a government cannot be formed. There are questions as to whether it is willing to serve in an administration where Sinn Féin would hold the first minister role.</p>
<p>Although the deputy first minster has equal powers, even the idea of subservience to Sinn Féin is difficult to swallow for the DUP. More problematic still, the party insists it will <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/donaldson-eyes-executive-return-but-warns-on-ni-protocol-1.4867702?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2Fassembly-election-2022%2Fdonaldson-eyes-executive-return-but-warns-on-ni-protocol-1.4867702">not return to government</a> until changes are made to the so-called <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-53724381">Northern Ireland protocol</a> in the Brexit deal.</p>
<p>The protocol requires checks on goods coming into Northern Ireland from Great Britain, which the DUP argues separates the region from the rest of the UK and weakens the union. However, it is clear that the protocol is not a priority even for many unionist voters.</p>
<p>Sinn Féin’s emphasis on more practical concerns like the rising cost of living has clearly served it better than the DUP’s continued obsession with Brexit arrangements. The fact that the DUP has no clear alternative to the protocol also does not help its case.</p>
<p>The continuation of the protocol in some form seems inevitable, and this exacerbates unionist fears for the political future of Northern Ireland. With polls suggesting Sinn Féin will soon <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/republic-of-ireland/sinn-fein-remains-most-popular-party-in-ireland-according-to-new-poll-41389621.html">hold power in Dublin too</a>, this makes it more difficult for the DUP to aid its rival into government in Belfast, creating a situation where republicans could claim to be overseeing the alignment of the two parts of Ireland to advance reunification.</p>
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<h2>Fresh thinking required</h2>
<p>Though traumatic for unionists, the best that might come of this situation is a more fundamental realignment of politics within this community. Nationalism is uniting around the Sinn Féin agenda, north and south. Unionism also needs to coalesce behind a forward-thinking strategy rather than one that simply seeks to turn the clock back.</p>
<p>A much more progressive case could be made for the union, and even the protocol. Unionists could argue that Northern Ireland now enjoys unique advantages. Unlike the rest of the UK, it still enjoys unfettered access to EU markets. <a href="https://www.euro.who.int/en/countries/ireland/news2/news/2020/7/new-who-study-shows-how-ireland-can-reduce-health-related-financial-hardship-and-unmet-need-by-delivering-universal-access-to-health-care">Unlike the Republic of Ireland</a>, it has universal health care. Why, unionists could ask, would voters want to forego either by removing the protocol or uniting with the south?</p>
<p>It remains to be seen whether unionism has a leader able to persuasively articulate such an approach. This seems to be what Doug Beattie of the UUP was edging towards, yet look at his <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/doug-beattie-i-want-to-promote-a-progressive-and-inclusive-unionism-with-a-welcoming-approach-1.4579236?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fopinion%2Fdoug-beattie-i-want-to-promote-a-progressive-and-inclusive-unionism-with-a-welcoming-approach-1.4579236">difficulties</a>. Perhaps the shift has to be more radical, with unionism effectively being led by a party that refuses to call itself unionist: the Alliance.</p>
<p>Only time will tell, and the process would likely be slow and painful. Meantime, without agreement between Sinn Féin and the DUP, political stalemate in Northern Ireland will continue, and the future will have to wait.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182652/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter John McLoughlin has received funding in the past from the AHRC, Leverhulme, the Irish Research Council, and Fulbright. He is a member of Greenpeace.</span></em></p>Sinn Fein’s win does not reflect a surge in support but rather other factors including the divisions in unionism.Peter John McLoughlin, Lecturer in Politics, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1824542022-05-04T12:35:30Z2022-05-04T12:35:30ZLocal elections 2022: your complete guide to the votes happening across the UK on May 5<p>May 5 sees a big set of elections across the UK. In England, there are contests across 146 councils. In London, every council seat is up for election across all 32 boroughs. Elsewhere where there are elections, at least one-third of the council seats are being contested, with some authorities holding all-out polls. There are also elections for council mayors in Croydon, Hackney, Lewisham, Newham and Tower Hamlets, plus one for South Yorkshire metro mayor.</p>
<p>Every council seat is also up for grabs in Scotland and Wales. There are 1,219 seats up for election across 32 local authorities in Scotland and 1,234 in Wales across 22 local authorities. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Northern Ireland is holding a <a href="https://theconversation.com/sinn-fein-could-become-the-biggest-party-in-northern-ireland-on-may-5-heres-what-it-means-for-power-sharing-181674">very important election</a> for its 90-seat Assembly.</p>
<p>In total, across the country, nearly 35 million people will be entitled to vote, including 16 and 17-year-olds in Scotland and Wales.</p>
<h2>England: Labour defends councils, Johnson fights for his career</h2>
<p>In England, Labour has the most councils to defend, 62 in total, as it is mainly metropolitan boroughs and district councils being fought, rather than county “shire” councils, which tend to be Conservative held. The Conservatives are defending 46 councils and the Liberal Democrats 12. There are 26 other authorities that are currently under no overall control of any party so aren’t considered anyone’s to “lose”. In London, Labour defends twice as many seats as the Conservatives.</p>
<p>The key comparison for English local elections is with 2018, as most of the councillors fighting on Thursday were elected for four-year terms back then. That year, the Conservatives and Labour tied in share of the vote, at 35% each. Current opinion polling has Labour almost <a href="https://www.politics.co.uk/reference/latest-opinion-polls/">six points ahead</a> so Keir Starmer’s party can expect to make some headway, gaining a few hundred council seats.</p>
<p>Such gains would also represent significant improvement for Labour from last year’s local elections when the party performed poorly. Labour, on 29% of the vote, trailed the Conservatives by seven points, Boris Johnson’s party gaining 235 seats and Starmer’s losing 327. It is highly unusual for a governing party to do so well mid-term.</p>
<p>Since then the prime minister has been embroiled in various controversies – <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/partygate-115248">“partygate”</a> being the most prominent. Labour hopes to capitalise. The Conservatives will hope that the government’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/levelling-up-fund-round-2-prospectus/levelling-up-fund-round-2-prospectus">“levelling-up” money</a> will help the party in key northern councils. That would indicate the party can hold the swath of unlikely <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/red-wall-80134">“red wall”</a> parliamentary constituencies gained at the 2019 general election.</p>
<p>A poor Conservative performance would increase the pressure already mounting on Johnson. At the moment, enough of his MPs regard him as an electoral asset to keep him in post. But that could change if the elections go very badly. If they want change, MPs must submit letters of no confidence in Johnson to Sir Graham Brady MP, the chair of their parliamentary party. Once 54 have been sent in, a vote of no confidence would be triggered.</p>
<h2>Wales: Tories fret over a key council</h2>
<p>In Wales, half of the councils last elected in 2017 are under no overall control. Most may remain so, although Labour, long the largest party in Westminster and Senedd/Assembly contests, may add slightly to its tally of seven councils.</p>
<p>The Conservatives will be anxious to hold onto their solitary council of Monmouthshire but three seat losses will push it into no overall control. Plaid Cymru should retain Gwynedd, the one council the party controls outright.</p>
<h2>Scotland: a battle for second place</h2>
<p>Scotland uses the “single transferable vote” system for its local elections, which contributes greatly to no party having outright control of any council – although the SNP has minority control (sometimes in coalition) of nearly half.</p>
<p>The SNP has remained dominant in the elections that have been held for seats in Westminster and Holyrood since the last set of local contests took place in in 2017.</p>
<p>In those 2017 contests, the SNP won 35% of the 1,227 council seats up for election. The Conservatives and Labour will battle for second place (and effectively leadership of the anti-independence vote, an issue which arguably pervades even local contests) having obtained 276 and 262 seats respectively. Labour might reverse the order.</p>
<h2>Northern Ireland: a seismic shift on the horizon?</h2>
<p>Potentially the most dramatic contest will take place in Northern Ireland. Republican party Sinn Féin starts favourite to become the largest party in a country whose title they do not use (preferring “north of Ireland” or “the North”) and which they want to replace, via a border poll, with a united Ireland.</p>
<p>Becoming the biggest Assembly party would allow Sinn Féin to nominate Michelle O’Neill as first minister, a post previously held by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). However, there are doubts whether a governing devolved power-sharing executive can be reconstituted. The DUP <a href="https://theconversation.com/state-of-stormont-can-northern-ireland-trust-in-truss-174510">withdrew its first minister in February</a>, which meant, under the power-sharing rules, that O’Neill also lost her job as deputy first minister (the powers of the posts are identical).</p>
<p>Unless the <a href="https://theconversation.com/trade-war-looms-over-article-16-the-northern-ireland-protocol-safeguard-explained-171525">post-Brexit sea border</a> between Great Britain and Northern Ireland is removed, the DUP says it would not cooperate in the executive. What therefore comes next after the assembly elections, whether Sinn Féin emerges as the largest party of not, is very unclear.</p>
<p>There is much to play for this Thursday across the UK.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182454/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Tonge does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What’s happening in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales this Thursday.Jonathan Tonge, Professor of Politics, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1816742022-04-28T11:59:50Z2022-04-28T11:59:50ZSinn Féin could become the biggest party in Northern Ireland on May 5 – here’s what it means for power-sharing<p>Party leaders on both sides of the political divide in Northern Ireland agree that the Stormont assembly election on May 5 could be the most <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/northern-ireland-election-this-could-be-the-most-important-in-a-generation-1.4853022">important in a generation</a>. Polls continue to suggest that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2022/apr/12/what-a-sinn-fein-win-would-mean-northern-ireland-elections">Sinn Féin will become the largest party</a> for the first time in Northern Ireland’s 101-year history – a victory which could see republicans leading a state they once promised to destroy.</p>
<p>The unionist DUP may face the difficulty of serving as deputy to a Sinn Féin first minister. Although the first and deputy first minister roles at Stormont are equal in terms of their powers, even titular subservience to republicans is ideological anathema to unionists. Having emphasised the importance of winning the first minister role for so long, now losing it would be a further blow to unionists’ already fragile morale.</p>
<p>Many are unsympathetic. The DUP backed Brexit, then resisted former prime minister Theresa May’s efforts to deliver a deal that would avoid any border controls. Instead, the party aided Boris Johnson in replacing May, despite widespread predictions that he would abandon unionists – as he swiftly did.</p>
<p>The DUP, currently the largest party, had already resigned the first minister role in February in protest at the so-called <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60241608">Northern Ireland protocol</a> – the section of the UK-EU Brexit trade deal which left the region effectively under Brussels’ regulation.</p>
<p>The continued application of EU rules to Northern Ireland was seen as the only way to avoid controls on the Irish border, which would undermine the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Instead, there are now checks on goods arriving in Northern Ireland from Britain. Unionists argue this creates a border in the Irish Sea, thus separating Northern Ireland from Britain and undermining its place in the Union. DUP leaders insist the protocol must be scrapped before they will return to power-sharing.</p>
<p>There seems little very chance of the protocol being abandoned, though just last week Johnson was once again suggesting that his government would <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/apr/22/johnson-preparing-to-fix-northern-ireland-brexit-deal">override it if required</a>. Such threats have been made many times before, but London has always ended up backing away from any move that would break its treaty with the EU, and thus international law. More likely, Johnson is merely gesturing to help boost the DUP’s electoral support. Even it responded coolly to Johnson’s latest comments on the protocol, having been let down so often before.</p>
<h2>Campaigning on the issues</h2>
<p>It is notable, however, that Sinn Féin is largely avoiding any rhetoric that would further embarrass the DUP. Republicans are more focused on discussing issues like the rising cost of living than the prospect of winning the first minister post or a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-61182907">referendum on Irish unity</a>.</p>
<p>This is a sensible strategy. Sinn Féin knows it needs the DUP to make power-sharing work, but also has its eyes on a bigger prize – leading the government in Dublin. Polls in the Irish Republic also suggest this is <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/republic-of-ireland/sinn-fein-remains-most-popular-party-in-ireland-according-to-new-poll-41389621.html">likely</a>. Sinn Féin is thus being careful not to upset more moderate voters who now see it as a mature political party, capable of running governments either side of the Irish border. In doing so, republicans feel they can practically demonstrate the logic and benefits of Irish reunification rather than merely talking about it.</p>
<p>Sinn Féin is also aware of the increasing number of non-aligned voters in Northern Ireland – people who see themselves as <a href="https://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/2020/Political_Attitudes/UNINATID.html">neither nationalist nor unionist</a>. It is those who vote for left-wing or liberal parties, or are more concerned about the environment, that will really decide the future of Northern Ireland. With the latest census data likely to show near parity in the number of Protestants and Catholics in the region, those who eschew such labels will be required to create a winning majority for constitutional change.</p>
<p>Sinn Féin and the DUP will obviously continue to argue which is better, a united Ireland or the United Kingdom, but non-aligned voters will ask which is more likely to advance social justice, ensure equality for groups beyond the sectarian divide like the LGBTQ community, or decarbonise the economy. This explains Sinn Féin’s focus on issue-based politics, and particularly on the concerns of non-aligned voters.</p>
<p>By contrast, the DUP’s fulminating over the protocol appears increasingly out of touch. For many young people, or simply those who accept the scientific data, it is rising sea levels rather than any sea border that most concerns them.</p>
<h2>Restoring power-sharing</h2>
<p>This all said, unless the polls are way out, Sinn Féin and the DUP will remain the two largest parties in Northern Ireland after the election. They will therefore need to find ways to manage their differences and restore power-sharing. They will also have to work with whatever changes are or are not made to the protocol – a matter that rests essentially in the hands of London and Brussels. Otherwise, irrespective of its constitutional future, the short-term prospects for Northern Ireland are bleak. Further stalemate would also endanger the Good Friday Agreement, which brought an end to the region’s troubled past and allowed the significant progress it has seen over the past two decades.</p>
<p>To talk of Sinn Féin or the DUP “winning” the Northern Ireland election or first minister role in a system which requires power-sharing is pointless. Only political partnership can prevail in this election, and only compromise can shape the future of Northern Ireland.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181674/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter John McLoughlin has received funding in the past from the AHRC, Leverhulme, the Irish Research Council, and Fulbright. He is a member of Greenpeace.</span></em></p>Northern Ireland is preparing for a potentially seismic election on May 5.Peter John McLoughlin, Lecturer in Politics, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1315072020-02-13T11:46:15Z2020-02-13T11:46:15ZWhat Sinn Féin’s election success means for Irish relations with the EU – and Brexit<p>Ireland’s traditionally centre-right conservative political system has been rocked by a wave of support for Sinn Féin in the February 8 general election. The previously small left-wing republican party with historic links to the paramilitary Provisional Irish Republican Army, now has <a href="https://theconversation.com/irish-election-sinn-feins-surge-signals-a-precarious-path-ahead-131324">legitimate ambitions</a> to form part of the next Irish government in coalition with other parties. </p>
