SAOIRSE32

Jim Dee, Belfast Telegraph
**Via Newshound
7 Sept 2008

A Texas immigration court has moved Maze escapee Pol Brennan’s next court appearance forward from September 24 to September 17.

And at this point his lawyer will argue that Brennan should get permanent US residency status because his deportation would create “extreme hardship” for his American wife of 19 years.

Last Friday, Brennan also learned his case has been transferred from judge Howard Achtsam — who has presided since the former IRA blanketman was detained in January in Texas for having an expired US work permit — to Judge Eleazar Tovar in Harlingen Texas.

The US Department of Homeland Security is also pursuing a deportation case against Brennan, based on his illegal entry into America in 1984 using an alias.

Brennan (56) who is imprisoned at the Willacy County Processing Center in Raymondville, Texas, was one of 38 IRA prisoners who escaped the Maze prison 25 years ago this month. He was arrested by the FBI 10 years later living under a false name in Berkley, California.

Britain ended its seven year battle to have him extradited to Northern Ireland in 2000 in the aftermath of the Good Friday agreement. US authorities then granted him a work permit and permission to live in America until his residency status settled.

On January 27, he was taken into custody at a Texas immigration checkpoint when a border guard noticed that his work permit had expired. Brennan filed the permit renewal paperwork, but hadn’t received a new one by the time of his detention.

Brennan’s September 17 court appearance is an “adjustment of status” hearing, at which Judge Tovar will decide whether or not Brennan should be given a US green card – a document that grants lawful permanent residency status, but not full citizenship.

At the hearing, Brennan’s lawyer will ask that his 1995 conviction for buying a target pistol using an alias, and his 2005 misdemeanor assault conviction relating to a fight with an employer over back pay, be waived because they are allegedly less relevant than the difficulties Brennan’s wife would face if he is deported.

The IMC believes the IRA is giving its information on dissidents to the British and Irish governments

June Caldwell
Synday Times
September 6, 2008

INTELLIGENCE gathered by the Provisional IRA on dissidents is thought to have been passed to the British and Irish governments.

The latest report from the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) says that IRA intelligence gathering is set to continue as long as dissident republican organisations are considered a threat.

The report, published last week, confirms that the IRA has “abandoned its terrorist structures, preparations and capability” but reveals that republicans are still gathering information. This is “not in itself improper if it does not involve illegal methods or intent”, the report adds. “We believe that it is for the purpose of ascertaining the nature of any threat from dissidents.”

Des Dalton, vice-president of Republican Sinn Fein, said that the findings of the IMC report confirm what his organisation forecast would be the role of the IRA movement. “They have became part of the apparatus of British rule in Ireland, acting as an arm of the British intelligence service,” he said.

Dissident republicans have been targeted by an increased number of house raids. “There were reports in the last year that about 60% of MI5’s covert technical operations [involved] dissidents,” Dalton said.

Breaking News.ie
7 September 2008

St. Patrick’s Cathedral pierces the fog of the ages. For one thing, Jonathan Swift—author of Gulliver’s Travels—was dean here in the 1700s; his grave sits near the entrance - Photo from Best of Dublin.

Dublin’s oldest public clock – on St Patrick’s Cathedral – is getting a face-lift to restore it to tick-tock order.

The timepiece, which has four faces, is almost 450 years old.

UK-based experts have been hired to recondition the clock’s delicate inner workings and re-gild the face and Roman numerals.

The project is part of a €1.2m revamp of the Church of Ireland building’s tower which is due to be completed by the end of next month.

St Patrick’s, which is Ireland’s largest church, draws up to 300,000 visitors a year.

It can seat more than 1,000 people and has been used in the past for the state funerals of former presidents Douglas Hyde and Erskine Childers.

“The clock is the oldest public clock in Dublin, would have originally dated back to 1560,” said assistant administrator Mark Bowyer.

He added: “It has a lot of character and is fondly regarded by the congregation and the public in general.

“But it had become difficult to read the time in recent months.”

Mr Bowyer said the clock has undergone restoration work before and was completely rebuilt around the 1860s.

“Ongoing restoration work continues on the clock as and when required.

“How much of the original clock which remains is not clear,” he added.

The restoration of the tower, currently obscured by builders’ scaffolding, received a €200,000 grant from the Heritage Council.

