Scot Nats: from vision to nuts-and-bolts.

Well, well, well. You have to hand it to the Scot Nats. Not only have they screwed an independence referendum out of David Cameron, to happen next year, but they’ve now provided a detailed programme of what would happen until Scotland formally declared itself an independent nation. And that would be? The Spring of 2016. To quote our former President of Ireland: wow. And wow again.

Needless to say,  the opponents of the Scot Nats, the Labour party and what’s left of the Tories, are full of condemnation for this sort of talk. It’s a distraction, they say, from the real concerns people have, which are economic.

Well, if they’re right, the Scottish people will ignore all that planning-for -independence  and let the Scots Nats know so at the polls next year, when their independence referendum is held. Of course, Labour and the Tories in Scotland assume that the Scottish populace are incapable of thinking of and dealing with two things at the same time; that they can be and are concerned for their jobs, for housing, for education - all the bread and butter stuff - while at the same time having a real and passionate interest in whether they should run their own country or not. 

All of this, of course, will have considerable repercussions for us in the north of Ireland. Alex Salmond has given the Scottish population a two or was it three-year run at the independence referendum. If we can manage to  um, screw assent from the lovely Theresa Villiers, then we’d be having our own independent Ireland referendum around, um, Spring of 2016. Should the Scots vote in favour of independence, they will be putting in place their full independence in the same year and at the same time of year that we’ll be (i) Commemorating the men and women of the 1916 Rising; and (ii) Looking across that narrow strip of water and noting how the removal of Scotland will have turned Great Britain into Not-Quite-So-Great Britain. 

All this is predicated on the Scots voting for independence next year. If the polls are to believed, at present 47% of Scots don’t want constitutional change and 32% do.  So are the Scot Nats not counting their cake before the thing is even baked?

Well not necessarily. They have over a year in which to turn around those figures, if as I say they’re accurate. There will be the mother and father of all debates about the issue in Scotland,and assuming that the Scottish people are open-minded and prepared to look at the facts, a year could seem a very very long time in politics, especially for Labour and the Tories. 

Should Scotland vote for independence? I think they should, not because   I’ve done the math, as the Yanks say, but because I think grown-up nations should be allowed to act grow-up. But the worst that could happen from the point of view of pro-independence Scots is that the case for independence will have been looked at carefully by Scots, compared with the present arrangement, and a decision arrived at. That’s so much more adult an approach than dealing in slogans or pointing to media polls.  

And what’s sauce for the Scots goose is surely sauce for the Irish gander?  If the Scots were to make decisions by opinion polls, they’d scrap their plans for implementation of  independence and they’d bin the whole idea of a referendum as well.  But being a sensible people, they know that decisions are best made in the ballot box. And that its verdict, whatever it is, will be respected by all Scots.  

Would it be asking too much that our border poll should follow similar lines and after careful and extended discussion, the choice made by the people and the democratic verdict of the people accepted?  History offers us a dusty answer to that one, I’m afraid. 

Bluff, the border and Nigel

Just heard a very informative interview on Raidió Uladh/Radio Ulster. Or two, I suppose, since Karen Patterson was interviewing  Nigel Dodds and Mitchel McLaughlin along side each other. The subject, of course, was this poll the BBC has conducted, which shows, according to the BBC website, 65% of people here would vote to stay in the UK if a  border poll was held tomorrow. Pretty convincing total indeed.

But that wasn't the informative bit. That came when we heard Mitchel McLaughlin calling firmly for a real referendum poll, since BBC or  Belfast Telegraph  or other polls don't actually count when it comes to realpolitik. That's the point where the first interesting thing happened: Karen turned to Nigel and asked him why he didn't "call Sinn Féin's bluff" and have a poll. That's a phrase the media have conceived and which they use with regularity  - "Sinn Féin's bluff" on a border poll. In other words, the Shinners don't really want a poll. Give that a bit of thought and you might see a bit of wishful thinking. A border poll would force parties to lay out, with facts and figures as well as calls to adult political responsibility, maitre chez nous and who knows what other arguments for and against. In short, the Shinners would have the border issue on the agenda, which at present it's not. So Karen and all you other hacks, don't call something a  bluff except you've incontrovertible evidence to justify so doing. Otherwise people might think you were being a bit lop-sided.

