Reflections on the Anglo Irish Agreement

Last month saw the twenty fifth anniversary of the Anglo Irish Agreement. Brain Walker had a far from unionist friendly analysis (unsurprisingly) of it over on Slugger. The same month in 1985 as the agreement was signed, the UUP and DUP mobilised one of the largest mass protests Belfast has ever seen against the Agreement; memorably including Dr. Paisley’s iconic “Never, never, never, never” speech. The News Letter has reflections from a number of different people on that day of protest and Jim Allister has his thoughts on his website.

The long term effect on unionists in general is probably difficult to gauge and no doubt differs between different unionists.

by Turgon

Filed under: Uncategorized, Anglo Irish Agreement, DUP, UUP

Thoughts on Robinson’s Education speech

By Turgon

Many people have given their views on Peter Robinson’s now infamous speech on Integrated Education a few weeks ago. The reaction to the speech has been interesting if predictable. The speech itself, however, is one of the cleverest pieces of politics in the last number of years in Northern Ireland and marks the first time in a long time that Robinson has managed to be both tactically and strategically cunning; though his ability to implement his strategy is of course significantly limited by the coalition arrangements which he and Dr. Paisley before him have been trapped in since the DUP entered power sharing.

Robinson’s call for integrated education managed to wrong foot nationalism to a very significant degree. The narrative preferred by many within nationalism and republicanism is that they are the progressive force within NI politics. Robinson, however, by this speech managed to claim the mantle of the liberal, progressive forces on this issue. There are valid arguments to be made in favour of allowing faith based education but Robinson reasonably pointed out that in a divided society such as Northern Ireland this is highly problematic.

Filed under: DUP, Education, DUP, education, Peter Robinson

Union 2021: ‘Unity could help deliver a positive vision for unionism’

DUP MLA Arlene Foster has contributed to The News Letter’s Union 2021 series of articles. This latest article appeared in the News Letter on September 11…

A positive unionism open to all would demonstrate the narrowness and restrictiveness of Irish nationalism…

WHEN I began my political involvement in unionism there was a debate raging within it.

The debate was characterised by the term ‘New Unionism’. What we have seen since then has been the outworking of that debate.

For someone who was deeply involved in the discussions around ‘New Unionism’ it became apparent to me there was a division within those who used the term.

Some simply wished to find a term to hide their intellectual poverty and desire to cut a deal at any costs with nationalism. Others wanted it to mean a Unionism better at all that it did including negotiations.

I was never among the former group, the defeatists but I always wanted a better, more strategic, confident and professional unionism.

Filed under: Union 2021, unionist unity?, Arlene Foster, DUP

Interview with Paul Givan…

Below is a short interview with DUP MLA Paul Givan. I caught up with Paul at Stormont last week to discuss some of the things that will be topping his agenda over the coming weeks. I’m hoping to go back to Paul later in the year for an update.

Many thanks to Paul and the DUP press office for being so accommodating.

As stated previously, I’m interested in picking up short clips with public reps and party officers of all Unionist parties. These can be done in about 20 minutes and will be edited down to around 4 to 5 minutes in duration. There’s no pressure, I’m interested in simply hearing about why people got into politics and what issues they are pursuing. I’m based in Belfast (near Stormont) so if party officers, political reps, candidates etc are in the neighbourhood, I’ll do what I can to take a short clip. Drop me an email at openunionism – at – googlemail – dot – com

I also promise to work hard on my interview style.

Filed under: interview clips, DUP, Lagan Valley, Paul Givan, Stormont