Northern Ireland General Discussion

[ObserverIE]

Something I came across recently is that for whatever reason, there are more Mormons in Northern Ireland than in the Republic. I wonder what party they tend to vote for.

I imagine DUP given that I imagine this is connected with the rise of new forms of evangelical Protestantism in NI (of course, evangelicalism itself has a long history in the North as do denominational splits. Just look at Big Iain) and those are DUP voters (if they vote). That would also explain why there are more Mormons in NI than here, which is hardly surprising..

Mormons are not quite evangelical Protestants, though, and I'm not sure that the strident wing of the DUP, who would not consider Mormons to be Christian never mind Protestant, would have much appeal for them. I suspect sizeable numbers would go with UUP or Alliance (on the "none of the above" principle) or simply not vote.

[ObserverIE]

Given that Northern Ireland is now plurality Catholic (and in fact outnumber Protestants in Belfast), does anyone see it becoming majority Catholic within the next few decades?  

The article says 48% Protestant or brought up Protestant vs. 45% Catholic or brought up Catholic. How is that a plurality?

;Regarding the constitutional issue the key figure is only 25% identifying as Irish only.

Not necessarily (election results are what will determine the constitutional issue). "Northern Irish" can be read as being a regional identity within Irishness, or as a way of avoiding a binary British/Irish choice, or as a more "polite" way of being British without associating yourself with the yahoos who present themselves as the local standard-bearers of Britishness. Whatever you say, say as little as possible, to bowdlerise Heaney.

[ObserverIE]

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Back in the late 80s, Iris Robinson complained to Ulsterbus on behalf of her constituents about there being Irish language signage on suburban buses.

The signage was an ad for language courses in the Alliance Française.

[ObserverIE]

Oh dear

Surprising. I thought they had changed it long time ago.

They changed the name of the local authority which covers the city ages ago. The legally-defined city, a much smaller area, is still officially "Londonderry" and would need permission from the British Privy Council for its name, defined in a royal charter, to be changed. SF have been unwilling to go through with this step, at least until now, because of their own party theology.

The county surrounding it is another matter altogether.

[ObserverIE]

That I get.

But can someone tell me why IRA front groups assuming the form of anti drug vigilantes are actually killing drug dealers? Are these all Unionist drug dealers? Is there some kind of history? Are they aiming for plausible deniability? Or so they just want an excuse to kill people?

Drug dealers shot by Republican paramilitaries are from their own side of the fence.

This current spate of killings is a feud between two groups of ex-Provisional IRA men in Belfast. The story as retailed by Henry McDonald in the Guardian is that McGuigan was planning to take out other ex-IRA leaders after having shot Davison and that the shooting of McGuigan was a pre-emptive strike. (McDonald is an ex-Stick and is not notably friendly to the Provisionals so has no motive to minimise any SF connection.) The Phoenix (Irish equivalent of Private Eye) has a similar story in the current issue.

[ObserverIE]

Assembly pass gay marriage, but DUP veto.

Why?

The DUP have a veto because they posted a "petition of concern" which allows a motion to pass only if it obtains a majority of both Unionists and Nationalists in support.

The mechanism was originally designed to prevent one side forcing through legislation over the heads of the other, but it now tends to be used by both larger parties to prevent anything inconvenient to either of them getting passed.

Only four Unionists voted in favour of the motion - three independent unionists (McCrea, McCallister and Sugden) who have always voted in favour plus one newly co-opted Ulster Unionist (Allen). This doesn't represent a major shift in opinion on the Unionist side; one Unionist who voted in favour of it last year (Kinahan) has left the Assembly on his election as an MP, and the UUP leader (Nesbitt) abstained.

What made the difference is that a couple of the more socially-conservative Alliance members (Lunn and Cochrane) voted in favour this year, having voted No abstained last year.

[ObserverIE]

I think this will make FFs plans of entering Northern politics more realistic. There should be a (although relatively small) market for a SoCon centre-right option among Catholics. This vote could be the opening.

There's no appreciable difference on either abortion or gay marriage between the positions of FF and the SDLP, and the current FF leadership is positioning itself economically as being ever-so-slightly left-of-centre, at least in terms of rhetoric.