The second informative bit came when Mitchel McLaughlin said that, were the border poll to be held, he and his party would abide by that decision, whatever it might be. Karen then asked Nigel if he would respect the outcome and Nigel said...Do you know, I do believe Nigel ducked the question? Instead we got a smokescreen about Catholics voting for the DUP and a very content six counties and an end to pie in the sky. Now why would Nigel want to duck a question like that? Aren't they a democratic party? It's the D in their name, after all. Well, it might go back to the unionist response to the democratic decision on flag-flying over Belfast City Hall, it might even go back to the signing of the Ulster Covenant. History shows that unionists have a track-record of strong advocacy for democratic politics until the decision goes against them. At that point, you tend to get violence or threats of violence if things aren't arranged according to their wishes. There's a word for that approach to politics. It's called fascism.

Crucify him! Crucify him!

There are few things as funny as the English nation with a piece of moral indignation between its teeth. Chris Huhne may struggle to see the funny side of that but he’s certainly experiencing it at the moment. 

Huhne was  got for speeding ten years ago and claimed his wife (now ex-) was the driver, not him.  He consistently said it wasn’t him guv, until yesterday, when he ‘fessed up. The judge has told him in so many words he can expect a prison term. Nick Clegg and every other politician and pundit is nodding wisely and saying Huhne's sins have found him out. 

Oh come on. I know speeding’s a bad thing. I should do - a couple of years back I was sent for a day of re-education and got fined for doing 37 mph in a 30mph zone. And it’s true - speed can kill. But just as I’d have been outraged if I’d been landed in the clink for that offence, I think the same applies to Huhne. I expect he did something terrible like lie in the witness box or told the House of Commons a porky pie - but does he deserve prison for that? They’d have to expand the jails dramatically to accommodate all the politicians who have lied over the past ten years. 

But none of that matters. The Great British nation has got a principle clamped in its gob and is galloping madly towards a place called Retribution. God spare us all from such hypocritical bastards. 

Where does it hurt?

There’s a danger when you feel strongly about something that you'll see attacks and opponents where none exist. Which is why I try to check my initial reaction to a lot of the things I encounter in the media.  Last Thursday was an example.

I was watching The View, the BBC’s successor to Hearts and Minds. (Ah, taximan, where are you now? Endlessly prowling the streets of Belfast, talking to yourself...)  John O’Dowd was on with Edwin Poots and Mark Carruthers was interviewing them about Gerry Adams’s apology in the Dáil for the killing of Garda Jerry McCabe. For years,  Sinn Féin have been criticised for their claim that the killers of McCabe should have been released under the Good Friday Agreement. But they weren’t, probably because it was kept in the public consciousness by the southern media in a way that no other death in the Troubles was.  Much ink was spent on condemning the heartlessness of what happened,  so  you might have expected that Gerry Adams’s apology would have been welcomed as a sign that the Sinn Féin leader and his party shared at least to some extent, the feelings of horror and dismay that the killing evoked. But not so. Since that apology was made, Adams has instead been the focus of relentless criticism.  The View  quickly fell into the same pattern.

John O’Dowd was asked in so many words to explain Gerry Adams’s hypocrisy in doing such a thing. O’Dowd responded by explaining (or trying to explain) that apologies and dealing with past hurt should involve all those who had suffered.  Edwin Poots was then asked his thoughts and he in so many words rejected Gerry Adams’s hypocrisy in offering an apology, when he hadn’t apologised for all the IRA-related deaths in the north. 

It’s at this point that I had to check my initial reaction. And then check it again. And a third time. Because it seemed to me that Carruthers was grilling O’Dowd  but letting Poots simply join him in the grilling rather than pressing him on the need for apology to be many-sided. What I saw was a seriously lop-sided interview, with BBC balance conspicuous by its absence.