<p>Political hostility, historical antipathy and considerable incompatibility on both policies and principles sullies the relationships between Sinn Féin and Ireland’s two other largest parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. While they are reluctant to share power with Sinn Féin, the current political arithmetic of the new parliament suggests the next Irish government will require its participation. </p>
<p>So what does this mean for Ireland’s relationship with the EU, and its upcoming post-Brexit trade negotiations with the UK?</p>
<h2>Traditionally Eurosceptic</h2>
<p>Decidedly to the left of the political spectrum, Sinn Féin’s position on the EU has shifted over time. In its early days, the party was ardently anti-EU. For reasons of both national sovereignty and anti-capitalism, Sinn Féin <a href="https://www.dfa.ie/media/dfa/alldfawebsitemedia/ourrolesandpolicies/irelandintheeu/ireland-in-the-eu-history.pdf">stridently opposed</a> Irish membership of the EU in 1973. </p>
<p>In the intervening years, the benefits of EU membership for Ireland were not lost on Sinn Féin. Membership of the single European market, access to the Common Agricultural Policy, structural fund assistance, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-eu-played-a-key-role-in-smoothing-relations-between-london-and-dublin-60657">EU support</a> for the Northern Ireland peace process led to some moderation of the party’s original objections to the EU. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/07907180903274834?casa_token=gpxom-0FUeEAAAAA:hvh1abyjafZZypRaegQXj97hPsWYqLmfxbYv1u4pnaXLe8uJY1_qr5S4CJMxvWjKp-bkinVzqrjK">Ongoing opposition</a> to closer and deeper EU integration was nonetheless evident. The party campaigned against various EU treaty reforms, including <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/30001944.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A5b3b68cc7a1c33ea4e72ed7ab602d06e">Maastricht, Nice</a> and <a href="https://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/17351">Lisbon</a>.</p>
<p>Sinn Féin’s decision to support and <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/sinn-f%C3%A9in-to-campaign-against-brexit-in-eu-referendum-1.2476720">campaign for Remain</a> during the UK’s 2016 referendum on EU membership might appear out of sync with its soft euroscepticism, however, this position was largely motivated by homegrown political and constitutional concerns. Sinn Féin was concerned that a UK exit from the EU could undermine north-south relations on the island of Ireland – a particularly important outcome of the peace process for Irish nationalists. There were also concerns that a UK decision to leave the EU would re-policitise the Irish border and destabilise politics and community relations in Northern Ireland. </p>
<p>Motivated by Northern Ireland’s 56% vote in favour of Remain, the party argued vociferously against any Brexit deal which threatened to re-impose a border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The Sinn Féin position was supported by a strongly supportive EU and its chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/ireland/news/eu-chief-negotiator-michel-barnier-addresses-both-houses-of-the-oireachtas_en">consistently maintained</a> that: “Ireland’s interest is the EU’s interest”. </p>
<p>In the Republic of Ireland, a striking level of cross-party consensus has defined Ireland’s approach to Brexit. All Irish political parties, including Sinn Féin, supported the approach to Brexit taken by Fine Gael-led governments. Testament to this is the fact that Brexit simply did not feature as an issue during the election campaign. An election <a href="https://www.rte.ie/news/election-2020/2020/0209/1114111-election-exit-poll/">exit poll</a> suggested that just 1% of Irish voters were concerned about Brexit. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sinn-feins-rise-in-irish-politics-is-down-to-three-big-economic-reasons-131619">Sinn Féin's rise in Irish politics is down to three big economic reasons</a>
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<p>The Brexit withdrawal agreement meets Sinn Féin’s central Brexit objective to maintain an open border on the island of Ireland, albeit using a <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/brexit-deal-northern-ireland-protocol">complex formula</a> where Northern Ireland is effectively part of the EU for the purposes of customs and free movement of goods.</p>
<h2>Demands around Irish unity</h2>
<p>From an Irish perspective, there are two dimensions to the next stage of the process: first, to ensure that the withdrawal agreement’s provisions on Northern Ireland are implemented, and second, to negotiate a future UK-EU relationship that does the least damage. A Sinn Féin coalition government will maintain an emphasis on protecting Irish interests, but there may be some subtle shifts in priorities, focus and relationships. </p>
<p>Sinn Féin’s core political aim is to achieve Irish unity. Although the issue of unification was not part of the national conversation during the general election campaign, the party’s president, Mary Lou McDonald, highlighted her intention to pursue such an agenda on the back of the party’s extraordinary election performance. </p>
<p>She is seeking European support and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWFuodkUkyU">explicitly suggested</a> in a BBC interview that: “The EU needs to take a stand in respect of Ireland in the same way that it supported the reunification of Germany.” This position has the potential to complicate and frustrate Ireland’s EU partners who will not welcome being dragged into what are domestic political and constitutional matters for Ireland and the UK. </p>
<p>Sinn Féin’s position will also antagonise the British government and may taint the UK-EU negotiating atmosphere. Any further hardening of the intention of the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, to diverge from EU rules would <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/we-are-far-from-out-of-the-brexit-woods-1.4167112">complicate the implementation</a> of the new arrangements for Northern Ireland and its border with the Republic of Ireland. </p>
<p>But the extent of Sinn Féin’s influence in any future Irish government should not be overstated. The party is unlikely to be the largest partner in any coalition so its rhetoric and positions on a whole raft of policies will necessarily have to moderate. It’s also doubtful that Sinn Féin would hold all (if any) of the key Brexit-related ministries such as foreign affairs, finance or European affairs. </p>
<p>The backbone of Ireland’s Brexit effort – the Irish civil service – will continue to direct and manage Ireland’s approach to the EU. And a <a href="https://www.europeanmovement.ie/programmes/ireland-and-the-eu-poll/">strongly pro-EU Irish public</a> will not want to see the Ireland-EU relationship jeopardised. </p>
<p>The 2020 general election in Ireland has interrupted the country’s political equilibrium. New political forces, agendas and voices are now set to be part of the next Irish government. This will require some adjustment and perhaps a degree of reorientation, but political, institutional and other factors will ensure that key features and characteristics of the Ireland-EU relationship endure.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131507/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary C. Murphy receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council as part of the 'Between Two Unions' project, and as a Jean Monnet Professor, she also receives Erasmus+ Jean Monnet funding. </span></em></p>How Sinn Féin’s position on the EU has shifted.Mary C. Murphy, Jean Monnet Chair in European Integration and Lecturer in Politics, Department of Government and Politics, University College CorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1316192020-02-12T14:28:49Z2020-02-12T14:28:49ZSinn Féin’s rise in Irish politics is down to three big economic reasons<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/irish-election-sinn-feins-surge-signals-a-precarious-path-ahead-131324">rise of Sinn Féin</a> (and the broader Left in Irish politics) is the result of three clear, interlinking economic factors. These are a growth model that has not benefited everyone, a worsening housing crisis that has created intra-generational and social class conflict, and a decade of austerity that has led to a decline in public services and public infrastructure. </p>
<p>This is the third election since the great financial crash in 2008. It is the first time in Irish history that the governing centre-right parties of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have received less than 50% of the first preference vote. </p>
<p>In the decade before the crisis, Ireland was governed by Fianna Fail and experienced a massive house price bubble that burst spectacularly during the financial crisis. This property bubble was underpinned by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmacro.2013.08.008">loose and reckless bank lending</a>, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/ber032">years of Fianna Fail income tax cuts</a>.</p>
<p>When the property bubble burst, house prices fell significantly and the Irish state was left with a major recession. This meant cleaning up the balance sheet of the banks, increasing income taxes and cutting public spending. </p>
<p>Almost a decade of austerity ensued. House building – particularly social housing – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2016.1257999">practically came to a standstill</a>. </p>
<p>In 2011, which was the first election following the crisis, the electorate massively punished Fianna Fail. They rewarded the opposition, Fine Gael and the Labour party. Between them, Fine Gael and Labour had one of the largest <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780230348813">governing majorities</a> in the history of the state. But while the colour of government changed, the austerity policies remained the same. </p>
<p>From 2011, the government developed a raft of policies aimed at <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/the-making-of-nama-land-ireland-s-great-property-sell-off-1.3268730">selling off distressed residential real estate and commercial land</a>. Various tax policies were designed to encourage international investors to buy up these distressed assets at knockdown prices. Big real estate investors flooded into the market and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/25/ireland-is-tax-haven-thats-becoming-controversial-home/">bought the assets with gusto</a>. </p>
<p>But they hoarded these assets until prices started to rise again. House prices <a href="https://www.cso.ie/en/statistics/prices/residentialpropertypriceindex/">increased rapidly from 2014 onwards</a>, quickly pricing a new generation out of housing. Those who could afford to buy new homes were pushed further and further away from the city, with poor public transport links, creating car dependence and long traffic congested commutes.</p>
<h2>Unequal growth</h2>
<p>During this same period, Ireland experienced massive amounts of inward investment from big tech multinationals. The tech sector began to boom. This enabled the Fine Gael/Labour government to continue with its austerity measures. Tax receipts from higher income earners <a href="https://www.businesspost.ie/election2020/time-for-a-serious-political-debate-on-fiscal-reform-4bb9039b">and the corporate sector rose</a>.</p>
<p>This boom in foreign investment and multinational exports provided the conditions for an economic recovery, which really began to take off from 2014. But this headline recovery was only really felt in the high-tech multinational sectors of the economy. Most of the workforce <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2017.1370447">did not experience it</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314966/original/file-20200212-61917-pdwg8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314966/original/file-20200212-61917-pdwg8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314966/original/file-20200212-61917-pdwg8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314966/original/file-20200212-61917-pdwg8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314966/original/file-20200212-61917-pdwg8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314966/original/file-20200212-61917-pdwg8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/314966/original/file-20200212-61917-pdwg8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Not everyone has benefited from Ireland’s tech boom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dublin-ireland-april-27-2018-close-1093814063">By Lloyd Carr / Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>In the 2016 election, the electorate massively <a href="https://www.thejournal.ie/three-main-parties-rise-of-independents-sinn-fein-election-2016-2629283-Mar2016/">punished the Fine Gael/Labour government</a>. Labour went from 33 to seven seats. Fine Gael went from 76 to 50. Fianna Fail won 44 seats, while Sinn Féin won 23. It was an election that nobody really won. The outcome was an Fine Gael-led government with some independents propped up by a confidence-and-supply arrangement with Fianna Fail. For most of the electorate, it was perceived as an Fine Gael government with a quasi-coalition with Fianna Fail.</p>
<p>From 2016 onwards, under the stewardship of the centre-right Fine Gael government led by Leo Varadkar, the economy continued to grow. But it was also becoming obvious that a large part of Irish growth <a href="http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/TWZ2019.pdf">was a result of being a tax haven</a>. Irish GDP is €324 billion. But modified gross national income is €197 billion. This represents the <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/cso-to-remove-leprechaun-from-economic-statistics-1.2962243">real size of national income</a>, and it is €124 billion smaller than GDP.</p>
<p>Equally, the stock of foreign direct investment in Ireland is around €850 billion but <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/almost-two-thirds-of-irish-fdi-is-phantom-imf-study-1.4012191">IMF research shows that nearly three-quarters of this is phantom</a>. It is large multinationals shifting capital assets around their various subsidiaries to reduce their tax obligations. </p>
<p>All of this has made the economy look better than it actually is.</p>
<h2>Housing and cost of living</h2>
<p>There has been significant employment growth in Ireland, putting pressure on housing and public services. The higher-income, high-tech jobs are increasingly located in the cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway. It is estimated that there are around 50,000 jobs associated with the tech sector, <a href="https://www.businesspost.ie/economics/our-income-divide-will-shape-the-election-in-two-major-ways-dd151232">of which 75% are located in Dublin</a>.</p>
<p>This growth of higher-income jobs in a context of constrained supply of housing has led to skyrocketing rents and unaffordable houses. The cost of living has increased significantly, particularly housing, childcare, insurance, healthcare and education, <a href="https://www.knightfrank.com/blog/2019/01/28/the-knight-frank-global-affordability-monitor-2019">making Dublin one of the most expensive cities to live</a> and <a href="https://www.thejournal.ie/dublin-cost-of-living-index-4926640-Dec2019/">raise a family in Europe</a>.</p>
<p>The majority cannot afford these rising costs. About 80% of the Irish population <a href="https://www.businesspost.ie/economics/our-income-divide-will-shape-the-election-in-two-major-ways-dd151232">have gross incomes of less than €50,000</a> a year. High rents, along with limited public and social housing has led to a significant <a href="https://www.focusireland.ie/resource-hub/about-homelessness/">growth in homelessness</a>. Housing and healthcare provision was consistently cited by Irish voters as the <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/detailed-election-2020-exit-poll-results-how-voters-answered-15-questions-1.4167016">key issues in the 2020 election</a>.</p>
<h2>Vote for change</h2>
<p>The 2020 election was a vote for change. It was a vote against Fianna Fail/Fine Gael and the centre-right policy consensus that has governed Irish politics for decades. </p>
<p>Economically secure voters concerned with quality of life issues increasingly turned to the Green Party. But Sinn Féin generated a <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/why-sinn-fein-is-surging-in-the-irish-election/">powerful narrative</a> that it is the party that represents working people against the privileged. Its <a href="https://www.sinnfein.ie/files/2020/SF_GE2020_Manifesto.pdf">manifesto</a> committed to taxing big tech, banks and the rich. It also promised to invest heavily in public services and engage in a mass public house building programme. </p>
