Why the Northern Ireland demographic shift does matter

Ten years ago, the results of the Northern Ireland census were greeted with a not inconsiderable amount of unionist gloating. All the expectations had been that there would be evidence of a significant demographic shift towards Catholics, heralding the potential for the ultimate irony - a Catholic majority in a Frankenstein statelet created with the sole intent of entrenching Protestant dominance over as wide a geographical area as possible (including two counties that were Catholic-majority even in 1921). But those expectations were confounded, and the 2001 census showed the Protestant population maintaining a substantial numerical advantage.

The story this time, however, could hardly be more different. The Protestant population has shrunk 5% to a 48% share, with the Catholic population's share now just 3% behind at 45%. A similar "swing" in another ten years' time would comfortably tip the balance. And yet, curiously, the unionist reaction is that it "doesn't matter". Why? Because polling evidence supposedly shows that even a majority of Catholics want Northern Ireland to remain subject to London rule. Yet this begs the obvious question - why the gloating last time round if the demographics quite literally don't matter?

There are a couple of explanations. Firstly, it's not all about the constitution for unionists. In their heart of hearts, they must know that these figures make a Sinn Féin First Minister an all-but-inevitable outcome in the medium term (barring some kind of improbable political realignment). Under the power-sharing arrangements such a development shouldn't be regarded as important, because the First Minister and his deputy are equals in all but name - their legal powers are literally identical. But the reality is that the symbolism would be unbearable for a great many.

Perhaps more to the point, though, is that polling on constitutional preferences needs to be taken with an even larger dose of salt in Northern Ireland than in Scotland. There is an extraordinary level of community cohesion in votes cast for NI political parties, and it seems highly likely that much of that cohesion would transfer to a constitutional referendum, if one is ever held. The only scenario in which that might not be the case would be if the SDLP changed its constitutional stance. But the chances are that both Sinn Féin and the SDLP would campaign for a united Ireland, and that most of the nationalist vote would prove to be solidly behind them. It's called the nationalist vote for a good reason.

All these grounds for optimism make it all the more baffling that Sinn Féin were content to place the sole power to determine when or if a referendum should take place in the hands of...the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Surely if the consent principle so beloved of unionists (known to the rest of us as self-determination) is to mean anything, there has to be an automatic trigger by which the electorate can actually express its consent, without requiring permission from the quasi-colonial overlord?

Staines pronounces that black is white once again

I've been enjoying RTÉ's coverage of the Irish general election off and on today, and the following points have been made repeatedly -

1)  The centre-left Labour party is heading for its best election result ever, surpassing even the "Spring Tide" of 1992.

2)  The well-to-the-left Sinn Féin is heading for its best election result ever.

3)  Many left-wing candidates standing as independents or for smaller parties are also likely to be elected.  For instance, Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party looks set for a return to the Dáil, having been defeated in 2007.

4)  It seems overwhelmingly likely that Labour are heading into government, having successfully checked the Fine Gael bandwagon in recent days by reminding the electorate of the importance of a broad-based administration.

Put all these facts through the 'Guido filter', and what do you get?

"The Irish election results...show that left-wing parties failed to make the breakthrough"

"Adding the Fianna Fail vote the parties of the centre-right got 51%"

The latter point might make some kind of sense if it hadn't been for the fact that a) Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have had a majority between them in every single election in history in which both have stood, b) 51% is an unprecedentedly low combined share, and c) Fianna Fáil are political untouchables at present, so any theoretical parliamentary majority that includes them is fairly academic.

But Staines' analysis gets yet more exotic -

"This will stiffen the resolve of George Osborne to persevere with spending cuts"

Unfortunately for us all, I'd suggest he already had plenty enough "resolve" for that endeavour.  I'm not sure where this stunning showing for the Irish left really comes into it.

Terrors of the tongue

Iain Dale wrote a long post yesterday morning criticising the decision to allow a Sinn Féin member of the UK Youth Parliament to speak in the House of Commons chamber. All the way through reading it, I assumed that Iain must be one of those Tory diehards who take the (misguided, but perfectly legitimate) view that the compromises made with Republicans during the peace process went too far. And yet he actually draws his remarks to a close by declaring - "I applaud the peace process. It is remarkable what has been achieved on both sides of the political divide."

So it's a mystery. Here are a few points on which I don't think Iain's logic stands up to much scrutiny at all -

1) He says that Sinn Féin MPs should not be allowed to speak in the chamber unless they are prepared to take the oath. But this young man is not a Sinn Féin MP (duh). Moreover, the session was self-evidently not an official meeting of parliament, and thus presumably none of the participants were required to swear allegiance to the Queen as a condition of taking part.