As I say, there’s always a danger that when you’ve strong feelings on a topic, you see attacks and opponents where none exist. I know Mark Carruthers and I’ve always found him a pleasant, friendly guy. But it still seems to me that The View  last week was one-eyed where it really should have been two-eyed. Tell me I’m wrong. 

Fearless and original journalism

I see the VO today is maintaining its usual creakingly-high standards of even-handedness . On p 18 Patrick Murphy lays into Gerry Adams and Sinn Féin, and on p 19 Newton Emerson lays into, um,  Sinn Féin and several others. It’s what we media people call balance.

Murphy has a truly enquiring mind: he asks sixteen questions in the course of his article. Questions like “Was Sinn Féin apologising on behalf of the PIRA?” and “Since the PIRA no longer exists, who made the decision to apologise?” and “When was PIRA’s war downgraded to a mere conflict?”  Gerry Adams gets hammered for daring to apologise for the death of Garda Jerry McCabe : “An apology for some deaths suggests that all other deaths were justified”. Now there’s an interesting inference to draw.  If I’m late for an appointment and apologise for my tardiness, it suggests I don’t give a damn about any other occasion on which I may have been late. Mmm.  A bit later he admits that “if Sinn Féin had not apologised it would still have been criticised” which pretty well sums the matter up, wouldn’t you say?  I have this Animal-Farm-type memory of a time when republicans were urged to turn from violence, express regret and commit themselves to democratic politics. Now that they’ve done so, they’re accused by the likes of Murphy of being “politically expedient”. Hey ho. Damned if you don’t and damned if you do.

But the heart of Murphy’s onslaught is given in big black type in the  middle, in case you’d miss it in the body of the article: “Despite the undoubted bravery of some PIRA actions, and the criminal brutality of most of them [ I wonder what criteria he uses to distinguish one kind from another?], it was a futile escapade which betrayed the civil rights movement, handed the political initiative to the British government, institutionalised sectarianism and abandoned the concept of the Irish nation”.

Yes, I can see that. Clearly if someone’s taking a different path from you they must be betraying you. And of course the setting up of the Assembly was a British initiative and Sinn Féin were to blame for that. And yes, Martin McGuinness and his mates have been acting in a very sectarian way up on the hill and we haven’t heard a peep out of them or Gerry Adams about an Irish nation, a border poll - not  even a half-peep. I don’t know how they can look at themselves in the mirror of a morning.  But at least we’ve now had their actions laid bare and explained by this adept analysis. The abandoned nation owes a debt. Thank you very much, Mr Murphy.

And Newton Emerson on p 19? The first half of his piece simply bursts with witticisms, even if they are a bit soggy. The second half? Probably more of the same but  I’m afraid by then I’d nodded off. I do hope Mr Emerson doesn’t come looking for an apology.

Mindless violence? I think not.

Given the enduring nature of violence and political unrest, it’s tempting to conclude it’s in our nature. And what nature doesn’t supply is made up for by nurture, as old bad habits are handed on to a new generation. I hope I haven’t done Malachi O’Doherty an injustice by extracting that as a central notion in his article in the Belfast Telegraph the other day.

Because it’s too easy. If you blame the enduring violence and political unrest on DNA and traditional habits, it removes the unrest from the need for analysis. It is, literally, mindless unrest, mindless violence.

But it’s not. The Troubles, although frequently referred to by British politicians as ‘mindless’ was nothing of the sort. The IRA knew just what they were fighting for. You might not agree with their means, you might even not agree with their end; but that they had a specific political goal is undeniable. That’s what the hunger strike of 1981 was about. 

Likewise, the flag protest is sometimes dismissed as mindless. There’s indeed a temptation to do so, since for those of us old enough, it has some echoes of the civil disobedience of the 1960s: a group of people determined to demonstrate that they don't feel they are being treated equally, clashing with the police. But the differences are several.