<p>The economic feasibility of these promises is important but besides the point. It was a narrative that resonated with a large chunk of the population. Given the legacy effect of austerity, and the inequality generating effects of Ireland’s growth model, the rise of Sinn Féin can be understood as the dog that finally barked.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131619/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aidan Regan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A short history of Ireland’s political economy explains Sinn Fein’s surge in popularity.Aidan Regan, Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Political Economy, University College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1313242020-02-10T14:42:09Z2020-02-10T14:42:09ZIrish election: Sinn Féin’s surge signals a precarious path ahead<p>Sinn Féin’s surge in popularity is the major story of the 2020 Irish general election. The left-wing, nationalist party won a mere 9.5% of the vote in 2019 <a href="https://www.rte.ie/news/elections-2019/results/#/local">local elections</a> and, simultaneously, lost two of its three European Parliament seats. Yet in the February 8 general election Sinn Féin has won almost a quarter of the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51432660">first preference votes</a> (24.5%), ahead of leading rivals Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and has emerged as a viable governing party. </p>
<p>Even Leo Varadkar, the outgoing Taoiseach or prime minister who leads Fine Gael, failed to top the poll <a href="https://www.rte.ie/news/election-2020/results/#/national/dublin-west">in his constituency</a>. He received 4,000 fewer first-preference votes than the Sinn Féin candidate. Terms such as historic, unprecedented and seismic are being used to describe the result. </p>
<p>Historically, Ireland’s party system has been the “odd man out” in Western Europe. Dominated by two ideologically similar parties of the <a href="http://www.tara.tcd.ie/bitstream/handle/2262/80583/Party%20Competition%20in%20Ireland_June19.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">centre right</a>, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the country has, remarkably, never had a majority left-wing government. The centre left of the political spectrum was occupied by a small Labour Party, while Sinn Féin’s focus on the issue of a united Ireland and its associations with violence in Northern Ireland meant it failed to achieve representation in the Irish parliament between 1961 and 1997. </p>
<p>Election 2020 appears to have brought about significant change to this traditional arrangement. Under Ireland’s proportional <a href="https://www.thejournal.ie/how-does-prstv-work-2619448-Feb2016/">single transferable vote electoral system</a>, Sinn Féin has so far won the first seat in 24 of the country’s 39 multi-member districts.</p>
<h2>An upswing in Sinn Féin’s fortunes</h2>
<p>The election results were largely unexpected, not least by Sinn Féin itself, which appears to have mismanaged its campaign by running only one candidate in <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/waterford-results-sinn-f%C3%A9in-s-david-cullinane-takes-first-seat-1.4165589">constituencies</a> where it could have easily elected two MPs (TDs) under the Irish electoral system. Although, as recently as November, the party was running at just 11% cent in some <a href="https://www.redcresearch.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/SBP-November-2019-Poll-Report.pdf">opinion polls</a>, so this caution was not unwarranted. </p>
<p>This volatility in Sinn Féin’s electoral support also suggests that talk of permanent and irreversible change to the Irish party system may be a little premature. It will take several more elections to confirm if these new Sinn Féin voters are loyal to the party. </p>
<p>An <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/detailed-election-2020-exit-poll-results-how-voters-answered-15-questions-1.4167016">exit poll</a> published on the night of the election indicated that the housing crisis and the state of the health system were the two main issues for voters, with almost 60% of the electorate listing one or other of these as the most important factor in their voting decision. Brexit, immigration, taxation and crime barely featured in voters’ decision calculus. </p>
<p>Fine Gael did not get a bounce from its successful representation of the country in the Brexit negotiations, with only 1% of voters listing this as the most important factor when it came to casting their ballot. Nor was Fine Gael rewarded for its management of the economy through the austerity years. Over the course of its nine year tenure in office, <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/ireland/unemployment-rate">unemployment</a> was reduced from over 15% to under 5% and Ireland experienced the highest <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tec00115&plugin=1">GDP growth rates</a> of any EU member state. </p>
<p>But this turnaround in economic fortunes was not spread evenly across society. According to the exit poll, 77% of Sinn Féin voters felt that they hadn’t personally benefited from the improvement in the economy in recent years. The cost of living, particularly housing, and a two-tier health system with the <a href="https://healthpowerhouse.com/media/EHCI-2018/EHCI-2018-report.pdf">longest waiting lists</a> in Europe were foremost in voters’ minds. </p>
<p>Sinn Féin also ran a highly professional and cohesive campaign with a message that was laser-focused on change. The <a href="https://www.sinnfein.ie/files/2020/SF_GE2020_Manifesto.pdf">party’s manifesto</a> promised to increase public spending by €22 billion (£18.6 billion) over five years of government, while simultaneously cutting income and property taxes for large cohorts of the population. This message particularly resonated with the young, as almost a <a href="https://www.rte.ie/news/election-2020/2020/0209/1114154-exit-poll-shows-the-last-gasp-of-the-pensioners/">third of 18 to 24-year-olds</a> gave their first preference to the party compared with only 12% of those over 65. </p>
<p>Ultimately, Fine Gael, after two terms in office, struggled to convince voters it could resolve the housing and health crisis. Meanwhile, many have not forgiven Fianna Fáil for its mismanagement of the country in the years leading up to the economic crash. </p>
<h2>Government formation</h2>
<p>With three relatively equal-sized parties in contention, some dual combination of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin is mathematically the most realistic coalition outcome. But historic enmities and campaign rhetoric now make government formation far from straightforward. Over the course of the campaign, both <a href="https://www.independent.ie/incoming/micheal-martin-rules-out-possibility-of-sinn-fein-fianna-fail-government-after-election-38918727.html">Fianna Fáil</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-51438310/leo-varadkar-my-position-on-sinn-fin-hasn-t-changed">Fine Gael</a> explicitly ruled out governing with Sinn Féin, and Fianna Fáil also ruled out a “grand coalition” with Fine Gael. </p>
<p>As vote counting continued across Ireland, Sinn Féin President Mary-Lou McDonald <a href="https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/election-2020/mary-lou-mcdonald-hopes-to-lead-left-wing-government-without-fine-gael-and-fianna-fail-38939887.html">said she wanted</a> to try and forge a left-wing governing coalition.</p>
<p>A second election is a real possibility, but in the short term this will likely only benefit Sinn Féin, which won’t make the mistake of running too few candidates a second time. A third option is a Fianna Fáil minority government, with Fine Gael returning the favour of the past four years by giving support in a confidence and supply arrangement. But given the likely final seat distribution it could be a very precarious arrangement, unless the Greens or Labour are also brought on board, which seems unlikely. All is to play for in the coming weeks.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131324/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gail McElroy has received funding in the past from the Irish Research Council, the European Commission (H2020 framework programme) and the European Science Foundation.</span></em></p>Why left-wing nationalist party Sinn Féin topped the popular vote in the Irish election.Gail McElroy, Professor in Political Science, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1281752019-12-09T12:08:49Z2019-12-09T12:08:49ZElection 2019: what’s at play in Northern Ireland?<p>Northern Ireland is well known for its deep divisions. But as the 2019 general election approaches its five main political parties are united on at least one thing – <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000bq2x/newsnight-26112019">strong opposition</a> to the Brexit deal negotiated by Boris Johnson’s government with the European Union.</p>
<p>Unionist parties fear that the current terms of the withdrawal agreement would leave Northern Ireland economically detached from the rest of the UK, posing a <a href="http://www.mydup.com/news/boris-deal-would-weaken-the-union">long-term risk to the union</a> with Great Britain. Nationalist parties see Brexit as a decision imposed on Northern Ireland against its will, and <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-nireland/sinn-fein-says-brexit-threat-means-dublin-should-prepare-for-irish-unification-idUKKCN1UP1ON">ultimately seek a united Ireland</a> within the EU.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the Alliance Party, neither nationalist nor unionist, sees Brexit as a threat to community relations within Northern Ireland. It wants <a href="https://www.allianceparty.org/brexit">a fresh referendum</a> with an option to Remain on the ballot.</p>
<p>Taken together, the complex <a href="https://ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Public-Opinion-2019-report.pdf">interplay of Brexit</a> with Northern Ireland’s <a href="http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/globalassets/documents/raise/knowledge_exchange/briefing_papers/series6/garry121016.pdf">underlying ethno-national divisions</a> makes the forthcoming election one of the most consequential and unpredictable for some time.</p>
<h2>Divisions within unionism</h2>
<p>The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) goes into the election defending ten seats. After signing a confidence-and-supply agreement with Theresa May’s minority Conservative government in 2017, its MPs have been influential over the last parliament. However, they were apparently not influential enough to prevent the government from agreeing to “<a href="https://fullfact.org/europe/withdrawal-agreement-border-irish-sea/">a border down the Irish Sea</a>”.</p>
<p>The smaller Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), which held a pro-Remain position in the 2016 referendum, is challenging the Leave-supporting DUP over its handling of Brexit. While the DUP still supports leaving the EU “<a href="https://www.mydup.com/images/uploads/dup-manifesto.pdf">as one United Kingdom</a>”, the UUP’s new leader says it would be better to “<a href="https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/steve-aiken-if-leaving-eu-as-one-nation-is-not-possible-then-cancel-brexit-1-9136434">cancel Brexit</a>” than implement the current deal.</p>
<p>However, the UUP faces an uphill struggle. It presents a realistic challenge to the DUP in <a href="https://democraticdashboard.com/northern-ireland-constituency/south-antrim">South Antrim</a>, a seat it narrowly lost in 2017, but it is starting from a low base. Its overall credibility has been further weakened by tactically standing aside in <a href="https://democraticdashboard.com/northern-ireland-constituency/belfast-north">Belfast North</a>, boosting the DUP’s chances in a close race with Sinn Féin.</p>
<h2>Principle versus pragmatism</h2>
<p>Aside from the DUP, Sinn Féin was the only other party in Northern Ireland to win seats at the last general election. However, unlike the DUP (and one independent MP), none of its seven MPs took their seats at Westminster, which reflected the party’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/fighting-an-election-only-to-refuse-a-seat-sinn-fein-and-westminster-abstention-76963">longstanding principle of abstentionism</a>. The last two years marked the first period <a href="https://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/fw66.htm">since 1966</a> that no nationalist MPs represented a Northern Irish constituency in the House of Commons.</p>
<p>With so many knife-edge votes during the course of the last parliament, there had been regular speculation that Sinn Féin might suddenly abandon its abstentionist position. Such a prospect never materialised; the party’s “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/06/sinn-fein-mp-british-parliament-irish-republicans-brexit">refusal to validate British sovereignty</a>” in Northern Ireland continues to outweigh any short-term desire to influence the outcome of Brexit.</p>
<p>This provides the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) with an <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/general-election-2019/sdlps-column-eastwood-election-an-opportunity-to-punish-sinn-fein-for-abstentionism-38753858.html">opportunity to distinguish itself</a> from its larger nationalist rival. Having lost <a href="https://democraticdashboard.com/northern-ireland-constituency/foyle">Foyle</a> to Sinn Féin by just 169 votes in 2017, the SDLP is sparing no effort to win it back, arguing that a vote for the party is a chance to “<a href="https://www.sdlp.ie/issues/manifesto-2019/">stop Boris and stop Brexit</a>”. But, like the UUP, it also <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/eastwood-says-hed-rather-have-finucane-at-home-than-dodds-in-commons-disgraceful-says-dup-38716425.html">stood aside</a> in Belfast North – in this case to help Sinn Féin.</p>
<h2>Beyond the ethno-national divide</h2>
<p>While Brexit has to some extent reinvigorated the constitutional issue in Northern Ireland, a growing segment of the population is choosing to reject the labels of unionist and nationalist, <a href="https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2019/06/20/news/more-people-in-north-claim-to-be-neither-unionist-or-nationalist-according-to-new-research-1645657/">identifying instead as “neither”</a>. However, this group has generally not been a significant electoral force.</p>
<p>Things appeared to change earlier in 2019. In May’s local elections the Alliance Party increased its number of councillors <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-48158555">by 65%</a>. The Alliance “surge” continued the following month when its leader, Naomi Long, was <a href="https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/publications/remain-reaffirmed-the-2019-european-election-in-northern-ireland">elected to the European parliament</a>. Securing nearly one in five first preferences across Northern Ireland, this was the party’s highest vote share of any election since it was founded in 1970.</p>
<p>If Alliance is able to consolidate or even increase its overall vote share, a different electoral system could make it more difficult this time around for support to translate into seats (a proportional system was used in the local and European elections). That said, the party’s calls for a referendum could help it gain traction in <a href="https://democraticdashboard.com/northern-ireland-constituency/north-down">North Down</a>, a traditionally unionist constituency where a majority of voters backed Remain in 2016.</p>
<p>More broadly, Alliance will be trying to tap into a widespread sense of frustration with the status quo, with the DUP and Sinn Féin likely to bear the brunt of any blame for the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/11/northern-ireland-parties-play-down-stormont-being-revived-brexit">ongoing stalemate</a> in the Northern Ireland Assembly. With healthcare workers on strike over <a href="https://www.northernslant.com/changing-political-landscape-northern-ireland/">“unsafe” conditions</a>, concerns are deepening over the direction of public services. The growing salience of these concerns – relatively late in the campaign – adds a further source of unpredictability ahead of one of the most competitive elections in Northern Ireland for some time.</p>
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKGE2019&utm_content=GEBannerC">Click here to subscribe to our newsletter if you believe this election should be all about the facts.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128175/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Pow has received funding from the ESRC for a project on the post-Brexit Irish border. He has also been funded by the ERC for a project on democratic innovations.</span></em></p>The contests in this part of the UK are so unique that they are rarely included in national polling. And this year is no exception.James Pow, Lecturer, School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1280832019-12-02T14:28:45Z2019-12-02T14:28:45ZNancy Astor wasn’t the real first female MP – this woman was<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304690/original/file-20191202-66990-sqkk62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C1997%2C1407&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Abstentionist Irish rebel MP Countess Markievicz, centre, on the night she was released from prison in 1919</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Ireland on The Commons </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/28/theresa-may-unveils-statue-of-pioneering-mp-nancy-astor">bronze statue was unveiled</a> outside of the former family home of Lady Nancy Astor in Plymouth in November, marking 100 years since she took her seat in parliament, many – <a href="https://twitter.com/MattHancock/status/1199958637134958592">including health secretary Matt Hancock</a> – were criticised for calling Astor Britain’s first female MP. This accolade, in fact, goes to Constance Markievicz, a Sinn Féin MP.</p>