2) He refers to how sickening it is that someone who "clearly" sympathises with those who murdered Tory MP Ian Gow twenty years ago was allowed to speak from the benches where Gow sat. Now, there is no doubting the enormous hurt that has been caused by welcoming unrepentant killers into the political fold - but for someone who believes in the Belfast Agreement, as Iain claims to, why does it appear to be so much worse if it happens in London, rather than in Northern Ireland itself? Sinn Féin's participation in both the Assembly and the Executive was an integral part of the settlement, and the families of victims have long since had to try to reconcile themselves to the likes of Martin McGuinness and Gerry Kelly holding executive power in their part of the world. The issue of whether a member of what is effectively a 'mock' parliament should be allowed to open his mouth seems absurdly trivial by comparison.

It's also worth pointing out that even at the height of the Troubles, there was actually nothing to stop Sinn Féin MPs speaking from the Commons benches if they so chose. Even if they had refused to take the oath, they could have participated in the first session of each parliament when the Speaker is elected - that takes place before the oath is administered to anyone.

3) Where Iain really seems to lose the plot is over the fact that the Sinn Féin representative planned to speak in Irish. Why should this even be an issue at all? If it's because of the rule that proceedings in the Commons should be in English, well, once again, these were not Commons proceedings. So once we eliminate that as the reason, what is there left? Perhaps Iain finds the Irish language itself offensive for some reason? Does he imagine it's some kind of 'terrorist tongue'?

A little oath goes a long way

Chekov at Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness is pondering the Conservative Party's plans to strip Sinn Féin MPs of their relatively recently won right to claim MP expenses, which they enjoy despite failing both to take the oath of allegiance to the Queen and to take up their seats at Westminster. The Tories' Northern Ireland spokesman Owen Paterson approvingly recalls former Speaker Betty Boothroyd's ruling that there could be no 'associate membership' of the House of Commons. But that ruling was always a nonsense, because to all intents and purposes associate membership of the Commons was exactly what Sinn Féin held even under the 'Boothroyd doctrine'. They were denied parliamentary offices, and the financial support to properly represent their constituents. You might reasonably think the logic of such a stance is that they were no longer MPs at all. They should therefore have been instantly debarred and their seats put up for re-election, as would automatically be the case if an MP were to be declared bankrupt or sentenced to a jail term in excess of twelve months. But of course Sinn Féin MPs were not debarred, and it's not difficult to see why - because in most cases the constituency would simply have re-elected a Republican in the subsequent by-election. Unless the government then took the incendiary step of banning Sinn Féin from even putting up candidates for Westminster, it would just have gone on and on as an eternal farce. So we were instead left by necessity with a kind of purgatory situation in which Sinn Féin representatives were neither full MPs or non-MPs. "Associate membership" does indeed seem like a very good way of describing such an arrangement.

But however such a situation came about, it seems to me that by not debarring such people and putting their seats up for re-election, you are tacitly conceding the point that they are in fact ultimately legitimate MPs. And, that being the case, it's only logically consistent for them to be given all the facilities and financial assistance to represent their constituents that is afforded to every other legitimate MP.

I'm left with the impression that rather than taking a rational approach to the effective and just distribution of resources, the Tories - perhaps unsurprisingly - are instead transfixed by their belief in the mythical significance of the oath of allegiance to the Queen. After all, it would be perfectly possible for an MP who has taken the oath to then never turn up to the Palace of Westminster again and to be considerably more lax than the five current Sinn Féin MPs in taking on his or her constituency responsibilities. And yet under the Tory plans, as far as I can see such an MP would not lose a penny.

Why Holyrood will always be the SNP's focal point

A day or two too late, but I wanted to offer my brief thoughts on Malc's interesting post about why he feels the SNP's performance in Westminster elections still matters enormously to the party. Essentially he thinks that the SNP's strategy of achieving an independence referendum via the Scottish parliament might not work because of questions over legislative competence (I completely disagree) and parliamentary arithmetic in a PR system (I tend to disagree). But whatever the truth of these points, it's undeniable that holding power at Westminster is the one sure way to remove any doubt. Trouble is - the SNP can never win power at Westminster. The best they can hope for is influence by holding the balance of power. And while winning thirty rather than seven of the Scottish seats would slightly improve the chances of that situation arising, it would only be very slightly. Probably 80% of the time thirty seats would leave the SNP frozen out every bit as much as the Liberal Democrats currently are with sixty-three. So there's no real mystery as to why Holyrood elections are and must always be the focal point for the SNP's efforts - it's an arena in which their destiny is in their own hands, rather than one in which even a superhuman effort has at best a 20% chance of making the remotest difference to anything.

The other slightly odd point Malc makes is that if the SNP regard Westminster elections as less important, the logical thing for them to do would be to follow a Sinn Féin-style abstentionist line and decline to take up their seats in the House of Commons. This is a rather absolutist world view by any standards - either something is all-important or not worth bothering with at all! Perhaps Malc should reflect on why all the UK parties are about to spend millions on an election they all regard as having only peripheral significance (except as a glorified opinion poll) - the European Parliament election.