Opinion

Tom Kelly: Middle ground owes it to Lyra McKee to show leadership

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly is an Irish News columnist with a background in politics and public relations. He is also a former member of the Policing Board.

A message of condolence for 29-year-old journalist Lyra McKee which has been graffittied on to Free Derry Corner. Picture by Joe Boland/PA Wire 
A message of condolence for 29-year-old journalist Lyra McKee which has been graffittied on to Free Derry Corner. Picture by Joe Boland/PA Wire  A message of condolence for 29-year-old journalist Lyra McKee which has been graffittied on to Free Derry Corner. Picture by Joe Boland/PA Wire 

Watching Pat Hume cross the Peace Bridge in Derry with US Speaker Nancy Pelosi reminded me of the hope that these two formidable women represent.

Both have left considerable footprints. A mere 24 hours later in that same city another woman was stepping out to do her job. Although young, this woman was already leaving footprints as a journalist, writer and campaigner. This woman was not to get the opportunities that a full life afforded to Pat Hume or Nancy Pelosi to stride forward in the the world.

Lyra McKee was murdered. Murdered without a second thought on the streets of a city whose people have had their fill of murder. Murdered by a hand that didn’t care. Murdered by a mindset that will regard Lyra McKee as an unintended casualty of a conflict. Murdered for an ideology that is perverted. Murdered by someone who is unlikely to have any sleepless nights.

Listening to my fellow columnist, Leona O’Neill, describe the last moments of Lyra McKee's life was heart-wrenching - not least because wife and mother Leona could have been a victim too. Thanks to social media her children worried that she too was unsafe. They are likely to have sleepless nights when their mother goes out to do her job to cover other riots. Leona may have restless nights too when she reflects on the events of the early hours of Good Friday 2019.

Before this tragic event took place I had been watching The View on BBC. I felt rather hopeful for a change. Alliance, the UUP and SDLP had refreshing new youthful speakers. I was particularly struck by the contribution of Crossmaglen councillor, Pete Byrne. He spoke authoritatively and was unfazed by the hectoring of veteran broadcaster Mark Carruthers. Watching the programme I mused that across the political spectrum the generational baton has definitely passed on. Even in the backwoods world of the DUP they are fielding their first openly lesbian politician.

Then came the news from Derry and it was like being jettisoned back to the 1980s. There was nothing redeeming about those years. They were dark terrifying days in so many ways. Almost daily there were tears shed in someone’s home. Tears caused by violence.

Over the past two years there are those who for their own political ends have deliberately tried to downplay the threat to our stability from dissident republicans. The same people have shamelessly ignored the very active presence of loyalist paramilitaries. We cannot afford to live by a nod and a wink approach to paramilitaries. While the prospect of a large scale return to the violence we knew is currently not a prospect - would it really take much to push us back? I think not. Our politics is the politics of hate. There is no respect or reason at its base.

And therefore Northern Ireland remains a sectarian tinderbox. We are so swamped in identity politics that the two main and so called current custodians of the peace process that the DUP and Sinn Féin still use sectarian dog whistles to round up the voters into their respective pens.

That said it is wrong as some claim to suggest that there is no middle ground or that the middle ground isn’t significant. Those that claim otherwise want to feed the growth of cultural apartheid because it suits their political agenda in the pursuit of more ingrained identity politics.

There are now more non voters in Northern Ireland than those who vote for either of the two big parties. The middle ground parties of SDLP, UUP, Alliance and Greens still commanded between them 36.2 per cent of the vote in the last Assembly elections.

I watched an old Sky News clip of the reaction to the referendum result on the Good Friday Agreement. Two older ladies in typical Belfast style said to a reporter: “We are not going back to them days. They (the politicians) asked us to trust them. So it is over to them - so it is''. Those ladies were right. Over twenty years later the Good Friday Agreement hasn’t failed the people - but the politicians have. The so called middle ground need to find more common ground. That’s what people actually want. The leaders of the Alliance, SDLP, UUP and Greens have been coasting on the coat tails of the the DUP and Sinn Féin. They need to hold their own talks; agree a platform and present it to the people.

They owe it to Lyra McKee to have Good Friday remembered for hope - not hopelessness.