For a start, the civil rights campaigners were led by men and women who were educated - most of them graduates, in fact. John Hume, Bernadette Devlin, Eamonn McCann -  you can make up your own list. The flag protestors are notable as working-class, and certainly not educated working-class.  Whereas the civil rights campaigners could draw their inspiration from similar movements in the United States and South Africa,  the flag protesters would have a difficult job locating a group anywhere that is similarly flag-obsessed. The link they often establish is with British soldiers fighting and dying under the Union flag in Afghanistan and Iraq. And of course the civil rights campaigners of the 1960s knew exactly what they wanted - one person  one vote, an end to housing and job discrimination. The flag protesters want the Union flag back up over Belfast City Hall 365 days a year, but they also want as many inquiries as them fenians are having, they want jobs and investment, they want their leaders to represent them, not use them. It’s not that the flag protesters don’t have any goal for their lawlessness; they actually have too many. 

There’s a part of me that feels sorry for the protesters. Not because they don’t get to fly their flag 365 days a year, nor because they engage in mindless violence, which they don't; but because they have so many other legitimate grievances, rooted in poverty and lack of educational achievement, that will continue to be ignored. They’re not mindless. They’re focus-less and leaderless, and panicking in the face of inevitable change. 

We get the politicians we deserve. And the police too?

The Nolan show was discussing the matter of policing last night. The questions tended to be directed at comparisons between the way the police have dealt with the flag protesters and the way they’ve dealt with (and will deal with?) nationalist protesters when they tried to block the road at Ardoyne to prevent an Orange parade.

I think it’s bigger than this ‘Are they as hard with them ‘uns as they are with us ‘uns?’  A few examples.

* The PSNI Chief Constable was on TV a few weeks back explaining why his men didn’t just go in and clear the road of flag protesters, given that they were breaking the law. He said this would be inadvisable as it could provoke worse demonstrations and you could have ten, twenty, thirty thousand people on the streets. On the other hand, Matt, you could have a lot less people on the streets. And it’s hard to see in what way, after eight weeks, Baggott’s policy has produced results. The protesters are still what Prince Harry would call ‘in play’. Any Saturday there’s a rally suggested, people make a point of not going into Belfast and hard-pressed city-centre trade suffers further.
* How is our police service doing if we make comparisons with, say, Britain, or the south of Ireland? The answer to that lies in your imagination. Can you imagine a situation where, for eight weeks (with a short break for Christmas festivities) a small group of people held illegal marches, blocked roads, fired bricks and petrol bombs at police, issued death threats to elected politicians, burned the office of an elected politician, damaged severely city-centre trade and spattered the state’s international reputation in terms of inward investment and tourism - while the police hung back and spoke vaguely of making future arrests?
* Isn’t the PSNI saying anything about the presence in this dispute of the UVF? It’s a generally acknowledged fact that this illegal paramilitary group is working in the background of these protests, yet politicians and police talk about them as though they were members of the local bowling club. Would someone please tell me: isn’t this organisation supposed to have decommissioned and dispersed years ago?
* Public confidence in our policing service is the bedrock of a settled society. If the police show signs that their training stops with issuing speeding tickets and administering breathalyser tests, people are quickly going to lose faith in them. And that’s without comparisons between how they conduct themselves when faced with nationalist/republican protesters.

It’d be wrong to describe the PSNI strategy for dealing with the flag-people’s blatant defiance of the law as inept. It’s worse than that: it seems literally clueless. If it’s a matter of police control vs mob rule, the mob are miles ahead at the moment. Jamie Bryson was on the Nolan show last night via a screened earlier interview, and you could see how deep was his satisfaction at featuring in the limelight and refusing to divulge what further tactics they would employ beyond a white line one. “But it will be peaceful” he told Nolan. That’s probably what Peter Robinson said, when he told the printers to run off 40,000 leaflets urging people to protest against Belfast City Council’s democratic decision. Things can only get better? Don't bet on it.