Opinion

Sinn Féin supporters should by now they are loved for their votes

The story of Sinn Féin’s relationship with its supporters has been one of unrequited love.


Republicans were the first to be betrayed when the IRA  cessation was traded in for a partitionist deal that drove many former combatants to disown the party. Sinn Féin insiders did well out of the cosy arrangement with Westminster and continue to claim the benefits even when not working at their jobs at Stormont. They allowed the DUP to humiliate nationalists as that party trod on any aspiration of Irishness.

Sinn Féin continued to get paid. The Maze, Casement, Acht na Gaeilge and so on – the Sinn Féin leadership supervised an era of capitulation and incompetence that only ended when voters finally cried foul.


The DUP gifted many opportunities for Sinn Féin to gain the upper hand in the form of financial scandals, but these were squandered so as not to halt the gravy train. Even when the RHI debacle was made public Sinn Féin tried to save the DUP. Supporters finally woke to a party leadership that had long since trampled over every inconvenient principle on a journey that saw them lose their revolutionary way. A leadership that saw in Westminster a kindred liber-Nazi spirit – confirmed in their recent cooperation with the  English parliament to impose legislation that made the termination of Irish children in the womb easier.


Sinn Féin bided their time before dropping any pretence of wanting to protect children and will, no doubt, continue to pretend they are only supporting abortion for the hard cases and in the early stages of pregnancy – history suggests that they should not be believed.


The Labour party manifesto proposes to decriminalise abortion up to birth, opening the doors to full-term terminations for any reason. If they gain power in England then they will impose this abomination on the north.


Sinn Féin are fellow travellers with the Corbynites and can only welcome the introduction of such legislation. Sinn Féin supporters should know by now that they only love you for your vote.

GERARD HERDMAN


Belfast BT11

It appears North Antrim electorate are a very forgiving and tolerant sort

The impending election has produced a fair degree of back biting and disparaging spiteful infighting among the main characters as they jostle with each other to grab centre stage.


Meanwhile, back in the north of Ireland the theatrics have begun with the usual ‘dramatis personae’ hurling insults like confetti. The DUP, however, appear to be attempting to negate ‘the gorilla at the conference table’ hoping their supporters ignore the simple fact that they initially backed the Brexit proposed by Boris. And while the electorate may be feeling a little disconcerted and confused a further and extraordinary feat of self-aggrandising electioneering was thrust upon them. The MP for North Antrim Ian Paisley took to the internet to set up his own ‘#GoFundMe’ page for, as he put it ‘People to defend the union! Support Brexit! Deliver a better Kingdom for us all!’ This is an astonishing act of arrogance, only reaffirming his commitment to backing Boris’s


flawed deal.


The electorate of North Antrim it seems are a very tolerant and forgiving sort, proud and compassionate. However, the performance of their Member of Parliament and his respective party, with RHI and paid holidays among others on their curriculum vitae of infractions leave a lot to be desired.

KEVIN McCANN


Belfast BT1

Mr Ringland’s premise is unsustainable

Trevor Ringland’s letter – ‘Polarised politicians still pressing hate button when it comes to elections’ (November 19) – is as usual prefaced by deaths, this time in north Belfast (wonder why that constituency?). 


He acknowledges that some progress has been made in societal living and that for a huge percentage of the six county populace “making this place work”, along with constitutional preference, is paramount.

Mr Ringland opines that political parties tend to “polarise” the electorate.

Certainly there is a contradiction in the surveyed response of the electorate and electoral choice.

Moot points all.

Then Mr Ringland targets North Belfast again and he raises what I think is a central point in all his letters to your paper: “Do they (the candidates) accept that all violence outside the law was wrong?”

Basically he is suggesting that ‘the law’ is immutable, therefore cannot be broken. This argument cannot hold given that there is a thing called ‘bad law’ here, across the water and internationally.  This attitude does allow judgment to be applied not moral but judicial.


So, while I agree with Mr Ringland that we are stumbling towards mutual understanding in diversity, his premise that all action outside ‘the law’ is unjust, is not sustainable.

MANUS McDAID


Derry City

Flying in the face of common sense

It is with disbelief I read previews of the various constituencies in the looming election and Catholic’s purporting to vote for the DUP supposedly because of their anti-abortion policy.

So they will vote for a party who claim to be anti-abortion but are pro-death penalty. A party whose members threw their hats in the air at the deaths of the hunger strikers. A party who shared a platform with loyalist murderer Billy Wright and continue to have no problem associating with loyalist paramilitaries to this day.

A party who want all trappings of nationalism removed from society.

The people who say they are going to vote DUP need to have a look at themselves. To isolate one issue and ignore a multitude of others flies in the face of common sense.

JOHN McCANN


Belfast BT15