<p>While Markievicz was certainly elected as a MP, she did not recognise the sovereignty of the British parliament in Ireland. As a result, she never took her seat in the House of Commons. From her own point of view, she would have been elected, not as a Member of Parliament to the House Commons, but instead as a Teachta Dála (Deputy) to Dáil Éireann (the lower house of the Irish parliament). The <a href="https://www.rte.ie/centuryireland/index.php/articles/explainer-establishing-the-first-dail">Dáil was set up by Sinn Féin</a> after the 1918 general election as an Irish parliament that rejected British rule in Ireland, and instead presented itself as the legitimate governing body of the nation of Ireland. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304689/original/file-20191202-66982-kixfkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304689/original/file-20191202-66982-kixfkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304689/original/file-20191202-66982-kixfkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304689/original/file-20191202-66982-kixfkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304689/original/file-20191202-66982-kixfkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1042&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304689/original/file-20191202-66982-kixfkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1042&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304689/original/file-20191202-66982-kixfkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1042&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Countess Markievicz was born into the Anglo-Irish gentry.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library of Congress</span></span>
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<p>In many ways, Markievicz was an unlikely revolutionary. She was born Constance Gore-Booth in London in 1868, to an Anglo-Irish gentry family. Her father, <a href="http://lissadellhouse.com/countess-markievicz/gore-booth-family/henry-gore-booth/">Sir Henry Gore Booth</a> was a baronet, a landowner and a famous arctic explorer. Markievicz grew up under the shadow of Benbulbin mountain in Lissadell House, in County Sligo in Ireland. The poet, William Butler Yeats, recalled meeting her and her sister Eva in a poem, describing them as: “Two girls in silk kimonos, both beautiful, one a gazelle.” </p>
<p>Markievicz yearned for a life outside the grand estates of Anglo-Ireland. She moved to Paris in 1893 and studied art at the Académie Julian. It was there, she met her husband Casimir Markievicz who she married in 1900 and moved to Dublin with. </p>
<h2>Irish revolutionary</h2>
<p>As historian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/10/vivid-faces-easter-rising-rf-foster-review">Roy Foster</a> noted, Dublin in the Edwardian era was an extraordinarily exciting place to live in. A variety of political, social and cultural movements were sweeping both the city and the wider Irish nation. Supporters of causes as diverse as socialism, feminism, republicanism, cultural revival, esoteric religion and vegetarianism all mixed and met in this time. </p>
<p>It was in this period that many of the networks that would be vital in the forthcoming Irish Revolution were formed. Markievicz herself struggled for female suffrage and Dublin’s trade unionists, culminating in her role in the bitter Dublin <a href="https://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/the-dublin-1913-lockout/">Lock-out of 1913</a>, which saw 20,000 workers without work. Along with <a href="https://www.ictu.ie/equality/postcardsofpion/delialarkin.html">Delia Larkin</a>, the founding secretary of Irish Women Workers’ Union, Markievicz set up soup kitchens to help struggling families. </p>
<p>With the advent of war, Markievicz took up a post in the Irish Citizen Army, (an Irish socialist militia that unusually welcomed both men and women into its ranks) and prepared to take part in the Easter Rising in 1916. The rising proclaimed an Irish republic and saw fighting on the streets of Dublin for about a week, before being suppressed brutally by British forces. During the Easter Rising, it is believed that she <a href="http://arrow.dit.ie/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1048&context=aaschmedart">shot a policeman dead and wounded a British Army officer</a>.</p>
<p>The events of Easter week were a tremendous short-term failure for Ireland’s rebels. Markievicz was sentenced to death. However, on account of her gender, her sentence was commuted to life in prison. She was subsequently released in June 1917 as part of an amnesty. </p>
<p>After fighting for suffrage, in February 1918 she celebrated women winning the vote and put herself forward as a Sinn Féin candidate at the forthcoming general election. However, she was detained again as fears of a second Easter Rising grew. She subsequently ran her election campaign from HM Prison Holloway in London.</p>
<p>In spite of her incarceration, in December 1918 she was <a href="https://electionsireland.org/result.cfm?election=1918&cons=108">elected as a Sinn Féin MP</a> and was the first woman in Britain and Ireland to do so. She received her letter inviting her to parliament from Downing Street when she was still in prison but refused to take her seat along with 72 other Sinn Féin MPs – a practice that continues today.</p>
<h2>Second female minister</h2>
<p>Another historic distinction belongs to Markievicz: in 1919 she became the Government of Dáil Éireann’s minister for labour. This makes her the second female government minister in history (the first was <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/alexandra-kollontai">Alexandra Kollontai</a>, who was appointed a Commissar in the Russian Bolshevik government only two years previously). Her time as a government minister, however, did not last long.</p>
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<span class="caption">Countess Markiewicz.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Constance_Markiewicz#/media/File:Countess_Markiewicz.jpg">Getty / Hulton</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>Under the terms of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, Ireland would technically leave the United Kingdom but remain in the Empire, existing as the “Irish Free State” with the British monarch remaining head of state. Markievicz opposed this settlement as both a republican and committed anti-imperialist. </p>
<p>In the debates on the treaty in the Dáil, she expressed exasperation that one-time Irish republicans were entering willingly into a relationship that was similar to that repressing both India and Egypt. During the Irish Civil War between 1922 and 1923, fought between supporters and opponents of the treaty, Markievicz was a committed anti-treatyite. At the time, she published a series of extremely witty and acerbic cartoons of pro-treaty politicians entitled <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/yournlireland/8740957924">Free State freaks</a>. </p>
<p>While she found herself on the losing side in the conflict, her political career continued right until she died. She devoted much of her final years to helping the poor of Dublin. In 1926, alongside her political ally, Éamon de Valera, she left Sinn Féin to found a new political party, Fianna Fáil. This party would go on to be one of the most successful political parties in the 20th century, coming first in every Irish election between 1932 and 2011. </p>
<p>Markievicz died in 1927, surrounded by her political allies and family. In Ireland, she is rightly remembered as one of the principal players of the Irish Revolution and one of the founders of the Irish state. She is much less well-known in Great Britain. In 2018, however, the Irish government <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43176232">donated a portrait of her</a> to the House of Commons, in recognition of her status as the true first female MP.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128083/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Ellis has received research funding from Queen's University Belfast, Teesside University, the British Association of Irish Studies and the Royal Historical Society.
He is a member of the Liberal Democrats and Amnesty International. </span></em></p>Irish Republican, socialist, suffragette and revolutionary, Countess Constance Markievicz was a fearsome politician who was the true first female member of the British parliament.Tim Ellis-Dale, Graduate Tutor and PhD Candidate in Irish History, Teesside UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1199552019-07-11T09:37:40Z2019-07-11T09:37:40ZNorthern Ireland: as marching season begins, a new political force is on the rise<p>There was a worrying <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/12/northern-ireland-orange-order-parades-12-july-amid-violence-belfast-derry">increase in violence</a> during the Protestant Orange marches of July 2018, a traditional flashpoint between Northern Ireland’s Nationalist and Unionist communities. The marches commemorate the victory of Protestant William of Orange over Catholic King James II at the 1690 <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/events/battle_of_the_boyne">Battle of the Boyne</a>. They are organised by the Orange Order every July 12 and take place throughout the province. </p>
<p>While tension thankfully did not reach levels seen in the past, a new political force, which stretches beyond the <a href="https://sluggerotoole.com/2019/06/07/northern-irelands-justice-system-weathers-the-storms-of-controversy-in-the-continuing-vacuum-from-government/">legacy issues</a> of the The Troubles, is emerging in the province. But can it really break the stranglehold of the main sectarian parties – and move the province further on from the lasting divisions typified by the annual Orange marches?</p>
<p>At a recent event at Queen’s University Belfast, a number of representatives from minority ethnic, gender, political and sexual <a href="https://www.qub.ac.uk/public-engagement/News/Makingpoliticalinstitutionsmoreinclusive.html">communities</a> discussed the exclusion faced by those not primarily motivated by the Green (Nationalist) or Orange (Unionist) agenda.</p>
<p>The discussion concluded that the power-sharing agreement between the two sides has stagnated and is unable to deliver policy reform that would limit discrimination or change a government system that has entrenched the divided political identities. While the two main parties – the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Fein – retain firm control over the province’s shared executive, their ongoing disregard for the ever-growing concerns of “others” will only lead to more frustration with government.</p>
<h2>A time of change</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/good-friday-agreement-ten-key-people-who-helped-bring-about-peace-in-northern-ireland-20-years-ago-94613">Good Friday Agreement</a>, signed 21 years ago, has undoubtedly transformed Northern Ireland for the better – and politically motivated violence, while still evident, is much <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/post-conflict-northern-ireland-is-still-plagued-by-political-violence-1.3470229">rarer now</a> than in the past.</p>
<p>The power-sharing agreement means that Unionists and Nationalists are represented in the executive and public office in proportion to their population share. It also protects the interests of Protestants and Catholics in the province. These structures are a powerful incentive for the two communities to use political, rather than violent, means to achieve their objectives. But they were not designed to reflect or empower the voice of “others”.</p>
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Read more:
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<p>The European parliament elections on May 23 confirmed that past bipolar divides are diminishing, however. For the first time, Northern Ireland will be represented in the European parliament by a Unionist from the DUP, a Nationalist Sinn Fein MEP – and one from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-anti-brexit-party-just-made-an-extraordinary-breakthrough-in-northern-ireland-118068">Alliance Party</a>, which is non-aligned but anti-Brexit, and which made an 11% gain on its vote share in 2014. For many voters, Europe was one of the most emotive issues – with 57% of voters opting for <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/eu-elections-2019/eu-election-results-57-of-ni-voters-back-proremain-parties-38152582.html">pro-EU candidates</a> – and the Alliance win hinted at the arrival of a new type of politics.</p>
<p>This was a significant victory for the Alliance party – a political “other” in the province’s often bipartisan political system. But, in the earlier May 2 council elections, “others” also <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-48169406">doubled their vote share compared with the previous elections</a>. </p>
<p>Indeed, a range of “other” parties, positioning themselves as a clear anti-sectarian alternative, made significant gains in the council elections. The Greens <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/dup-remains-north-s-largest-party-but-alliance-makes-big-gains-1.3881495">doubled their number of seats</a>, while <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/04/northern-ireland-council-elections-live-results">Alliance</a> closed the gap on the DUP. Sinn Fein also suffered in their strongholds of Derry and Strabane, and lost five seats, with independent candidates taking the <a href="https://sluggerotoole.com/2019/05/07/post-election-analysis/">advantage</a>. </p>
<p>People Before Profit, a radical left-wing outfit with a broad social inclusion agenda, also performed well in the council elections, winning five seats – raising their 2014 total by four – including <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/04/northern-ireland-local-election-gains-for-small-parties-and-independents">two seats</a> on Belfast city council.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/an-anti-brexit-party-just-made-an-extraordinary-breakthrough-in-northern-ireland-118068">An anti-Brexit party just made an extraordinary breakthrough in Northern Ireland</a>
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<p>The “others” are hardly a homogenous group, but neither are the Unionists or Republicans. Hints of change are also evident in their ranks. May’s council elections, for example, saw the first <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-47969822">openly gay Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)</a> councillor, Alison Bennington, elected. She joins gay councillors elected in 2014 from <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2017/three-gay-politicians-on-newly-elected-belfast-city-council-30304675.html">Sinn Fein, the Progressive Unionist Party and the Ulster Unionist Party</a>.</p>
<h2>Too many vetoes</h2>
<p>But the right to veto any legislation that encroaches on issues of community is the centrepiece of the power-sharing arrangement in Northern Ireland – and this is a problem. Indeed, these veto powers have prevented the main parties from forming a functioning government <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/26/northern-ireland-power-sharing-stormont-crisis-timeline">for more than two years now</a>. </p>
<p>The biggest party in Northern Ireland, the DUP, has repeatedly blocked legislation that would legalise <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-42868004">same-sex marriage</a>, while abortion was banned in Northern Ireland [in all but exceptional cases] until this week’s Westminster vote to bring marriage equality and abortion <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/09/mps-vote-to-extend-same-sex-marriage-to-northern-ireland">rights to the province</a>. The results of the Westminster vote will likely place extra pressure on the DUP to reform the government, but it could once again employ the veto to stop the legislation coming into effect. </p>
<p>But while there is widespread frustration over Brexit and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-why-is-the-irish-border-backstop-so-crucial-to-securing-a-brexit-deal-113398">ongoing border question</a>, there is also growing and palpable discontent among voters surrounding the dominance of the two parties that are allocated government posts in the – defunct since March 2017 – Northern Ireland assembly.</p>
<p>The recent EU election happened at a point when Northern Ireland’s “other” community is growing more frustrated with the primacy of “green and orange” politics – and the province now holds a dubious <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/northern-ireland-talks-latest-power-sharing-deal-stormont-sinn-fein-dup-a8893096.html">world record</a> for the longest time without a government. With talks continuing, residents of the province are hoping that a working government can again start dealing with legislative issues and move beyond the classic divisions.</p>
<p>Today, these “others” mobilise their followers around the constitutional future of Northern Ireland, but they also stand up for pressing, but everyday issues, such as the environment, sectarianism and street crime.</p>
<p>While the victory for Alliance should not be seen as the destruction of the Nationalist and Unionist values that allow the DUP and Sinn Fein to remain the biggest parties in Northern Ireland, it is a message that the government is not working for an ever-growing community. They ignore this message at their peril.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119955/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timofey Agarin receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) for the project ‘Exclusion amid Inclusion: Power-Sharing and Non-Dominant Minorities’. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Drew Mikhael does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many voters in Northern Ireland are tired of the sectarian stranglehold of Sinn Fein and the DUP – and the ‘others’ are gaining ground.Drew Mikhael, Research Fellow in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, Queen's University BelfastTimofey Agarin, Senior Lecturer, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1078192018-12-05T06:04:18Z2018-12-05T06:04:18ZSinn Féin’s sudden rise to power in 1918 was long seen as a ‘youthquake’ – now there’s a different explanation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248747/original/file-20181204-34138-11rwamc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=47%2C395%2C1715%2C1041&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Following_the_pipers!_(29677821546).jpg">Wikimedia Commons.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 1918 election is probably best known in Britain as being the first election in which women could vote. In Ireland, it is remembered for something quite different. The general election in December that year saw Sinn Féin – a revolutionary independence party, which had not contested the previous general election – win 73 out of 105 seats in Ireland. </p>
