The End is Nigh, for the Unionist political parties that is! Praise the Lord!
The End is Nigh, for the Unionist political parties that is! Praise the Lord! Owen Polley, writing in the Newsletter on Monday 16 August 2021, addresses the fundamental question that will bring down the NI Unionist political establishment in May 2022. The beauty of Polley’s well-reasoned arguments is there is nothing the Unionist political establishment can do to prevent the inevitable in 9 months’ time. If you read one news article this week, please read the Newsletter’s article entitled: ‘Devolution is a disaster for the Union and has always been.’ Polley then goes on to ask the question that the most of the NI Unionist voters have been asking increasingly since 1999 when he says ‘one of Northern Ireland’s abiding political mysteries is why unionists, in political parties at least, have become so devoted to devolution.’
Philosophically, the NI Unionist political parties are tied to devolution, Polley points out that in January 2020, they surrendered far too many concessions to SF in the New Decade New Approach Deal, when paradoxically, and devolution is the political instrument that is breaking up the UK. The Unionist voters recognise this, the majority of the NI Unionist voters reject devolution, they reject SF in power, they reject power sharing with people working to bring down the UK, and they understand devolution is the driver that is destroying the unity of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. No NI Unionist voter in 2022 who believes that Stormont and devolution, (as Polley points out) has failed to deliver anything for Unionists in 20 years can ethically, or morally, cast a vote for the Unionist parties. If the NI Unionist voters wish to bring down devolution and Stormont, and a large number already do by their abstenionist voting tactics, they simply need to stay at home in May 2022; they need to hold the Unionist political parties to account; they need to ensure that the Unionist parties represent their constituents’ rather than ignoring their constituent’s wishes.
Polley goes on to point out that throughout the Covid-19 crisis, the NI Executive and all the NI political parties have been more closely allied to the Republic of Ireland’s Covid-19 strategy and in doing so they have rejected the Covid-19 strategy of Westminster and England. NI Unionist parties (and Nationalist parties) accepted the massive financial support funds from the British Exchequer and Treasury during Covid-19, but hypocritically, allied themselves to the cautionary approach of the Republic of Ireland! In doing so, our children in NI have had six months less education in school compared to school children in England over the same 15 month period! Whereas England opened up in July 2021 with mask restrictions, social distancing and numerical numbers in the open spaces all abandoned, SF who slavishly demand an All-Ireland approach to Covid-19, kept NI locked down and kept people frightened. At the same time at the Féile an Phobail, over three nights in one week, crowds of 10,000 attended events, whilst the traditional Apprentice Boys of Derry parade was reduced from 20,000 to several hundred attendees?
The time for the NI Unionist community has come to be become brave again, to throw off fear, to discover some self-respect, to protest against the NI Protocol, to hold Unionist politicians to account, to present their culture on the streets in significant numbers, to celebrate the centenary, to stop the Union Jack being denigrated and demonised, and to take a stance for the Union instead of voting for Tony Blair’s devolution project that was designed to rip the Union apart. The incontestable logic of Owen Polley’s article is that NI Unionist voters must reject devolution and to reject devolution, it is first necessary to prevent the NI Unionist political parties returning to the power-sharing establishment (Stormont) that must be pulled down.