[ObserverIE]

There is a week till the Schoolteachers, Doctors and Lawyers Party chose whether to stick with McDonnell or choose a young guy whose defining characteristic is being not McDonnell. Party members seem increasingly desperate to stop the rot (they've never gained seats in the history of the Assmebly and have been bleeding votes at every election for a whole).

I realize this is facetious of course, but it got me wondering: what are the social bases of the NI political parties (other than the obvious religious divide) - as in income, educational levels, gender, etc.? I seem to recall from an earlier discussion here that the Protestant working class vote was clearly in favour of the DUP, but other than that I've read little about this issue.

The DUP tends to be stronger among evangelical Protestants in general, in working-class urban areas, and among self-perceived outsiders within Unionism. The UUP is very much a deferential "old money" party and tends to be stronger among Anglicans (Arlene Foster is a prominent exception, although also a defector from the UUP to the DUP). The DUP is more explicitly socially conservative than the UUP, although the difference isn't always noticeable. There's a similarity to the FF/FG divide in the South, although DUPers tend to have none of FFers' personal charm (but given some of the rumblings about relationships with property developers, they may have all of FF's ethics problems).

Alliance tends to attract "let's get along" bourgeois types in Belfast and its surrounds who identify as being progressive (primarily ecumenical Christian more than secularist).

The "Schoolteachers, Doctors and Lawyers" jibe was originally aimed at the SDLP's leadership cadre more than at its membership. SF dominates the urban and rural working-class vote outside of Derry city and south Down, leaving the SDLP with that section of the middle-class vote that is more uncomfortable about the (fading but not yet absent) echoes of the paramilitary campaign.

[ObserverIE]

Northern Ireland isn't allowed to have democracy. Thats the whole point of the GFA: no one ever gets to implement their (inevitably horrific) platform and elections serve as a means of apportioning patronage and public money.

The problem is that Northern Ireland's "democracy" is based on voting for the party that's closest to your religious ideology - if one party ever got a majority, there would be religious tensions again. The closest NI gets to having a democratic vote is in the UK General Election - where their vote doesn't matter.

It's really about ethnic identity and power relations rather than religious ideology - large numbers of unionists did not become Free Presbyterians or evangelical Protestants just because they switched from the UUP towards the DUP. It's just that in Northern Ireland ethnic identity and religious background (not necessarily practice) tend to coincide.

[ObserverIE]

Where do the TUV and ALL parties fall on the unionist-nationalist spectrum?

"ALL" is Alliance, so neither Unionist with a big U nor Nationalist with a big N, but their voters would presumably break for the status quo in a border poll.  The Greens are also neither Unionist nor Nationalist.

Seven years ago that would have been true but Brexit has undermined a lot of previous assumptions. One of the defining features of Alliance support is being pro-EU and what polling we've seen suggests that a plurality of Alliance voters are now small-n nationalist.

"TUV" is Traditional Unionist Voice: people who think the DUP have gone soft.

TUV is Ulster Scots for Herstigte Nasionale Party.

[ObserverIE]

Seven years ago that would have been true but Brexit has undermined a lot of previous assumptions. One of the defining features of Alliance support is being pro-EU and what polling we've seen suggests that a plurality of Alliance voters are now small-n nationalist.

Yeah, Brexit has upended things so much that we've moved from a situation where, frankly, even a Northern Ireland with a substantial but not overwhelming Catholic absolute majority would probably not actually vote for unification, to one where the longterm future is genuinely unclear. Backing it has been a spectacular own-goal even by the standards of the Unionist parties.

Having a series of governments in London who have been at best obsessed with a blinkered ideological nationalism over any attempt at competence and at worst actively malevolent has served to shift the balance as well. Apart from the brief interregnum of Julian Smith there have been a series of NI secretaries since at least 2010 who have been incompetent, dishonest, or both.

I would say that the long-term future is actually pretty clear because of the above factors as well as the fact that the demographic profile of the median voter in NI has changed and will continue to change. EU membership meant that the precise status of NI didn't matter that much for ordinary life; Brexit and the seemingly desperate attempt on the part of Westminster to maximize the differences between the UK and the EU 27 (and domestically having Frost and Truss playing footsie with the DUP and - even more poisonously - "Loyalist community leaders" who everyone knows are paramilitaries and drug-gangs) has made that impossible. Labour in power may stop aggravating the situation but they're unlikely to be able to undo the damage.