Mid-Ulster by-election

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Until very recently Northern Ireland was the only part of the planet that you could not be a member of the Labour Party.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And, of course, such people never define themselves as 'Unionist'.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That's not possible, even as a hypothetical. You would just have new 'regional' parties springing up, pretty much immediately. Though (and this is a different matter entirely) somewhere like Northern Ireland (postindustrial wreck of a regional economy, strong trade unions, etc) would be pretty Labour if it were in Great Britain and were 'normal' in all (or even most) respects.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Actually no.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyways, there's to be a single Unionist candidate (Nigel Lutton¹) as the DUP and UUP have done a rather tawdry² sectarian deal ala the FST failure of 2010 (and also routine practice before Good Friday 1998). As a result, the UUP have lost another MLA; John McCallister of South Down who lost his post as Deputy Leader last year for saying this sort of sectarian dickwaving was a bit sh!te.

<sub>1. Son of an IRA victim.
2. And completely pointless: McGuinness polled an absolute majority in 2010 and Sinn Fein (with 49%) led a hypothetically combined DUP/UUP by over 20pts in the 2011 elections.</sub>

[Filuwaúrdjan]

To be less coy: the next MP for Mid Ulster will be Francie Molloy. Back in 2007 Francie Molloy was named in the Commons by David Simpson as a suspect in the murder of one Eric Lutton in 1979.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Basil McCrea (Lagan Valley) has gone as well.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That's what McCrea intends to do. A sort of second coming of the UPNI, perhaps. You have to wonder what the point would be given that most of the target market now vote Alliance. But then even UPNI II would have more of a point than the UUP.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

His reasoning otoh... ‘riven with personal and policy difficulties’,  ‘politically exhausted’, ‘I don’t think they have any new ideas or big ideas‘ is spot on. That party has become entirely useless&pointless.

Basically, yep.