Opinion

The time has now arrived for unionists to tell Orange Order some home truths

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.

The protest camp at Twaddell Avenue
The protest camp at Twaddell Avenue The protest camp at Twaddell Avenue

THIS morning we will learn if the parading deal at Ardoyne survives dissident republican sabotage.

Of wider concern is that the deal owes nothing to mainstream unionist leadership. Throughout the three years of Camp Twaddell’s ridiculous and plainly doomed protest, the DUP has hung around wondering only how to hitch then unhitch itself from the caravan. The UUP has been no better.

Sinn Féin stood up to dissidents in Ardoyne but it took unelected loyalists standing up to the Orange Order to make the unionist side come to its senses. This is doubly pathetic when both main unionist parties can so readily talk sense to the many, many Orangemen in their ranks. Now the brethren are ‘home’, it is time they were told some home truths.

**

Stormont’s first ‘opposition day’ debate since devolution was hardly worth the 17-year wait. The SDLP called on the economy minister to “intervene meaningfully” to preserve rural bank branches. UUP and Alliance members joined in the grandstanding, gurning on behalf of their constituents, before minister Simon Hamilton regretfully noted there is nothing he can do about bank closures anyway - financial regulation is not devolved.

There may also be nothing Stormont should do to intervene in private business decisions. However, little was said on that as introducing an opposition apparently does not mean introducing any ideological distinctions. The debate itself was an unwitting reminder of how the world changes. When bank and building society branches started proliferating in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, residents and retailers usually complained they were killing town centres.

**

While the opposition cranks the parish pump, the executive is becoming ever more watertight. Sinn Féin and the DUP joined forces in the assembly to stop UUP and SDLP questions about Nama, leading the SDLP to accuse the governing parties of a “non-aggression pact”.

One question that could have been asked is what Sinn Féin gets out of this arrangement - silence on last year’s IRA-linked murders in Belfast, perhaps? Some validity must also be acknowledged in the executive’s argument, which is that Stormont inquiries are pointless now that cross-border criminal investigations are underway.

**

Jeremy Corbyn appears to have moved on the question of standing candidates in Northern Ireland. Interviewed at his party’s conference, the Labour leader said he would “consider” reversing the ban, adding that he wants to “hear all sides” and “have a discussion over the next few months.” These words would normally be seen as transparent political evasion but of course Corbyn is above such Blairite mendacity.

Asked during the same interview about his links to Sinn Féin, Corbyn mentioned the Good Friday Agreement and said: “I have always reached out to everybody.” No unionists, loyalists or even members of Labour’s SDLP sister party seem to remember that but no doubt Corbyn’s messages on their answering machines were deleted by the neoliberal media.

**

The rights and equality sectors are once again confusing their political leanings with the peace process. At a seminar entitled ‘Brexiting and Rights’, organised by Ulster University, the Equality Coalition and the Committee for the Administration of Justice, speakers claimed leaving the EU is a deliberate agenda to attack rights and equality which will erode or invalidate large parts of the Good Friday Agreement.

This is all reminiscent of the Bill of Rights project, which the Equality Coalition was formed to promote and during which we were wrongly warned of the same thing if a left-wing wish list was not put into law. Should this conference have been called ‘Brexiting and Sore Losers’?

**

Northern Ireland’s universities are facing a pincer movement on undergraduate fees. On one side, the Welsh government has just put annual fees up from £3,900 to £9,000, further exposing Stormont’s staggering subsidy for what is, for most students, little more than a middle-class adult initiation ritual.

On the other pincer, the UK government wants to link the fees each university can charge to the quality of undergraduate teaching, via a standardised assessment. This is a particular challenge for Queen’s. The elite Russell Group of universities, of which it is a member, wants to opt out of the system in the belief that its standards should speak for themselves. Queen’s is by far the lowest-ranked Russell Group member, having apparently been admitted for geographical completeness, so its teaching standards do not speak for themselves.

**

Dissident republicans have launched a socialist political party, endorsed by the New IRA. It has opened an office in Belfast and promises a working-class politics of “principle rather than personality”. However, there must be concerns that its name - Saoradh - could hamper efforts to attract Protestant support. Chairman Davy Jordan, currently out on bail on charges of attempting to kill a police officer, should consider including the English translation ‘Liberation’ on the party’s logo. It need not be above the Irish, obviously, but it should at least be of the same size and typeface.

newton@irishnews.com