Experts will also clean the tower’s surface exterior and octagonal spire as well as re-pointing the stone work.

The bell tower, where the ceiling had become unstable, will also be overhauled.

Most of the funding for the project will come from St Patrick’s Cathedral’s own coffers, which are boosted by admission charges revenue and its gift shop.

Work on the clock is being carried out by UK-based expert Julian Cosby while cathedral architect John Beauchamp is supervising the overall project.

BY MÍCHEÁL Mac DONNCHA
An Phoblacht
4 Sept 2008

PÁDRAIG PEARSE, President of the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic proclaimed in 1916, was a talented writer, an Irish-language activist and a pioneering educationalist.
From his early days in Conradh na Gaeilge, Pearse had a keen interest in education in Ireland. Under his editorship from 1903, the Conradh newspaper, An Claidheamh Soluis, devoted much attention to the issue.
In 1905, Pearse visited Belgium and made a detailed study of that country’s bilingual education system. He wrote a series of articles for An Claidheamh Soluis in which he set out the success of bilingual education. He advocated such a system for Ireland as the means of restoring Irish as the language of the people.
While others baulked at the challenge, Pearse’s enthusiasm for setting up a school which could prove the worth of a truly Irish education system only increased. He was determined to take on the task himself and sought support among people across the Irish Ireland movement.
Pearse had three main aims for his school: to provide a comprehensive education, not simply preparation for exams; instruction through the medium of Irish; a truly Irish education for pupils who would be active citizens.

SCHOOL OPENS

In the autumn of 1908, Pearse fulfilled his ambition and opened his school at Cullenswood House, Oakley Road, in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh. Pearse was headmaster and Thomas MacDonagh was assistant headmaster.
On the day the school opened, it had 40 pupils but this rose to twice that number by the end of the first year. Among the teaching staff were Pádraig’s brother, Willie, who taught Art, and his sister, Margaret, who taught French and helped to administer the school along with their mother. Another sister, Mary Brigid, taught Music.
Pearse wrote in 1909 that there was hardly a boy in the school “who does not come from a home which has traditions of work and sacrifice for Ireland, traditions of literary, scholarly or political service”.
The following year, finding Cullenswood House too restricted for the school, Pearse moved Scoil Éanna to The Hermitage, an 18th century house in what was then the countryside of Rathfarnham.
A school for girls, Scoil Íde, run on the same lines as Scoil Éanna, was opened in Cullenswood House. In 1912, Pearse summed up his views of the English education system in Ireland and the alternative in a lecture later published as The Murder Machine.
While the new location was ideal for Scoil Éanna, the cost left Pearse heavily in debt. He had poured all his own limited resources into the school. In early 1914, he undertook a lecture tour in the United States which saved the school from closing. In November that year, the Irish Volunteers were founded and the staff and many of the older pupils in Scoil Éanna became deeply involved in the independence movement.
Students and former students took part in the Easter Rising. Of the staff, Pádraig and Willie Pearse and Thomas MacDonagh were executed, as was Con Colbert, who had given physical training instruction at Scoil Éanna. The school was later revived but was never to match its achievements under its founder.
Scoil Éanna opened on 8 September 1908, 100 years ago this week.

