Thursday, June 12, 2008
An Opportunity for Conservatives in Northern Ireland?
I suspect that there are a number of DUP supporters and voters in Ulster who do not agree with what their party leadership yesterday. This presents an opportunity for the Conservatives in Northern Ireland. Their take on the vote is HERE. I'm not too familiar with how the Conservative Party is organised there, or how they have been doing since the relative demise of the UUP, but I do know they have a very committed band of activists who are keen to grow the party's base.
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22 comments:
Even today I am still trying to get to grips with how deceitful the DUP were yesterday. It is something when so-called "Unionists" are the very people that sold out the British people for thirty pieces of silver. A bloody disgrace.
What did Brown really give Paisley Bob , you are a eunuch of the Westminster Harem Iain you must know , tell us ?
Its an interesting side issue that the invidious position Scots having their own Parliament and yet voting in ours , is often the subject of outrage. Importing votes N Ireland is not only because they are rarely crucial . This is why I think the best way forward for Scotland is simply to reduce the number of MPs. They have absolutely nothing to do anyway.
With the gigantic amount of English tax payers money going to N Ireland the votes are in the PM`s pocket if he really needs them . Its a model of the sort of one Party democracy an overwhelming Public sector country will end up with .
No democracy at all . This is why the phrase Democratic Socialism is if anything less meaningful than the phrase “hot ice”. ...as Soljenitsin pointed out
It shows just how perverted the DUP's definition of Unionism has become. Unionism for the DUP is really all about little Ulster and very little about the Union. We hope, as Conservatives in Northern Ireland, that this means that the gloves are off and that the Conservatives will contest every Ulster seat in the general election. Because with friends like the DUP and Ulster Unionists (all of whom voted with the government yesterday), who needs enemies?
Eh?
DUP voters probably think 42 days of jail is too good for them and they should just be shot.
You don't know much about the North of Ireland, do you Iain?
More power to the local Tories elbow. Lady Sylvia Hermon's vote was not a surprise - David Trimble must be furious
Nice thought Iain, but its pie in the sky.
Frankly unionists in Ulster remember what the Conservative party did for unionism through the Anglo-Irish Agreement etc etc.
I can't wait for the Tory candidate to come to my door and castigate Ulster politicians for taking a tough stance on terrorism.
I suppose "just call me Dave" will take Hugh Orde's other piece of advice and open talks with Al Queda next then.
Get real Iain.
You don't think Unionists have forgotten the betrayal of the Anglo-Irish Agreement do you?
As the people of Scotland know, the Conservative Party, whatever it may say, is, when push comes to shove, an English Party that looks after English interests.
How can the tories have a chane in Northner Ireland Will their policy be vote for us we are weak on terror. I suppose they could win some votes from Sinn fein LOL.
Ian Paisley last years said that Northern Irleand's problems was caused by English MP's that did not understand the Irish. Some unionist he turned out to be.
Didn't you call them "duplicitous bastards" a moment ago?
Why remove it?
What the DUP did was essentially un-British. They should expect people to draw the appropriate conculsion about them from that.
Oddly they have greatly weakened the Union they claim to want to preserve.
It is also worth noting that its Scotsmen and Ulstermen who have sold out historic English freedoms, which the rest of the Union managed to gain access to through the Union.
Their betrayal will not be forgotten quickly.
If you aren't familiar, then why don't you look them up?
http://conservativesni.net/our-election-commitments/
I can't quite follow why a Northern Ireland individual wouldn't support a 42 day detention policy for terrorist suspects - they tend to be relatively experienced in terrorist issues.
Wasn't it Tory policy to hamper terrorism by replacing their voices?
It is illuminating that only one Conservative MP takes the other view - that our civil liberties afford us quite enough protection without playing into the hands of the real liars.
ps I'm using the "anonymous" button so that you can make you risible "haven't got the guts to put a name in" remark.
Lets get real here.
What really annoys most people who are bitter is that this vote has been percieved to be won by Northern Ireland MPs. The same comes around when Scottish MPs are seen to hold the balance of power.
The UK has 4 constituent parts and all its MPs have an equal vote. Frankly if the vote had been simply won by English MP then there wouldn't be half the hue and cry.
The most unBritish thing about the whole issue is that people believe that some parts of the UK are more British than others.
All are equal in some minds clearly, but some are more equal than others.