<p>It’s long been thought that Sinn Féin’s dramatic victory was, in part, due to major changes to the Irish electorate. In early 1918, the right to vote <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/case-study-the-right-to-vote/the-right-to-vote/birmingham-and-the-equal-franchise/1918-representation-of-the-people-act/">was extended</a> to all men over 21 and most women over 30. Ireland, at the time still part of the UK, saw its electorate grow from less that 700,000 <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1750-0206.12341">to more than 1.9m</a>. </p>
<p>With a near tripling of the electorate and a landslide victory of a new, radical political party occurring in the same year, scholars <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Founding_of_D%C3%A1il_%C3%89ireann.html?id=cEczAAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">have long assumed that</a> the two were linked: that Sinn Féin experienced it’s very own “<a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2017">youthquake</a>”, just like the UK’s Labour party, which also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jan/29/youthquake-why-age-did-matter-for-corbyn-in-2017">benefited from</a> a surge in turn out among young people, almost 100 years later. But our new research challenges this assumption. </p>
<h2>A radical upset</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248750/original/file-20181204-34148-6f4rj5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248750/original/file-20181204-34148-6f4rj5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248750/original/file-20181204-34148-6f4rj5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248750/original/file-20181204-34148-6f4rj5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248750/original/file-20181204-34148-6f4rj5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248750/original/file-20181204-34148-6f4rj5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248750/original/file-20181204-34148-6f4rj5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248750/original/file-20181204-34148-6f4rj5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total wipeout.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Irish_UK_election_1918.png">Wikimedia Commons.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This Sinn Féin victory ushered in an era of revolution. The previously dominant and more moderate party of Irish nationalism, the Irish Parliamentary Party, was decimated, and returned just six of the 67 seats they held prior to the vote. And within two months of the election, Sinn Féin’s MPs had declared independence from the UK, and the armed conflict that would become Ireland’s War of Independence began. </p>
<p>On the eve of his party’s crushing electoral defeat, William Doris, an Irish Parliamentary Party candidate, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/historical-journal/article/franchise-factor-in-the-defeat-of-the-irish-parliamentary-party-18851918/8BC17D233CBD71B454C0458A6E324940">lamented</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>On the old register we were perfectly safe and the question is how the extended franchise will affect us. I am satisfied that a majority of the women over 30 will be with us, but the vast majority of the boys from 21 to 30 will be against us. They appear to have gone mad and no doubt we will have all kinds of intimidation, personation and so on.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This longstanding view has not been extensively tested – until now. To examine the impact of the voting reforms on the 1918 election results, we combined the results of the election for each constituency in Ireland with information on the number of new male and female voters. We also constructed an economic and social profile of each constituency, by collecting information on things such as occupation, literacy and religion from the 1911 census.</p>
<p>A statistical analysis of this information failed to uncover a link between the number of new male voters in a constituency and support for Sinn Féin. Where there were more women voters, however, support for Sinn Féin appears in fact to have been lower. </p>
<p>This is not perhaps surprising: the restrictions on women’s voting rights meant that younger women and those who failed to meet the property requirement - those who were not rate payers or wives of rate payers - were still denied a voice. Indeed studies of Britain suggest that the Conservatives <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1750-0206.12336">were the main beneficiaries</a> of the new women’s vote. Our research found that in Ireland, women may have been less likely than men to use their vote at all.</p>
<h2>Rising up</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248748/original/file-20181204-34134-1w0kloi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248748/original/file-20181204-34134-1w0kloi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248748/original/file-20181204-34134-1w0kloi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248748/original/file-20181204-34134-1w0kloi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248748/original/file-20181204-34134-1w0kloi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248748/original/file-20181204-34134-1w0kloi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1042&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248748/original/file-20181204-34134-1w0kloi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1042&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248748/original/file-20181204-34134-1w0kloi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1042&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Sinn Féin election poster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sinn_F%C3%A9in_election_poster_-_1918.jpg">Wikimedia Commons.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s impossible to know for sure how individuals voted in 1918. But our findings suggests that new voters did not, by themselves, propel Sinn Féin to power in Ireland. Other factors must have played a bigger role than previously thought. The legacy of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/six-days-that-shook-the-world-how-the-easter-rising-changed-everything-57140">Easter Rising</a> is a strong contender, with public opinion appearing to shift sharply in support of the rebels following the British crackdown. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/six-days-that-shook-the-world-how-the-easter-rising-changed-everything-57140">Six days that shook the world: how the Easter Rising changed everything</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/sinn-f%C3%A9in-and-the-conscription-crisis-1.3451617">conscription crisis of 1918</a> may also have had a big impact. Conscription had been enacted in Britain in 1916 and the German offensive of 1918 had induced the cabinet to finally extend conscription to Ireland. The attempt to introduce conscription in Ireland was, of course, deeply unpopular. </p>
<p>Although all strands of Irish Nationalism were united in opposition to conscription, it was Sinn Féin who claimed the role of the most forceful opponent of conscription. As such, Sinn Féin’s electoral success was more likely driven by a change of heart within the Irish electorate, more than a change of composition.</p>
<p>It’s perhaps no surprise that religion was a strong predictor of support for both the moderate Irish Parliamentary Party and more radical Sinn Féin, since both were nationalist parties. Better agricultural land was associated with a lower Sinn Féin vote, suggesting perhaps that wealthier farmers may have disliked Sinn Féin’s more radical approach. And higher levels of women in work and female literacy were associated with higher turnout overall. </p>
<p>It is clear that the events between 1916 and 1918 led large numbers of people to abandon support for the Irish Parliamentary Party and back the more radical form of nationalism offered by Sinn Féin. Even without a change in the franchise, the election of 1918 would still have marked a turning point in Irish history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107819/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan de Bromhead has received funding from the British Academy and the ESRC. This work was supported by the British Academy (grant number SG15211)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Fernihough has received funding from the British Academy and the ESRC. This work was supported by the British Academy (grant number SG15211)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Enda Hargaden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New research reveals that changes in attitudes led to Sinn Féin’s landslide victory – not the new surge of young voters.Alan de Bromhead, Lecturer in Economics, Queen's University BelfastAlan Fernihough, Lecturer in Economics, Queen's University BelfastEnda Hargaden, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1059072018-11-21T12:14:36Z2018-11-21T12:14:36Z100 years since women won the right to be MPs – what it was like for the pioneers<p>When some women won the right to <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/100-years-of-votes-for-women-49248">vote</a> in Britain in February 1918, the question arose as to whether women could now stand in parliamentary elections. Nine months later, the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/parliamentary-collections/nancy-astor/parliament-qualification-of-women-act/">Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act</a> was passed on November 21 1918, enabling women over the age 21 to become MPs. </p>
<p>A century on, the UK parliament now has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-40192060">208 women MPs</a>. But what was it like for the first women in the House of Commons 100 years ago? </p>
<p>Only women over the age of 30 who met a property qualification were granted the vote in 1918, therefore there are numerous examples of women standing for parliament when they could not vote themselves. </p>
<p>The path to entering parliament was not an easy one for women; political parties prioritised male candidates and finances hindered many women from standing. In all, 17 women stood in the 1918 general election across the political spectrum, but only one woman was successful, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43176232">Constance Markievicz</a>. As she stood for Sinn Féin, she refused to take her seat over the issue of Irish independence. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246537/original/file-20181120-161627-1vro83f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246537/original/file-20181120-161627-1vro83f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246537/original/file-20181120-161627-1vro83f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246537/original/file-20181120-161627-1vro83f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246537/original/file-20181120-161627-1vro83f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246537/original/file-20181120-161627-1vro83f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246537/original/file-20181120-161627-1vro83f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nancy Astor’s 1919 election leaflet.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/parliamentary-collections/nancy-astor/astor-campaign-leaflet/">Parliamentary Archives.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It wasn’t until the following year that the first woman MP to take her seat was elected when <a href="https://www.historyextra.com/period/modern/life-of-the-week-nancy-astor/">Nancy Astor</a> was elected in a Plymouth by-election in 1919 for the Conservative Party. She was persuaded to stand by her husband, who previously held the seat, when he was elevated to the House of Lords following the death of his father. Women MPs inheriting their seats from their husbands became a common pattern in the interwar period. For Astor, being the only woman MP was an isolating experience. In 1923, she <a href="https://archive.org/details/mytwocountries1954asto">remarked</a>: “Pioneers may be picturesque figures, but they are often rather lonely ones.” </p>
<h2>A masculine space</h2>
<p>Parliament was, and arguably still is, an inherently masculine space. The corridors were lined with paintings of white male politicians, the bars and smoking rooms remained closed to women, and the female restroom was a quarter of a mile walk from the debating chamber. Outside of the chamber, Astor confined herself to the Ladies Members Room. As more women entered parliament, they shared this space. It was nicknamed the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/vote-100/voice-and-vote/">“tomb”</a> as it was cramped and poorly furnished. </p>
<p>Despite Astor’s success, most MPs remained adamant that parliament was no place for women. Winston Churchill, although a personal friend of the Astors who dined regularly at their country house, refused to speak to Astor in parliament. He <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p01lfw2p">revealed</a> later on in life, that by ignoring her, he and other MPs “hoped to freeze her out.”</p>
<p>In 1921, Astor was joined by the Liberal <a href="https://www.suffrage-pioneers.net/the-list/margaret-wintringham/">Margaret Wintringham</a> following her success in a by-election in Louth. She also inherited her seat from her husband who had died while in office. Despite being in different parties, Astor and Wintringham became great friends, working together on issues related to women and children. In her maiden speech, Wintringham spoke during a debate on the economy and <a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1921/nov/09/exchequer-bonds-and-external-debt#S5CV0148P0_19211109_HOC_300">said</a> she felt “rather like a new girl at school”. Women MPs continued to enter parliament in slow numbers. By 1929 there were only 14 women MPs, despite 69 women standing in the 1929 general election. </p>
<h2>Appearances scrutinised</h2>
<p>The press became fixated on the appearance of early women MPs. Astor insisted on wearing simple clothing as she wanted her politics to be remarked on and not her outfits. Other women MPs adopted this “parliamentary uniform”, although there were some exceptions. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/case-study-radical-politicians-in-the-north-east/introduction/">Ellen Wilkinson</a>, Labour MP for Middlesborough, elected in 1924, refused to conform to Astor’s dress code. Nicknamed “Red Ellen” for her socialist views and fiery red hair, she had a colourful sense of fashion. When criticised for this in the press, she <a href="http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/232e67de-d26f-4f96-a4cb-a65db3bb85da">remarked</a>: “Can’t a woman do her work just as well in a dress of bright colour?” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/remembering-jennie-lee-lioness-labour-founded-open-university/">Jennie Lee</a>, the Labour MP for North Lanarkshire was elected in a by-election in March 1929, aged 24. At the time, she could not vote herself, yet still became the youngest MP in the Commons. Lee created chaos when she wore an emerald green dress into parliament. One press report of the occasion <a href="http://www.open.ac.uk/library/library-resources/jennie-lee-collection">recounted</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The dress, which was of a clinging variety and of ankle length… took the Speaker’s breath away … She swept to her place … with all the assurance of a Bond-street mannequin. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Women MPs today <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39416554">continue to face</a> sexism, bullying and comments on their appearance, and in the digital age, receive frequent <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38736729">abuse online</a>. While Westminster now has a nursery and considerably more female toilets, its archaic traditions still dominate. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1065163044236525568"}"></div></p>
<p>A century later, the UK still doesn’t have equal representation in parliament, and only 32% of MPs are women. While campaigns and policies such as <a href="https://5050parliament.co.uk">50:50 Parliament</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/askhertostand?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Ehashtag">#AskHerToStand</a> and Labour’s all women short lists are increasing the number of women MPs, a recent report from the <a href="https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/News/women-candidates-face-explicit-resistance-and-discrimination-within-political-parties">Fawcett Society</a> concluded that: “Women still experience multiple barriers to being selected as candidates simply because they are women.” </p>
