Opinion

A peaceful Twelfth means a peaceful north Belfast

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.

We have had the most peaceful Twelfth in years
We have had the most peaceful Twelfth in years We have had the most peaceful Twelfth in years

We have had the most peaceful Twelfth in years but few seem to be asking why. The PSNI is crediting "months of preparation" with "many groups and partners" but that work has been ongoing for a decade or more. In today's terms, a peaceful Twelfth means a peaceful north Belfast, as Ardoyne has been the last contentious flashpoint for some time. Unionist political leadership remains conspicuously lacking in this dispute and the Orange Order backed out of a deal at the last minute. Sinn Féin has been calming the situation but that has only emboldened dissident rivals to inflame it. The missing piece of the puzzle seems to be loyalists, who are no longer prepared to take to the streets for what they have judged to be a lost Orange cause. While this is to be welcomed, public order should not be at the whim of illegal organisations - or should that be `partners'?

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Theresa May says the next UK general election will be in 2020, as scheduled under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act. Another trip to the polls is certainly the last thing anyone wants right now but the new prime minister has strong reasons to consider it in the coming months. With Labour in disarray, she could secure a personal mandate and boost the Tories' 16-seat working majority to cope with the Brexit challenge ahead. Possible times to go to the country would be after the party conference season in November or after the Article 50 lever is pulled, next January at the earliest. This means everyone at Stormont is on a quasi-election footing until further notice, with effects on our politics that alas could be all too easy to notice.

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When discussing the possibility of passport checks on the border it is worth bearing in mind that this is already a reality in Ireland, unless you are white. Everyone else can expect to be accosted on trains and buses by immigration officers and asked to prove their nationality, in a selection process based so blatantly on skin colour that it has to be seen to be believed. This happens within the common travel area because the UK and Ireland still have different visa requirements - not that this is any consolation to the British and Irish citizens singled out.

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DUP communities minister Paul Givan is responsible for culture, which this week has involved giving £200,000 to `bands' for musical instruments, being photographed lighting an Eleventh Night bonfire and cutting £500,000 off the Arts Council budget. Of these three acts, the first two have exacerbated fury at the third so it should be noted that Arts Council funding is not the same thing as arts funding. Last year the Arts Council spent £13m, of which £3m was staff and operating costs, with almost all the remainder disbursed as grants. Why should giving away money have an overhead of 30 per cent? Bear in mind this is on top of administrative costs within Givan's department.

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Sinn Féin infrastructure minister Chris Hazzard has stopped the compulsory fitting of water meters to new houses. The Ulster Farmer's Union says this is "discriminatory", because its members and other business are metered and charged separately for water. The sullen sense of grievance and entitlement revealed by this complaint is extraordinary. Householders in Northern Ireland contribute to water via the rates, while most businesses also pay commercial rates. But surprise, surprise, farmland has been exempt from rates since 1929, while farmhouses receive a 20 per cent rates reduction for no apparent reason whatsoever. This is without even mentioning the 87 per cent of average farm income paid directly as an annual grant.

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In a letter to the press, Tom Cooper of the Irish National Congress has said: "No senior elected unionist is willing to enter a Catholic church." This claim is completely groundless. Senior DUP and UUP politicians regularly enter Catholic churches, for civic and religious reasons. In 2011, after visiting a Catholic church in Belfast, Peter Robinson made a point of saying he would attend Mass. Also that year, UUP leader Tom Elliot and minister Danny Kennedy faced an Orange Order complaint for attending the funeral of Constable Ronan Kerr, after which unionism impressed upon the brethren that such complaints should never be heard again. The Dublin-based Irish National Congress describes itself as a non-sectarian peace organisation - a cause not assisted by spreading divisive nonsense.

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Brexit has been the latest cause of loyalist activist Jamie Bryson, yet he was not always a Eurosceptic. His first foray into electoral politics was in 2010, when he was a founder member of Community Partnerships Northern Ireland, a short-lived political party. Its first campaign involved picketing the offices of North Down Borough Council, which it accused of "failings" in distributing EU peace funds. Strictly speaking, this made him a Bangorsceptic.