Sally Redux

Do you two think a time will come when there will be the regular political parties in NI?

kimilseung

I know McGuiness had education until 2005, but I know nothing of the politics beyond some things that the heavyweights get up to. But it must show that even under Sinn Feinn stewardship, that creationism and young earth ideas are tolerated in schools, that lots of political horse trading must be going on. This won't be coming from Sinn Feinn, either they don't practice a religion and would follow the science or they are catholic and would follow the science.

There must be Free Presbetarian influences in action here from whatever source.

SultanOfSwing

By regular, do you mean Tory/Labour/Lib Dem? They all run in NI but support for the local parties is so strong their presence will always be marginal.

Generally, the UUP/DUP is the 'Tory' faction, I suppose the Alliance party could be considered Lib Dem. The closest to Labour would be the SDLP but since they're nationalists, many left-leaning Unionists have to cross party lines and vote for the UUP/DUP in order to preserve their UK interests.

I am outspoken on my objections to Sinn Fein/IRA being allowed anywhere near NI government but I would tend to agree. YEC is most definitely an evangelical Protestant movement.

Ulsterman in Texas

Good question, I think that time will come, that's not to say that that the DUP will go out of existence as although it is a unionist party it is also quite a regionalist party too, I believe there will always be a Sinn Fean too as they won't recognise the British parties. All three major parties plus UKIP are operating in Northern Ireland, the Conservative tries to team up with the Ulster Unionists at the last general election and got thumped but will stand a member for the European Elections, Labour only started to organize recently but don't contest elections yet though I think they are moving towards that. The Lib Dems have a branch but most are also members of the Alliance Party and run in elections as such (including Alliance Party leader David Ford) UKIP have 1 councilor and 1 MLA (via defection) they are growing in Northern Ireland but are really seen more as a hard line unionist party and have taken part in flag protests.

kimilseung

I am just a little bit mad to know that these ideas that makes my laugh at America about, have such a foot hold in the UK schools. Nuts I tell you, nuts.

Sally Redux

Yes, I suppose what I meant was would a time come when local and religious issues would cease to be so important. I freely admit to knowing very little about that part of the UK

SultanOfSwing

Bad science does not recognise international boundaries. They have horoscopes and homeopathy in the UK, too

SultanOfSwing

Ah, I see. Well, there is one big local issue (the Union), which I believe is of significant importance that it should never go away. Maintaining the status quo is important to me and most south-of-the-border Irish citizens would also agree. I mean, why the fluck would they want to have to take an additional 1.6 million people in one fell swoop? Who's got that money for that

Essentially though, we do have the 'regular' political parties, with one or two 'irregular' ones thrown in for good measure.

Sally Redux

I was horrified at the time to to hear about religious schools being set up by car dealership Reg Vardy in Gateshead. The wikipedia article suggests the creationist angle was overblown though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanue...ols_Foundation

Sally Redux

As you pointed out though, that must cause problems for left-leaning unionists.

kimilseung

Edwin Poots (DUP) minister of health, thinks the earth was made in 4,000 BC

SultanOfSwing

There are left-leaning Unionist parties (a small minority) but there is a stigma within unionism because of the traditional socialist stance taken by early Republicans (there's an oxymoron for us US based Brits ...)

It never really bothered me because essentially we were still subject to the rule of Westminster, so it was OK to have the UUP/DUP at a local level.

That was the bloke mentioned in the article.

Ulsterman in Texas

There is the Progressive Unionist Party, but they are the political wing of the UVF, they have a socialist agenda but aren't really active outside Belfast and some other larger towns in the greater Belfast area. There is also a new pro union party called NI 21 who take a more centrist stance on economic policy and a liberal stance on social policy.

kimilseung

What article? Not this again. I open an article, linked to from a thread, but don't read it for 30 minutes and forget where it came from, and assume it was my own great research skills. Old age is coming on strong.

Sally Redux