Public Affairs

Border question adds pressure to Alliance

Northern Ireland- 22nd March 2014 Mandatory Credit - Photo-Jonathan Porter/Presseye.

Alliance Party conference at la Mon House Hotel outside east Belfast.  Justice Minister David Ford and party leader David Ford gives his speech. The Alliance Party faces a major electoral test after the controversy over Anna Lo’s comments. Peter Cheney reports on its party conference.

After a turbulent week, the Alliance Party sought to bring its election campaign back on track at its conference, held at the La Mon Hotel on 22 March. Around 400 members and observers attended.

David Ford, as expected, was cutting in his criticism of the other main parties. He views Alliance as a rising force, having doubled its poll from 25,000 to 50,000 over the last decade. That said, the four larger parties were still supported by 84 per cent of the electorate at the last election, compared to Alliance’s 7 per cent.

He pointed to his and Stephen Farry’s work as ministers, including the apprenticeship system and prison reform “to meet the needs of 2020 not 1970.” Ford recalled that Alliance had originally proposed a talks process with an independent chair but this was initially rejected by the DUP and Sinn Féin.

“Northern Ireland needs no more ducking of big issues,” he stated. “We’ve had enough of the small steps, no steps or backward steps that have been the hallmark of politics since the Good Friday Agreement.”

He contrasted the cross-party calls to take down election posters with the reluctance to remove paramilitary murals: “In fact, it’s long beyond time when these organisations simply told their members to go home, to look after their families and their own business, and let Northern Ireland get on with the future.”

Ford also prioritised a smaller Assembly from 2016. The last manifesto envisaged a reduction from 108 to 80 members. The public had the chance to “apply pressure” for political change “four times over the next three years” over the electoral cycle.

Gavin Robinson, the prospective DUP candidate in East Belfast, came in for particular criticism after supporting Ruth Patterson during the court case over her facebook comments. Ford claimed that Alliance had “real prospects” in the European and council elections.

“We aren’t the moderates in Northern Ireland politics,” he added. “We’re the radicals. We don’t fit the unionist versus nationalist mould of Northern Ireland politics. We were made to smash it.”

Haass

Naomi Long thanked the interest groups and members of the public who had “invested hope” in the [Haass] process “and whose hope was matched by our commitment to do all in our power to make the process a success.”

The Haass proposals on the past would, in her view, address victims’ needs with “integrity and compassion” and in a more comprehensive way. Much of this work, though, had been undermined by the “tawdry, shabby side deal” over on-the-run IRA suspects.

She added that the main parade-related problems were “attitudes and behaviours” rather than the Parades Commission. Unionist voters, she commented, were irritated by flag-flying on lamp-posts “just as much as Alliance ones.”

Long’s upbringing was in “a traditional working class family in loyalist inner East Belfast” and she decided to stay in Northern Ireland after graduating from university in 1994. Her rise to becoming an MP “shows what any one of us can achieve if we are willing to step forward to meet the challenge of changing Northern Ireland for the better.”

The conference was addressed by Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore and Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Ivan Lewis who both defended the OTR deal as necessary for the peace process, despite widespread criticism in Northern Ireland.

Anna Lo sought to change the narrative over her comments on the constitutional question by putting forward a “united Northern Ireland” as her main motivation. She said that politicians with “orange and green lenses” were “incapable of seeing beyond sectarianism.”

On Europe, she was pleased to see the “bridging of divisions” across the continent and by accepting members from different constitutional backgrounds, the party would “mirror the society we are striving to achieve.”

Lo’s views were strongly rejected by the main unionist parties but she has a clear right to hold and express them. As that is her personal opinion, it would have been dishonest for Lo to express support for the union or remain uncommitted when she was interviewed by the Irish News.

Richard Haass also made a telling comment in his recent evidence to Congress. He recognised that as well as unionists and nationalists, there were “many in Northern Ireland who are not politically aligned but simply want to have a better understanding of the past and more reason to look forward to the future.”

Two councillors, Mervyn Jones and Geraldine Rice, have indicated that Lo’s words may hinder their own election campaigns. The party already faces several difficult electoral contests in the greater Belfast area in the aftermath of the flags dispute. Former party official Gerry Lynch has said that some members would be “privately fuming” over the story.

Alliance’s growth has been one of the key trends in Northern Irish politics since 2007 and the May election results will give a clear insight into its fortunes and the distribution of its votes across the main constituencies, which will be all-important in the Westminster and Assembly polls.

Partition and colonialism

By describing herself as “anti-colonial”, Anna Lo has drawn attention to whether the partition of Ireland should be seen in that light. Under the Act of Union 1800, Ireland was fully represented in the Westminster Parliament unlike the rest of the British Empire.

However, the British Colonial Secretary (then Winston Churchill) took part in the talks over the partition of Ireland. Churchill signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921. This suggests that Westminster considered Irish policy to be a partly colonial matter at that time.

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