I couldn't give a stuff about the Tories, they were happy to bring us internment without trial and to impose the Anglo-Irish Agreement over the heads of the people here.
Where was the talk of "erosion of liberties" when the Tories rammed through legislation which fundamentally weakened the Union and gave the Republic of Ireland a direct say in the running of a part of the UK?
All these Tories living in the safe shires now venting their spleens would do well to remember that every single DUP MP and Lady Sylvia Hermon have lived under death threat from terrorists for various lengths of time.
The IRA actually attempted to assasinate William McCrea MP three or four times. Gregory Campbell had a bomb strapped under his car that fortunately didn't go off. The IRA tried to murder Nigel Dodds when he was visiting his severely disabled sone in hospital. So save your faux-outrage.
Why would anyone be in any way surprised that people who have suffered hardship like that would support strong anti-terror measures?
Furthermore, the position of the Tories is entirely self-serving. Does anyone seriously believe that every single Conservative MP bar one is against the idea of 42 day detention? Nonsense.
This was an opportunity to wound Brown and the ire being poured out at the Unionists is because they denied the opportunity to the Opposition to do so.
The DUP, the SDLP and the Liberal Democrats were the only parties who voted yesterday in accordance with their real principles. For Labour this was an opportunity to talk tough on terror. For the Tories an opportunity to inflict a blow on the government. A little less histrionics please.
'All these Tories living in the safe shires now venting their spleens would do well to remember that every single DUP MP and Lady Sylvia Hermon have lived under death threat from terrorists for various lengths of time.'
As an Ulster Tory can I just say what twaddle!
Yes they LIVED under a terrorist threat. Airey Neave and Ian Gow unfortuantely died.
Countless Tory MPs - esp former NIO Ministers in particular have lived under similar threats
Incidentally Gow was hugely supportive of the Party getting its finger out and becoming active in NI
I hope the Tories do contest every seat in Northern Ireland, which will only benefit the DUP. Everyone knows that Conservative votes in Ulster are at the expense of the Ulster Unionist Party. DUP voters tend to be working-class Prods who remember Thatcher's treachery over the Anglo-Irish agreement - you're more likely to get a Glaswegian shipbuilder or a Durham miner to voter Tory.
Hilarious! The Irish Parties would have a better chance of organising successfully in the North than the Tories especially, but Labour also.
Anonymous 11.58pm Seems you don't remember the Brighton bomb, then, or Airey Neave. Conservative politicians have been killed by the IRA/INLA/other republican terrorists from NI. We don't forget. But we don't allow our contempt for their actions to blind us to the need to maintain, as far as possible, the individual, historic liberties of the people. We do not, and will not, allow the power of the state to multiply at the expense of the individual without an overwhelming case for that change being made. It was manifestly NOT made in this case, and, as a Conservative, I would have voted against the proposals with a clear conscience if I had been an MP.
I can tell you, that the Conservative parties organisation in NI, is pathetic, Ammounting to no more than a diner club, and a website run by a single minded "blogger" who repeatidy rhymmes off his own opinions, were the Conservatives have no policy.
I would love nothing more than to see the Conservatives win 18MPs in NI as a party member. However we need to begin to exist politically.
The DUP are a working-class populist party economically - Old Labour without the Marxist infiltration.
Add in the old-time religion, the moral and social conservatism, the Euroscepticism and the support for grammar schools (again, all redolent of Very Old Labour, pre-Blairite because pre-Bennite), and it is impossible to see what a Cameron-led party has to offer them or their voters.
A Davis-led party, on the other hand...
All these people with this talk about the DUP 'selling out' for 'pieces of silver' clearly are not from Northern Ireland, are clearly completely ignorant as to what the DUP stands for.
You must remember that Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that was under threat from a sustained terrorist campaign for over 35 years. The DUP want to clamp down on terrorism in any way possible, for they represent the British people that have suffered from it the most. Therefore, the DUP would ALWAYS have voted fo such a bill, no matter what the circumstances.
The Conservatives in Northern Ireland are delusional. Jeff Peel their policy and education spokesman hasn't wakened up to the reality that the Cameron-led Conservatives do not support academic selection. He should have a chat with Michael Gove sometime or read the policy. Instead Peel twitters on about support for AQE, an organisation infiltrated by anti-selection interests. The AQE have close links with the DUP. No wonder the electorate in Northern Ireland are doomed to dictatorship.
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