The Millennium Irritant.

Friday 27 October 2006

David Cameron’s view on the future of Ulster. (Belfast Telegraph … 26/10/2006).

I really didn’t intend to put David Cameron into The Millennium Irritant’s spotlight twice on consecutive days. However, I purchased a copy of yesterday’s Belfast Telegraph and discovered his article “My view on the future of Ulster”. So, having given him a bit of a verbal bashing in my piece today on Tory “green” taxes, I though it was only fair to comment on his Belfast Telegraph article.

In fact parts of Cameron’s article are quite good. He points out that “ ..the Conservative Party is the only national party that contests elections in Northern Ireland” and that he wants the Party, “… nationally and locally, to play an increasingly positive rôle in helping to normalise politics in Northern Ireland.”

I can do nothing but applaud these sentiments. As one who played an active rôle in the late ‘80s to establish Conservative associations in Ulster and to achieve Party recognition for those associations, I hold that full participation of the Ulster electorate in UK political life is essential for any political development in the region. However, such development cannot take place under the present agreement (be it Good Friday or St Andrew’s) for devolved government.

In his Belfast Telegraph article Mr Cameron writes:

“ …….One step towards establishing a new kind of politics in Northern Ireland would be to restore stable political institutions that can deal locally with the issues that most concern people.

I support devolution because I believe that government is better when it is closer to the people.

An Assembly will give people here far more accountable government than will ever be the case under direct rule.

So I wish the Government well in its current initiative - and hope that it succeeds. …”

The Government’s current (and previous) initiative is to restore a local legislative assembly and executive subject to the dead hand of mandatory power-sharing. Legislated power sharing has been attempted over and over for devolved government in Ulster. It has always failed. It never manages to stagger from one election to the next. The so called “Good Friday” Agreement set up institutions which collapsed twice between the first two elections. The St Andrew’s “agreement” will fare no better.

Does Mr Cameron really foresee any political progress being made if Conservatives are elected to an Ulster Assembly only to be forced to share power with parties such as Sinn Fein or the Ulster Unionists? If he does he must have gone to Rose-Coloured Specsavers.

Normalisation of politics in Ulster requires constitutional stability. Setting up yet another mandatory power-sharing executive will continue instability. Failure of any such arrangement will almost be guaranteed between the next two assembly elections.

On 27 September, I published on this site my thoughts on the constitutional way forward for Ulster. I urge all parties to broadly adopt these proposals and forget the nonsense of mandatory power-sharing.

Meanwhile I urge everyone in the Ulster electorate to urge their MLAs to take a long holiday until after 24 November.