<p>The first women MPs were pioneering and paved the way for future generations. A century later, the spotlight is on Westminster as the fight continues for equal representation and the challenge against the notion of parliament as “the old boys club”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105907/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Berry-Waite receives funding from The Leverhulme Trust.</span></em></p>It’s 100 years since women won the right to be MPs, but what was Parliament like for women back then?Lisa Berry-Waite, PhD Candidate in History, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1022972018-08-29T09:29:09Z2018-08-29T09:29:09ZThere’s a reason why Northern Ireland has been without a government for more than 500 days – Brexit<p>After more than 500 days of stalemate, Northern Ireland has surpassed the record previously set by Belgium for the longest run in peacetime <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-45134828">without a working government</a>. The trigger for the collapse of Stormont’s power-sharing institutions concerned a relative anodyne issue – the implication of the DUP leader Arlene Foster in a seriously flawed <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/q-a-what-is-the-northern-ireland-cash-for-ash-scheme-1.2907866">renewable energy scheme</a>. However, there were a range of other factors which created a breakdown in trust between Foster’s party and Sinn Féin. Among these were the DUP’s opposition to Sinn Féin’s proposal of an act to help preserve and promote the Irish language and its refusal to countenance gay marriage. On top of these, there were issues relating to Northern Ireland’s past conflict.</p>
<p>Arguably, though, the key factor that continues to prevent an agreement to restore power-sharing in Northern Ireland is the same issue that has destabilised politics right across the UK: Brexit. The day after the vote to leave the EU in 2016, Sinn Féin called for a <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/gerry-adams-repeats-call-for-vote-on-united-ireland-1.3550189">vote on Irish unity</a>. This was linked to the threat that Brexit could re-establish a hard border in Ireland, with serious economic implications for both parts of the island. Sinn Féin argues that this might change the attitudes even of many unionists in Northern Ireland, creating a momentum towards republicans’ long-standing goal of reunification.</p>
<p>The DUP naturally opposed such suggestions. And, indeed, it had backed the Leave campaign in the referendum. So, after the surprising loss of the Westminster majority for the Conservatives in 2017’s election, it was much less surprising that the DUP came to their aid with <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/conservative-and-dup-agreement-and-uk-government-financial-support-for-northern-ireland/agreement-between-the-conservative-and-unionist-party-and-the-democratic-unionist-party-on-support-for-the-government-in-parliament">a confidence-and-supply accord</a>.</p>
<p>Having a say in the governance of the UK as a whole, and helping to deliver the claimed “will of the British people” on Brexit, has helped burnish the DUP’s unionist credentials. Also, the Tory-DUP deal involved a commitment to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-tory-dup-deal-could-bring-even-stormier-waters-to-northern-ireland-79235">increase public spending in Northern Ireland</a>. This sold well with the DUP’s supporters, who, for many years, have chafed at the changes of the peace process, interpreted as rewarding republicans. Conversely, republicans now chafe at the DUP’s enhanced political influence. They note that a majority in Northern Ireland voted Remain, while support for the EU in the Irish Republic remains high.</p>
<p>Brexit has thus revived the ideologies of Irish nationalism and Ulster unionism, and reignited their most central dispute – continued union with Britain or unification with Ireland. Brexit has simply created a new arena for an age-old contest.</p>
<h2>Over to you, Brussels</h2>
<p>This underlying tension is arguably the real reason for the continued failure of efforts to resolve other disagreements between the DUP and Sinn Féin and restore power-sharing. Indeed, these other issues are far less challenging than those previously resolved through the peace process. This is not to downplay the importance of Irish speakers in Northern Ireland having the same protections enjoyed by those using other indigenous languages across the UK and Ireland, or the rights of the gay community to marriage equality as in any other part of these islands. However, issues like the decommissioning of IRA weapons, policing reform, or the release of paramilitary prisoners under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement proved far more controversial. Yet they were all delivered, and so established the basis for Sinn Féin and the DUP to work together in government for nearly a decade.</p>
<p>However, the peace process did not reconcile Sinn Féin and the DUP. It forced them to be friends. Specifically, the British and Irish governments made clear that they could only have power if they shared power. The unity of political purpose between London and Dublin, so evident and successful in the early years of the peace process, has been seriously damaged by Brexit. Though there are very particular implications for Northern Ireland and the Irish border, Brexit has created wider challenges for London and Dublin. Given the highly important all-Ireland and UK dimensions of Irish trade, and nearly half a century of British integration with Europe, the outcome of Brexit could have massively disruptive effects on either or both national economies.</p>
<p>This has often left London and Dublin at odds in the course of the Brexit negotiations. The DUP’s role in supporting the Westminster government has only complicated matters further. While London and Dublin remain divided over the direction of Brexit, however, they cannot lead a co-ordinated effort to force the Northern Ireland parties to resolve their differences and restore power-sharing at Stormont.</p>
<p>This creates a Catch-22. Just as the issue of the Irish border remains the chief obstacle to an agreement on Brexit, so Brexit remains the chief obstacle to an agreement at Stormont. It seems then that a political deal in Belfast will only emerge as we near a political deal in Brussels. Northern Ireland may have taken the Belgian title for the longest period without governance, but ironically it is in the Belgian capital that any move to end that run will likely develop.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102297/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter John McLoughlin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Belgium held the previous record with 541 days without a government. What’s holding up power-sharing?Peter John McLoughlin, Lecturer in Politics, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1013322018-08-10T15:28:31Z2018-08-10T15:28:31ZNorthern Ireland needs a new unionism that reflects a diverse and multicultural UK<p>Since the spiralling civil conflict of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/events/day_troubles_began">the Troubles</a> in the early 1970s, <a href="http://www.kevinbyrne.ie/pubs/ByrneOMalley2013a.pdf">unionism</a> in Northern Ireland has always been more preoccupied with asserting its opposition to Irish unification, as opposed to articulating a vision of what it is and aspires to be, and how it fits into an increasingly multicultural United Kingdom.</p>
<p>People in Northern Ireland stoically resisted a <a href="http://www.theirishstory.com/2015/02/09/the-northern-ireland-conflict-1968-1998-an-overview/#.W2xbbv5Kj-Y">campaign of republican violence</a> throughout the 30 years of the Troubles. But the reasons for this understandable hunkering down are long gone. The battlefield is now cultural and unionism is losing. </p>
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<h2>Declaring for the Union</h2>
<p>I was born 65 years ago in the predominantly Protestant environs of south Belfast; for me, Northern Ireland represents the corner of the Union that is both Irish and British. My cultural identity is bound up in this place and its symbolically endowed landscape that incorporates both these dimensions alongside a strong cultural and historical <a href="http://www.ulsterscotsagency.com/what-is-ulster-scots/">Scottish link</a>.</p>
<p>This space of the imagination and real cultural interaction remains potentially fluid. While unionism in the past has been associated with <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057%2F9781137453945_7">narrow triumphalism and religious dogma</a>, such influences are on the wane even if the pace appears frustratingly slow. To be out of step with wider liberalising currents in the UK is to invite embarrassment – that peculiar relative in the attic of the Union. But any attempt to distil the essence of unionism in more neutral, dry, constitutional relationships, obligations or even economic interests does not address the more fundamental cultural factors that define each group.</p>
<p>My unionist culture is part of a broader British culture which I unapologetically embrace. It has no truck with <a href="https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/10444060610734172?journalCode=ijcma">discriminatory sectarian practices</a>, which some have uncharitably labelled the very lifeblood of unionism. But the idea that unionist culture is shallow, based on economic supremacy and a hangover from a colonial presence still prevails. </p>
<p>The 1998 <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Good-Friday-Agreement">Good Friday Agreement</a> that ended the Troubles recognises the importance of culture in acknowledging differences between the two major traditions in Northern Ireland. But after 20 years, the hoped-for generation of an emergent civic culture bridging the ethnic divide has failed to appear.</p>
<p>While unionism pragmatically saw the deal on the whole as the best available, republicanism sees the agreement as a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-30194908">transitional step</a> towards full Irish political unification. The result has been difficulty in moving beyond a war of cultural attrition; the potential fluidity of identities has been frozen.</p>
<p>What is needed is a notion of two identities embedded within a culture of openness and dialogue that is not closed to the potentially new, novel and unexpected. In reimagining itself, unionism must think beyond a <a href="http://www.sinnfein.ie/what-sinn-fein-stands-for">Sinn Féin</a> projection of cultural superiority and its cool reception to the idea of British-Irish identity. To engage effectively in cultural debate, unionism needs to have a more considered and long-term strategy.</p>
<h2>Last chance saloon</h2>
<p>Sinn Féin’s call to join in building a “new Ireland” (as opposed to a “united Ireland”) with a rainbow of identities, is a soft approach which gives unionism cause to be sceptical. And the way republicans have denigrated unionist tradition, portraying it as a stereotypical <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/22/ireland-sectarian-referendum-england-move-on">sectarian</a> monolith, is frequently criticised by seasoned political commentators and academics. But this is not to deny that certain unionist voices can also be insulting towards nationalist culture. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231483/original/file-20180810-2900-y5lqua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231483/original/file-20180810-2900-y5lqua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231483/original/file-20180810-2900-y5lqua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231483/original/file-20180810-2900-y5lqua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231483/original/file-20180810-2900-y5lqua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231483/original/file-20180810-2900-y5lqua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231483/original/file-20180810-2900-y5lqua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Openness to dialogue and a sense of shared values is the way forward for Northern Ireland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.paimages.co.uk/image-details/2.1761122">PA</a></span>
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<p>Unionists need to set out their own stall. First they must assert their own brand of Irishness which is infused with Britishness as well. This involves more than recognising that the Irishness of Catholics requires legitimate expression in Northern Ireland – it must include the belated appropriation of Irishness as a constituent part of the Protestant unionist identity too. Engaging with current debates about identity and belonging in Brexit Britain is a substantial but vital challenge for unionism, whose past record has been poor.</p>
<p>Northern Ireland is often dismissed as “a place apart”, ignoring the historical bonds and close cultural relationship with Britain. But identities can become static if they’re not open to change as circumstances alter. Here unionism has not adapted well; it has to engage in the debate over what defines Britishness in an increasingly diverse society. A positive and less defensive case must be made for the Union.</p>
<p>Difference can be celebrated and respected, but it must be accompanied by shared values. The argument that British and Irish are not mutually exclusive categories needs strong voices as the Republic of Ireland calls on unionism in <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/04/good-friday-agreement-20th-anniversary/557393/">uncertain Brexit times</a> to throw in its lot with an evolving nation on a different European trajectory. Any response must go beyond saving the Union for unionists and make a case to the middle ground of Northern Irish Catholic opinion, which lack of vision has almost squandered. </p>
<h2>Selling the Union</h2>
<p>The prospect of a prosperous, secular, multicultural and eurocentric Republic of Ireland is a strong one. The watchwords of any counter offer must be courtesy, due recognition of cultural difference, reasonableness and compromise. And not sweating the small stuff. For unionism, circling the wagons is not an option. It will more likely survive through kind words than belligerence.</p>
<p>Returning recently to Ireland from a foreign trip I presented my British passport to a border official at Dublin Airport. Glancing at it, he said, “Welcome home sir”. Those three kind words did more to waken my Irish roots than three decades of armed IRA struggle.</p>
<p>Disputes over flags, <a href="https://www.irishpost.com/uncategorized/twelve-things-know-marching-season-northern-ireland-94314">marching</a> and place names are of course emotive, but the high ground does not promote parades that are not welcomed by locals. It does not seek to insult. It contemplates compromise on <a href="http://www.thejournal.ie/irish-language-act-explainer-3851417-Feb2018/">Gaelic language rights</a> and sees advantages in the rich and varied cultures of the UK. </p>
<p>As Brexit sees the middle ground of those open to such ideas recede further, the leader of political unionism, Arlene Foster, has begun to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-44605264">change tack</a> with outreaching gestures that reclaim the civic dimension of unionism with a more inclusive <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-44198803">citizenship and rights agenda</a>. But whether such belated and slow-moving attempts will be enough to lead on to a necessary reframing of unionism has yet to play out. </p>
<p>A unionist response has been too long in the making. Moderate unionism must reassert itself, because adhering staunchly to an identity bound up in the past has outlived its sell-by date.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101332/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William JV Neill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The only way forward is a more inclusive unionism that reflects the diverse and multicultural nature of the UK.William JV Neill, Visiting Professor, Institute of Irish Studies, QUB and Emeritus Professor of Spatial Planning, University of AberdeenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/946102018-04-09T12:33:09Z2018-04-09T12:33:09ZThe Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland at 20 – The Anthill podcast<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213604/original/file-20180406-125177-1dzvoo3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/belfast-northern-ireland-may-21-2011-169080716?src=W6lsDs9ThZBs4kizx79Mng-1-0">LunaseeStudios/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s been 20 years since the Belfast Agreement paved the way for a relatively peaceful end to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The deal was made on Good Friday that year, April 10, 1998, and has become known since as the Good Friday Agreement.</p>
<p>To mark the 20th anniversary, this episode of The Anthill is all about the Good Friday Agreement.</p>
<p>While this anniversary is an opportunity to remember the achievements of 1998, it is also throwing up some difficult questions about the present. The UK is leaving the European Union and will need to come up <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-eus-brexit-backstop-option-for-northern-ireland-doesnt-threaten-the-uks-constitutional-integrity-92869">with a plan</a> for the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. But the very absence of a border has been an integral element of life after the Good Friday Agreement. What’s more, Northern Ireland hasn’t had a devolved government for over year as a result of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-reasons-to-be-optimistic-about-northern-ireland-politics-91957">dispute between</a> the unionists and republicans running the administration, making the celebrations a little hollow.</p>
<p>We hear from Feargal Cochrane, professor of international conflict analysis at the University of Kent and panellists David Mitchell, assistant professor of conflict resolution and reconciliation at Trinity College Dublin, and Katy Hayward, reader in sociology at Queen’s University Belfast. (<em>Starts at 5:30)</em> </p>
