No date in sight for devolved policing in NI

Policing and justice powers will not be passed to the Northern Ireland Assembly within two years of the restoration of devolution, the DUP has claimed.

North Belfast MP Nigel Dodds said it would take longer for unionists to trust Sinn Fein to take responsibility for security

news.bbc.co.uk...

What does Dodds think he is? This is like a one step foward, one step back routine. SF are trying to progress and get a deal done, while the DUP are just making more hurdles.

SF had destroyed its links with the IRA, and the IRA have decommisioned, but the DUP still call SF terriosts, even when the DUP has links to the loyalist paramilitiries, and it still looks like they don't want to progress and give up their arms!

I have to agree with Gerry Adams (for once) in his speech at St.Andrews. He said that republicans are to blame as well for the troubles in Northern Ireland history, but they have moved forward and done everything that has been asked of them.

even when the DUP has links to the loyalist paramilitiries, and it still looks like they don't want to progress and give up their arms

thats an excellent point. Seeings my mother is from Ulster, i asked her this question and she said its because nobody believes the IRA has given up its weapons, especially the DUP.

DUP are playing a dangerous game, if the next UK general election is going to be a hung parliament than Northern Ireland parties, like the DUP, may be called to join a coalition but who would want a bunch of hardline 1960's style Unionists in power?

It's just typical DUPer wriggling and trying to 'shift the goal-posts' to avoid a signing up to a deal.

That's their 'form', shouting criticism from the side-lines whilst being absolutely sure to remain utterly free of any responsibility or duty to anything agreed.

They stood in the last NI Assembly elections (2003) promising they could 'deliver' political progress here.
They lied.
As per.
It's quite clear their idea of political progress is no actual political progress at all.
Obstructionism, that's all they have to actually offer anyone and meantime the world passes NI by.

The last one they tried, just before St Andrews, was that the IRA or Sinn Fein had to hand back any and everything it had ever acquired illegally
(that got quickly forgotten as totally unworkable and so obviously an attempt to stall talks).

The only good thing in all of this is that it high-lights the truth that the DUP don't have the kind of power they like to pretend they have.

They can attempt to obstruct and delay as much as they like but the fact remains that under 'Direct Rule' it is the UK Gov that has the final say over unionist demands
(which is a pretty fair description of their negotiating 'technique' IMO......ie they don't, they merely channel their demands through the UK Gov).
They won't, even now, negotiate face to face with Sinn Fein - they leave others do the hard work of forming relationships, seeking common ground and compromising where possible (in other words the actual and real 'hard work' of any protracted negotiation).

This is made even more pathetic as they now wish to claim that it is they who are responsible for the recent IRA decommissioning and the political progress seen to date - which at least half their party deny actually has happened.
Naturally their own refusal to get directly involved - or the years of hard work of the others actually directly involved - just gets ignored.

They really are a dishonest, contradictory and pathetic bunch.
But such is 'our' largest single political party here in NI.....but thankfully their 25 - 32% support does not make a majority of anything.

The UK Gov will hear them and then act in cooperation with the Gov of the RoI and those actions are also fully informed by frequent and direct consultation and contact with nationalists and republicans.
But it won't be a DUPer deciding anything, such is 'Direct Rule'.

They really dumb thing in all this is that nationalists and republicans are not even the ones who are so fixated on devolved Gov in NI.
Their preference is a united Ireland so whilst a (sort of) half-way house of agreed devolved local Gov is preferable and better than Direct Rule and nothing it is not the 'be-all and end-all' to them.
They are perfectly happy to side-step the nonsense and obstruction of the DUPer types and deal direct with HM's Gov in concert with the Gov of the RoI as well as the USA & EU as and when appropriate.

......and as for a UK Parliament dependant and at the behest of the DUPer MP's?



That is merely a delusional and thoroughly risible DUPer wet dream they love to raise from time to time (some of them wishfully 'thought' that Labour would be in that position now ).
It'll never happen.
Ever.

The plain fact is that it would simply be political suicide for the major serious British political parties to go into any kind of dependant coalition with them
(it was bad enough last time Major and the torys got into bed with the more moderate Ulster Unionist Party during David Trimble's time).

The (in recent times much hidden) huge streak of appalling 17th century anti-Roman Catholic naked sectarianism would be revealed to the rest of the UK as never before and that is never going to be attractive - or acceptable - to the vast bulk of the rest of the UK electorate who are far more moderate and 'modern' in their outlook.

The DUP have become a political grouping that are, excepting parts of NI and across the rest of the UK, a by-word for 'basket-case', ugly base prejudice, ignorance, tragic stupidity, political backward-ness, grotesquely sectarian bigotry and idiotic sheer bloody-minded intransigence
(and that's with a public that is by and large relatively ignorant of the details of how they carry on here in NI).

The really tragic thing is that the DUPers never care to admit to their 'support' in NI just how low they have helped bring their 'name' across the rest of the UK.

At Westminster they are considered weird incorrigible sectarian time-warpers and there is much smirking behind their backs (tory, LibDem and Labour).

It's also worth noting that during the time of a 'hung Parliament' the UK electoral record is that on the rare occasions when a general election fails to produces a workable majority there is almost always another election called very shortly after.
That 2nd general election acts to rouse the British voter to turn out in greater numbers to give a more certain answer.

There is no way the rest of the (highly secular) UK would ever stand for or accept the malign influence of a bunch of 17th century-minded fundy religious bigots having the deciding say on policy for the rest of the UK.

......it's tragic enough that it is just NI that is blighted with that situation.


[edit on 31-10-2006 by sminkeypinkey]