Opinion

SDLP missing the point on Orangemen on flags panel

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood and his party say that there's too many Unionists on the new&nbsp;<span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif, Arial, Verdana, &quot;Trebuchet MS&quot;;  line-height: 20.8px;">Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition</span>&nbsp;Picture by Margaret McLaughlin
SDLP leader Colum Eastwood and his party say that there's too many Unionists on the new Commission on Flags, Identity, Cult SDLP leader Colum Eastwood and his party say that there's too many Unionists on the new Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition Picture by Margaret McLaughlin

The SDLP has complained that there are too many unionists on the executive’s new Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition, sadly not known as ComFI CulTra.

Just for good measure, it has also complained that there are not enough women.

This flags up a fascinating cultural difference between the SDLP and real politicians. For the Schoolteachers, Doctors and Lawyers Party, an executive commission should be filled like a civil service recruitment exercise, aiming for representative proportions of Protestants, Catholics, men, women, men who used to be women and so on.

However, the political purpose of the commission and every contrivance like it is to lure in the protagonists of the arguments under its remit like flies to honey. As unionists cause most of the arguments with flags and ‘traditions’ in particular, the more of them trapped in this honey pot the better.

It is actually an unsubtle insult to unionism that it has to be over-represented on what is, in effect, the Stupid Arguments Commission. All that should really upset schoolteachers, doctors and lawyers about this is that mere customs and hobbies are being grandly described as “culture”.

In fairness to the SDLP, eight of the commission’s 15 members are described as non-political and were appointed through an open recruitment process, so the inclusion of two senior Orangemen and a former DUP councillor looks as questionable as every other government panel filling exercise in the history of the universe.

On the other hand, the DUP and Sinn Féin have managed to get those two senior Orangemen to sit down with two republican ex-prisoners - including a former spokesman for the Bogside Residents Group - and work towards agreement on disputes that may be stupid but which still salt the wounds of our society, year after year. That is more important than getting everyone’s monitoring form to line up with the last census.

We have been here before with the SDLP and while it was some time ago, the story is worth repeating as a cautionary tale.

In 2005, a time of intense parading violence in Belfast, former secretary of state Peter Hain appointed two Portadown Orangemen to the Parades Commission. This was a notable development, given that the Orange Order was fulminating against the commission’s very existence and still vowing to tear up the sash of anyone who dared to engage with it.

The two appointees, David Burrows and Don McKay, made hardline statements about fighting their cause “from inside the fence” but they had to do this to justify leaping over the fence, as anyone with a titter of political wit should have known. The fact that this was all a scheme by Hain, a long-time advocate of a united Ireland, should have provided a final clue to most of the population.

Instead, a lengthy pantomime ensued as nationalists and republicans attempted to remove the people they claimed they needed to talk to from the body set up to encourage parading talks.

The SDLP took an early lead on this, after it emerged that Burrows and McKay had cited Lurgan MLA Dolores Kelly as a reference on their application forms without her prior knowledge.

There is no requirement to get permission for a reference, it is arguably more credible not to clear your references in advance and both Orangemen had at least acknowledged the need for some nationalist endorsement. Yet the SDLP clutched its petticoats and shrieked as if a law had been broken and a terrible wrong perpetuated upon Kelly’s person.

This cleared the way for the Garvaghy Road residents group to bring legal action against the composition of the commission, arguing that either residents groups should be included or the Orangemen excluded. The residents won their case, then lost an appeal, then won a final appeal to the House of Lords, all based on debate about whether or not the commission had to be “balanced”. By the time this played out, Burrows and McKay were long gone.

Hain blamed the SDLP for the entire debacle, saying: “When those who have been branded for years as being part of the problem join a body that is part of the solution, then they should be supported, or at least judged on how they perform, and not be subject to hostility and abuse.”

Stormont’s new commission has addressed the only question of balance that matters, by getting both sides of the hard arguments around the table.

If the SDLP wants to contribute, perhaps it could make a helpful written submission.

newton@irishnews.com