<p>We find out more about what it’s like to grow up in Northern Ireland today, a place where education is still heavily segregated by faith. We hear from Tony Gallagher and Joanne Hughes from the School of Education at Queen’s University, Belfast, about their research to unite Protestant and Catholic schools through a programme that sees children from both communities coming together for lessons. Then we speak to Laura Taylor a psychologist who’s also based at Queen’s who explains why the role of the family can be so important in helping to keep the peace in divided communities. And we also discover how other countries such as Macedonia and Israel, are <a href="https://theconversation.com/lessons-for-israel-on-how-shared-education-can-bridge-divided-communities-35005">learning from Northern Ireland’s approaches</a> to breaking down borders through education. (<em>Starts at 29:25</em>)</p>
<p>And finally, we talked to four academics for an in depth look at what motivated the key political figures involved to get to an agreement in April 1998. From unionist leaders such as David Trimble, to Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams and the big hitting trio of Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern. Four academics – Margaret O'Callaghan from Queen’s University Belfast, Liam Kennedy from University College Dublin, John Morrison from the University of East London, and Connal Parr from Northumbria University – tell their stories. (<em>Starts at 40:18</em>)</p>
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<p><em>The Anthill theme music is by <a href="https://www.melodyloops.com/search/How+to+Steal+a+Million+Dollars/">Alex Grey for Melody Loops</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Thank you to City, University of London’s Department of Journalism for letting us use their studios to record The Anthill.</em></p>
<p><em>Click here to listen to more episodes of The Anthill, on themes including <a href="https://theconversation.com/anthill-23-bursting-the-bitcoin-bubble-93337">Bitcoin</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/anthill-21-growing-up-90247">Growing Up</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/anthill-20-myths-89107">Myths</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/anthill-19-pain-87538">Pain</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94610/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
To mark the 20th anniversary of the agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland, this episode of the podcast looks at its history, its legacy and the impact of Brexit on its future.Will de Freitas, Environment + Energy Editor, UK editionLaura Hood, Senior Politics Editor, Assistant Editor, The Conversation (UK edition)Annabel Bligh, Business & Economy Editor and Podcast Producer, The Conversation UKGemma Ware, Head of AudioHolly Squire, Special Projects Editor, The Conversation UKLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/827092017-08-18T13:21:03Z2017-08-18T13:21:03ZSame-sex couples in Northern Ireland hamstrung in bid for marriage equality by Stormont stalemate<p>In another setback for marriage equality in Northern Ireland, two challenges to the country’s ban on same-sex marriage <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-40954619">were dismissed</a> by the High Court in Belfast on August 17. The ruling involved two separate cases brought by couples who argued that their human rights were being breached because there is no law allowing for same-sex marriage, or the recognition of same-sex marriages in Northern Ireland. It is the only jurisdiction in the UK which does not allow same-sex marriage. </p>
<p>The first case involved two men who were married in London in 2014 and who had moved to Northern Ireland and were attempting to have their marriage legally recognised there. Under the current law, their marriage is treated as a civil partnership. The second case involved the two couples in civil partnerships – the first two couples to enter into civil partnerships when Northern Ireland became the first UK jurisdiction to introduce these in 2005 – who argued that the marriage ban breaches their right to private and family life. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.courtsni.gov.uk/en-GB/Judicial%20Decisions/SummaryJudgments/Documents/Summary%20of%20Judgment%20%E2%80%93%20Judge%20Dismisses%20Same%20Sex%20Marriage%20Petition/2017.08.17%20Press%20Summary.pdf">his judgment</a>, Justice O’Hara dismissed the applicants’ legal challenges concluding that international human rights law had not been violated and that the laws on marriage are a matter of social policy and therefore the responsibility of the executive and legislature. He stated:</p>
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<p>It is not at all difficult to understand how gay men and lesbians who have suffered discrimination, rejection and exclusion feel so strongly about the maintenance in Northern Ireland of the barrier to same-sex marriage. However, the judgment which I have to reach is not based on social policy but on the law.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>How social policy can currently be implemented in Northern Ireland, however, is a moot question. </p>
<h2>Stalemate in power-sharing</h2>
<p>Since the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-northern-irelands-government-went-from-mutual-suspicion-to-collapse-71418">collapse</a> of the power-sharing assembly in January 2017 following a financial scandal, there has not been a functioning executive or legislature for eight months. Power-sharing between nationalist and unionist parties, including a joint office of first minister and deputy first minister, are a requirement of the institutional arrangements established following the Northern Ireland peace process. However, the largest unionist party, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), and the largest nationalist party, Sinn Féin, remain at loggerheads. The issue of marriage equality remains one of the key points of contention.</p>
<p>Sinn Féin has <a href="http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/03/27/sinn-fein-makes-equal-marriage-a-key-issue-in-northern-ireland-power-sharing-talks/">argued</a> that progress on equal marriage is one of its key prerequisites for entering back into government, while the DUP has a <a href="http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/04/06/northern-irelands-dup-pledges-to-keep-blocking-same-sex-marriage/">long history</a> of opposing any such move. A previous attempt to legislate for same-sex marriage in 2015 won the backing of the majority of members of the Northern Ireland Assembly in Stormont, but <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-majority-vote-for-marriage-equality-in-northern-ireland-was-blocked-by-minority-veto-50130">was blocked</a> by the DUP who used a mechanism known as a “petition of concern”. </p>
<p>The triggering of a petition of concern – which requires the signature of 30 members of the assembly – means that any proposed legislation will only pass if supported by a majority of both unionists and nationalists. This mechanism was originally intended as a protective measure to stop any one community overriding the views of another on the basis of a straightforward parliamentary majority. There has been <a href="http://qpol.qub.ac.uk/the-problem-with-petitions-of-concern/">criticism</a> of the use of petitions of concern by both unionists and nationalists to veto legislation on the basis of party political interests such as same-sex marriage and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-32894371">welfare reform</a>. </p>
<h2>Public wants equality</h2>
<p>The legislature is out of touch with public opinion on this issue. <a href="http://www.ark.ac.uk/publications/updates/update106.pdf">Recent survey data</a> that I and colleagues have analysed shows that almost 60% of 1,210 respondents support the legal validation of same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland. LGBT equality remains a touchstone issue in Northern Ireland and has gained increased political attention across the UK in light of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/conservatives-strike-deal-with-the-dup-experts-react-80101">confidence and supply political arrangement</a> between the DUP and the Conservative Party following the June 2017 general election. </p>
<p>Many commentators, including <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/10/tory-dup-deal-ruth-davidson-receives-assurances-from-pm-over-gay-rights">Ruth Davidson</a>, the leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, have been critical of the DUP position and have advocated for the extension of marriage equality legislation to Northern Ireland. </p>
<p>The clock is ticking for the re-establishment of the Northern Ireland Assembly, a situation that must be resolved by the end of the summer. Failure to establish a government may lead to a return to direct rule by the UK government. This would mean the return of functions and powers of the Stormont assembly to Westminster, a move which would be highly controversial. Either way, pending the outcome of the political resolution, it is clear that the issue of marriage equality will have to be decided in either Stormont – or Westminster. </p>
<p>Either way, pending the outcome of the political resolution, it is clear that the issue of marriage equality will have to be decided in either Stormont or Westminster. While resolution of marriage equality under direct rule may be unlikely, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40462749">it remains a possibility</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82709/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicola Carr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A judge in Belfast has dismissed a challenge to Northern Ireland’s ban on same-sex marriage citing it as a ‘social policy’ issue.Nicola Carr, Associate Professor in Criminology, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/795832017-06-16T13:40:18Z2017-06-16T13:40:18ZHow international law could scupper a Tory deal with the DUP<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174175/original/file-20170616-505-1lb3j1v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.paimages.co.uk/image-details/2.31680911">PA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a case of political bad timing, still recovering from her electoral battering, Theresa May met with Northern Ireland’s <a href="https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/politics/general-election-2017-northern-ireland-political-parties/">five main political parties</a> at Downing Street on Thursday June 15. This was an attempt to resolve the deadlock in forming a governing executive that has existed since the elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly on March 2. As the current prime minister, May has a role in overseeing this process under the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/events/good_friday_agreement">Good Friday Agreement</a> signed in 1998.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/northern-ireland-power-sharing-latest-collapse-end-sinn-fein-refuse-stormont-dup-martin-mcguinness-a7529111.html">breakdown</a> of the devolved assembly in late 2016 over the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/19/northern-ireland-first-minister-arlene-foster-urged-resign-fuel-subsidy-scheme">green fuels subsidy scheme</a> led to the March elections. This means that Northern Ireland is facing one of its longest and deepest crises of the past 20 years.</p>
<p>However, at exactly the same time, the Conservative Party was attempting to come to a political agreement with the <a href="http://www.mydup.com/about-us">Democratic Unionist Party</a> (one of those five political parties) to allow it to function as a minority government within the UK. DUP leader <a href="http://arlenefoster.org.uk/biography/">Arlene Foster</a>, currently the ex-first minister of Northern Ireland, has said: “The talks are going well.”</p>
<p>It would seem that the prime minister is trying to manage two incompatible situations. But does it go even deeper than that? What are the legal implications of a proposed DUP/Conservative deal for the Good Friday Agreement?</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174176/original/file-20170616-505-1vk2gru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174176/original/file-20170616-505-1vk2gru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174176/original/file-20170616-505-1vk2gru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174176/original/file-20170616-505-1vk2gru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174176/original/file-20170616-505-1vk2gru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174176/original/file-20170616-505-1vk2gru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174176/original/file-20170616-505-1vk2gru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Theresa May needs the co-operation of Arlene Foster’s DUP to shore up her Commons majority.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.paimages.co.uk/image-details/2.31677724">PA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Back to the 1990s</h2>
<p>Politicians of a 1990s vintage have appeared attacking the UK government for giving up their ostensible “independence” in reaching agreements in Northern Ireland. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.peterhain.uk/about-peter/">Peter Hain</a>, the New Labour Northern Ireland secretary for two years from 2005 to 2007, stated the UK government is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/12/tory-dup-deal-painful-theresa-may-peace-process-northern-ireland-peter-hain">giving up</a> its appearance to “act in good faith” to any party outside the DUP in Northern Ireland.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.alastaircampbell.org/about/">Alastair Campbell</a> – Tony Blair’s “enforcer” throughout his time of government – has outlined his <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/election-dup-theresa-may-tories-alastair-campbell-sordid-comments-peace-process-a7782956.html">outrage</a>, asking: “How can they (the goverment) be the mediators” of the current political crisis?</p>
<p>Even former Conservative prime minister <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/john-major">John Major</a> has emerged from retirement in a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-40264053/sir-john-major-the-ni-peace-process-is-fragile">BBC interview</a> to urge his party to resist entering a deal as it would threaten the entire peace process by “exaggerating the differences” between the Northern Ireland parties and ending the UK government’s “honest broker” role.</p>
<p>These are political issues, though. Meanwhile there could be a deeper significance, as the Good Friday Agreement has legal status within international law as a <a href="http://peacemaker.un.org/uk-ireland-good-friday98">treaty lodged with the United Nations</a>. In formal language, the Good Friday Agreement is a bilateral agreement between the UK and the Republic of Ireland. It created the devolved settlement and a number of cross-national and cross-border institutions to oversee the new structures. Clearly, when these break down, both governments have to play a role in getting them back on track.</p>
<p>The Agreement in Article 1(v) states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The power of the sovereign government with jurisdiction there shall be exercised with rigorous impartiality on behalf of all the people. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The treaty was brought into legal enforceability with the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/47/contents">Northern Ireland Act 1998</a>. It is this law that makes it a legal obligation for the UK government to facilitate a political solution when the government there breaks down – as is occurring now. So, if a political agreement is made with the DUP, could this be seen as legally breaching the Good Friday Agreement and, indirectly, the 1998 legislation? One of the immediate difficulties is the enforceability of any legal claims.</p>
<h2>International courts</h2>
<p>The most high-profile institution with jurisdiction would seem to be the <a href="http://www.icj-cij.org/court/index.php?p1=1">International Court of Justice</a> which regulates treaties. However, each country that signs up to the ICJ can make a declaration on to what extent they recognise the court. Ireland in its declaration states that it recognises the jurisdiction of the ICJ “with the exception of any legal dispute with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in regard to Northern Ireland”. So this explicitly prevents the Good Friday Agreement being discussed in the International Court of Justice.</p>
<p>As a notable aside, the UK recently revised its recognition of the ICJ to exclude judgments on nuclear weapons following a lengthy and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/06/marshall-islands-nuclear-arms-lawsuit-thrown-out-by-uns-top-court">controversial case</a> brought by the Marshall Islands against the UK on nuclear proliferation in 2016.</p>
<p>With the ICJ ruled out, there would be a possibility of using another international institution, the <a href="https://pca-cpa.org/en/home/">Permanent Court of Arbitration</a> (PCA) which has existed since 1899. Based in the Hague, this body can intervene in bilateral disputes between states over treaties if there is a disagreement and both sides agree to the hearing. In 2015, the PCA ruled against the UK over the controversial <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/19/un-ruling-raises-hope-of-return-for-exiled-chagos-islanders">Chagos Islands case</a> after Mauritius brought an action. This has led to further negotiations over the status of the displaced islanders and their potential return.</p>
<p>Such a legal route seems remote though given the need for mutual agreement to go to arbitration. So far the Irish Government has not raised the possibility of legal action. </p>
<p>The legal debate on the DUP/Conservative deal breaching the Good Friday Agreement is an echo of the discussion in the past couple of years of the Conservatives’ planned scrapping of the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/22/new-british-bill-of-rights-will-not-be-scrapped-insists-liz-trus/">Human Rights Act 1998</a> which could be seen to breach the Good Friday Agreement. This possibility now seems remote, given the current minority government, but even in the human rights context, raising a legal action would also be difficult.</p>
<p>So in the short term, although there are potential legal structures to deal with inter-state disputes which a challenge to the Gould Friday Agreement could provoke, they look unlikely to be accessed.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174177/original/file-20170616-545-1onsnpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174177/original/file-20170616-545-1onsnpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174177/original/file-20170616-545-1onsnpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174177/original/file-20170616-545-1onsnpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174177/original/file-20170616-545-1onsnpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174177/original/file-20170616-545-1onsnpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174177/original/file-20170616-545-1onsnpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams voices party concerns in front of Downing Street that any DUP deal would undermine the Good Friday Agreement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.paimages.co.uk/image-details/2.31707799">PA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>It is unclear what legal action an individual citizen or one of the political parties in Northern Ireland could take to challenge any potential breach of the GFA although <a href="http://www.sinnfein.ie/?no-splash=true">Sinn Fein</a> have not ruled this out.</p>
<p>After meeting with May at Downing Street, Sinn Fein president <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-27238602">Gerry Adams</a> said his party would oppose any deal between the government and the DUP as he believed it would undermine the Good Friday Agreement. More likely is a political challenge to the prime minister to help restore power sharing in Northern Ireland rather than draw up a secret agreement with only one of the parties.</p>
<p>Strangely, the most internal domestic matter for any state – the democratic formation of its government – in the UK now could have implications in international law. Just one of the many unforeseen consequences of the 2017 general election.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79583/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick McKerrell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Good Friday Agreement’s UN treaty status means that any compromise of the rigorous impartiality it demands of the Government could be legally challengedNick McKerrell, Lecturer in Law, Glasgow Caledonian UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/792852017-06-14T08:11:43Z2017-06-14T08:11:43ZDebate over Irish language is central to power-sharing talks in Northern Ireland<p>Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) now <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-tory-dup-deal-could-bring-even-stormier-waters-to-northern-ireland-79235">finds itself kingmaker</a> at Westminster after Theresa May’s election gamble backfired. Back home in Belfast, talks are due to restart at Stormont to find a way through Northern Ireland’s political impasse caused by a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/northern-ireland-power-sharing-latest-collapse-end-sinn-fein-refuse-stormont-dup-martin-mcguinness-a7529111.html">breakdown</a> in the devolved power-sharing government and <a href="https://theconversation.com/sinn-fein-gains-and-the-prospect-of-direct-rule-the-northern-ireland-election-fallout-explained-74035">subsequent election</a>. The deadline for an agreement is June 29. </p>
<p>One of the central sticking points of the talks is the Irish language – also known as Irish Gaelic – and whether there is a need for an Irish Language Act for Northern Ireland. In late May, <a href="http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/thousands-join-irish-language-act-march-in-belfast-may-2017-photos-35738356.html">thousands</a> marched in Belfast in support of an Irish Language Act. The issue, bound up with divisions in society over national identity, has divided political parties which draw their support from the nationalist and unionist communities. The two unionist parties, the DUP and the Ulster Unionist Party, have been reluctant to support an Act whereas the nationalist parties, Sinn Féin and the Social Democratic and Labour Party, have traditionally been in favour of legislation.</p>
<p>The decision to speak Irish in Northern Ireland <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/37952171">has been interpreted</a> as a cultural weapon used by nationalists to exacerbate sectarian division. It is also seen by <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04t041k">some</a> as a pointless minority language: they think that speaking Irish is a hobby which may be pursued by individuals but which should place no undue compunction on the state.</p>
<p>For those who hold this view, the state provides ample support by means of its financial contribution to <a href="http://www.forasnagaeilge.ie/about/about-foras-na-gaeilge/?lang=en">Foras na Gaeilge</a>, the all-island body for the promotion of Irish, and through its commitment to the facilitation of <a href="http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/acts/1998-ni-education-order.pdf">Irish-medium education</a>. </p>
<p>But among those who speak Irish (approximately 185,000 people according to the <a href="https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ninis2.nisra.gov.uk%2FDownload%2FCensus%25202011_Excel%2F2011%2FQS216NI.xls">2011 census</a>) the lack of adequate support for the language’s preservation and transmission to new generations is seen as political. They believe that the language has been neglected by the Northern Ireland state and that this has been fed by a perception that the language is subversive and “belongs” only to nationalists.</p>
<h2>A shared history</h2>
<p>Taking a broader historical perspective, the facts are much more complicated. The connection between the Irish language and politics precedes the foundation of Northern Ireland in 1921. It has been spoken within both the Protestant and Catholic communities since the Plantation of Ulster in 1609, and the revival of the language in the 19th century is indebted to both Protestants and Catholics. </p>
<p>Elements of Irish-language culture (particularly <a href="http://www.placenamesni.org/">local place-names</a>) are cherished equally across the whole community in Northern Ireland, irrespective of religious and political differences, and constitute part of a shared heritage. This has been evident in a renewed interest in the language among members of the <a href="http://www.ebm.org.uk/turas/">Protestant community in Belfast</a>, in particular.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/-/conventions/treaty/148">European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages</a>, ratified by the UK in 2001, recognises “the importance of respect, understanding and tolerance in relation to linguistic diversity”.</p>
<p>The British government, in the 2006 <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/53/introduction">St Andrews Agreement</a>, promised to introduce an Irish Language Act in Northern Ireland – yet the legislation which followed in 2007 that gave legal effect to the agreement made no mention of such an act. Language legislation was devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly at that point.</p>
<p>Provision was then made in the St Andrews Act for an amendment to the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/47/section/1">Northern Ireland Act 1998</a>, obliging the executive committee of the Northern Irish Assembly to “adopt a strategy setting out how it proposes to enhance and protect the development of the Irish language”. Since then, cross-party support which is required for an Irish Language Act has not been forthcoming, nor has the executive agreed a strategy. </p>
<p>The devolved Department for Communities has produced <a href="https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/topics/languages">strategies</a> to “enhance and protect the development of the Irish Language”, and Ulster-Scots (a distinct language closely related to Scots and introduced into Ulster in the aftermath of the Plantation). But the minister in charge of the department is empowered to continue or discontinue elements of support in line with his or her political priorities. In late 2016, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-38594609">decision</a> by the communities minister, Paul Givan, of the DUP, to withdraw funding from the Líofa programme for learners of Irish, led to public outcry and contributed to the current political crisis in Stormont. The minister subsequently reviewed his decision and reinstated the funding. </p>
<p>In March 2017, a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-39157612">judicial review</a> by the High Court found the Northern Ireland Executive had failed to adopt a strategy for Irish. </p>
<h2>The case for an Act</h2>
<p>Legal protection of a language helps to remove it from the domain of confrontational party politics. The introduction of an Irish Language Act would mean that Northern Ireland would no longer be in breach of national and international agreements regarding language rights and the personal preferences of individual ministers would no longer dictate the level of support the language receives. An agreed legal framework for Irish would also mean that those who do not wish to engage with the language would be protected, irrespective of fluctuations in political governance and electoral politics. Irish could not be enforced in education or any other sphere to the point where it becomes an issue of compulsion or obligation on the citizen. </p>
<p>An Irish Language Act would also be key to enabling the transmission of Irish to younger generations by providing for the use of the language in as many domains as possible in public life, for example in dealings with public bodies and local government. </p>
<p>While there is a demand for an Irish Language Act, this demand should be met with an Act that endeavours to depoliticise the language and to garner the greatest possible agreement from across the community. An Act will function best in a context of consensus: good will and generosity must exist in order for it to achieve its goals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79285/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deirdre A. Dunlevy is a research fellow on the Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies (<a href="http://www.meits.org">www.meits.org</a>)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Micheal O Mainnin receives funding from the AHRC as co-investigator on the Open World Research Initiative project 'Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies' (<a href="http://www.meits.org">www.meits.org</a>). </span></em></p>The issue of an Irish Language Act has been a sticking point at Stormont.Deirdre A Dunlevy, Research Fellow in Sociolinguistics, Queen's University BelfastMicheal O Mainnin, Chair professor, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/792592017-06-11T11:41:05Z2017-06-11T11:41:05ZCould DUP Westminster deal force Sinn Féin to rethink abstention?<p>Theresa May’s plan to rely on support from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in the hope of surviving as a minority government has raised many questions about how the latter will influence British politics.</p>
<p>It also raises an interesting one for Sinn Féin. With its main political rival playing such a significant role, is it time for the Irish republican party to start taking its seats in the Westminster parliament? </p>
<p>The results of this general election leave Irish nationalists with no political representatives at Westminster for the first time since 1966. Northern Ireland’s three Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) MPs lost their seats and while Sinn Féin gained three seats and now has seven, it has historically <a href="https://theconversation.com/fighting-an-election-only-to-refuse-a-seat-sinn-fein-and-westminster-abstention-76963">refused to turn up</a> to parliament. </p>
<p>In the absence of the seven Sinn Féin MPs, the number of votes required for a government to command a majority of the House of Commons is reduced from 326 to 322, leaving the Conservative/DUP combination of 328 slightly more breathing space. If Sinn Féin turned up, the government would find it much harder to survive for long. </p>
<p>In the immediate aftermath of the result Sinn Féin indicated that it had no intention of abandoning its century-old <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/04/why-don-t-irish-mps-sit-parliament">policy of abstention</a>. It’s clear that it will not do so simply to defeat a Conservative government. However, whether it would do so to ensure the election of a Labour minority administration led by long-time supporter Jeremy Corbyn is another matter. That scenario might potentially arise if another election follows in the near future.</p>
<h2>Without a nationalist voice</h2>
<p>Pressure from within the nationalist electorate might also fuel a change of heart on abstention. Other non-Sinn Féin nationalists have taken their Westminster seats in the past to ensure that the nationalist voice would be heard and the political ground not ceded exclusively to unionists.</p>
<p>It was for this reason that the republican socialist <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/bernadette-mcaliskey-i-am-astounded-i-survived-i-made-mad-decisions-1.2798293">Bernadette Devlin</a>, elected in a by-election in 1969, also took her seat. She subsequently gained considerable notoriety for slapping the home secretary, Reginald Maudling, over his defence of the actions of the Paratroop Regiment during Bloody Sunday in 1972.</p>
<p>Historically, nationalists have been wary of not having representatives in Westminster. As far back as the 1918 general election, Sinn Féin’s support was weaker in Ulster than the rest of Ireland, due in part to concerns about legislation affecting Ireland being too heavily influenced by unionists.</p>
<p>Nationalists also felt that the geographical organisation of Northern Ireland into a Protestant-dominated six-county system – the option most favoured by unionists – was facilitated by the absence of a considerable nationalist bloc in Westminster. By the time this decision was made, the 73 Sinn Féin MPs elected in 1918 had established their alternative parliament, Dáil Éireann, in Dublin so didn’t play a role in voting on the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1920/67/pdfs/ukpga_19200067_en.pdf">1920 Government of Ireland Act</a>, which enshrined partition.</p>
<p>For decades, the willingness of the SDLP to sit and participate in parliament has afforded Sinn Féin the luxury of continuing to abstain in the knowledge that there would continue to be a nationalist voice in parliament. That is no longer the case. Sinn Féin may well come under pressure to end abstention as a result.</p>
<h2>DUP in charge</h2>
<p>In defence of abstention, it might be argued that the Westminster parliament is no longer as significant since devolution brought greater power to the Northern Ireland Assembly. However, following the breakdown of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/theresa-mays-snap-election-did-she-forget-northern-ireland-still-doesnt-have-a-government-76482">Northern Ireland government</a> earlier this year, the devolved parliament is not currently functioning. Northern Ireland does not have a government at the moment and the rise of the DUP in Westminster militates against its revival in the immediate future. Sinn Féin will be concerned about the ability of a DUP-dependent government to play the role of honest broker in any negotiations aimed at restoration of the devolved institutions.</p>
<p>Brexit will also be of concern to nationalists. The majority of voters in Northern Ireland (56%) voted to remain in the EU. What’s more, it’s estimated that the remain vote was as high as <a href="https://www.qub.ac.uk/home/EUReferendum/Brexitfilestore/Filetoupload,728121,en.pdf">85% among Catholics</a>. Yet all but <a href="http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/lady-sylvia-holds-on-to-north-down-but-her-vote-is-slashed-as-dup-poll-strongly-35806052.html">one</a> of the 11 sitting Northern Irish MPs are ardent Brexiters from the DUP. What’s more, the DUP’s views on Brexit will be a key consideration in its negotiations with the Conservatives.</p>
<p>Somewhat ironically, the DUP’s deputy leader, Nigel Dodds, now finds himself in a position similar to Irish nationalist leaders such as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/parnell_charles.shtml">Charles Stewart Parnell in 1886</a> and John Redmond in 1910. In both cases the price for their support for the Liberal governments of the day was the introduction of an <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/legislativescrutiny/parliamentandireland/overview/third-home-rule-bill/">Irish home rule bill</a>. If the DUP drives as hard a bargain now, the deafening silence from the House of Commons benches previously occupied by the SDLP is likely to concern nationalist voters greatly.</p>
<p>At present there is no immediate indication that Sinn Féin will consider abandoning abstention. But any number of factors could change that in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79259/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marie Coleman receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>The Irish nationalists now have seven MPs but they have historically refused to attend the Westminster parliament.Marie Coleman, Lecturer in Modern Irish History, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.