BY LAURA FRIEL
An Phoblacht
4 Sept 2008

AN INVESTIGATION by the Police Ombudsman has found that the PSNI failed in their duty after hundreds of people under the threat of murder at the hands of unionist paramilitaries were not warned by the PSNI.
The failure of the PSNI to take swift action to protect the right to life is a direct breach of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 2 requires proactive measures to ensure the lives of citizens are protected.
Sinn Féin MLA Alex Maskey said:
“Clearly the PSNI failed in their duty when they chose to ignore for over a year the threat against the lives of over 400 people whose personal details had been passed to a unionist death squad.”
The Ombudsman’s investigation followed complaints by over 60 people at the unacceptable delay of 16 months by the PSNI in warning them that their lives were in danger. The report concluded that the PSNI had taken “too long to warn individuals that they were under threat”.
The delay was exacerbated by the refusal of the PSNI to disclose any information regarding the nature of the threat.
The PSNI would not disclose which unionist paramilitary organisation was in possession of the documents or what personal details were included in the files. This undermined the ability of those at risk to take proper measures to safeguard their own lives.
The Ombudsman concluded that the PSNI could have given out more detailed or specific information without compromising security.
But while Sinn Féin’s Alex Maskey welcomed recognition by the Ombudsman that the PSNI had failed in its duty, he pointed out that the report restricted its criticism to a two-month period between September and November 2005.
“But there was a 14-month delay prior to September 2005. The Ombudsman has ignored the totally inadequate response from the outset by the PSNI which left people at risk for well over a year.
“Within days of the files going missing in July 2004, Sinn Féin said they believed they had been passed to a unionist death squad and raised the issue of collusion with the then British NIO minister, Ian Pearson.
“British ministers insisted there was no indication that the files had fallen into the hands of paramilitaries. The British military briefed the media that it was a ‘non story’ and the PSNI restricted their investigation to the assumption that the documents had simply been mislaid.
“All of these assumptions were subsequently shown to be at best complacent and at worst deliberately misleading.”
There were indications of collusion present from the outset. A British soldier from the notoriously sectarian RIR (which absorbed the Ulster Defence Regiment) was questioned in relation to the files by the PSNI but released without charge on Monday 12 July.
An entire unit of the RIR which had been involved in Castlereagh and manning observation posts in nationalist areas was subsequently withdrawn from duty by the British Army. Clearly both the PSNI and British Army commanders suspected collusion.
The ‘missing’ files emanated from offices used by British Military Intelligence and Special Branch, both of which share a long history of collusion with unionist paramilitaries. This has most often taken the form of providing the personal details of potential targets.
Despite the fact that the UDA claimed to have the material in their possession, reassurances to the contrary were repeated to the media by a British Army spokesperson.
Alex Maskey said:
“The cynicism with which British officials decided to put people’s lives further at risk rather than expose the truth about wrongdoing within their own ranks remains totally unacceptable.
“British forces not only colluded by making information available to unionist paramilitaries but the British authorities further colluded by trying to keep it quiet.”
The south Belfast MLA added:
“The Ombudsman’s report, by failing to take full account of the PSNI’s inadequate response from the outset, unwittingly risks being seen as part of that cover-up.”
Maskey also pointed out that the Ombudsman is restricted to investigating police conduct and has no jurisdiction to investigate the role of the British military.

Calendar of collusion

July 2004
Files reported as ‘missing’ to PSNI

12 July 2004
PSNI questions RIR solider

21 July 2004
Sinn Féin raises issue with NIO minister

February 2005
PSNI files reclassified as ‘stolen’

March 2005
Seven loyalists whose details are also in the files are warned by the PSNI

September 2005
Part copy of the files found in the hands of loyalists

November 2005
More than 400 nationalists and republicans warned by PSNI

By Ralph Riegel
Independent.ie
Sunday September 07 2008

DISSIDENT republican groups continue to pose a serious threat to the State, the Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy has warned.

Commissioner Murphy stressed that garda intelligence believes both the Continuity IRA (CIRA) and the Real IRA (RIRA) are operational and should not be underestimated.

Refusing to comment on the International Monitoring Commissions (IMC) findings that the IRA ‘Army Council’ is still in existence but being allowed to “wither away”, he stressed that the garda focus was now firmly on dissident republican groups and their ongoing activities.

The major concern was that such groups would attempt to destabilise the Northern Ireland peace process by any means available, he told a major conference in University College Cork (UCC) last week.

“My people and my members in crime and security are working with our colleagues in the PSNI and other sister agencies to ensure that the threat posed by dissident organisations is reduced and dealt with.

“I consider it (the threat) significant — it is there significantly for some time and we are working on it as indeed are our colleagues in sister agencies,” he said.

The commissioner said there was a very good working relationship with the PSNI and both police forces would continue to take the threat posed by dissident groups extremely seriously.

Analysis, page 26

“The threat still remains from CIRA and RIRA,” he said.

He stressed that the garda intelligence units would remain to the forefront of the battle against such dissident groups — but he added that the garda position has also been strengthened by the development of elite special response units.

Two armed Regional Support Units (RSU) are now undergoing pilot deployment in Limerick and Cork as part of a programme to ease pressure on the Emergency Response Unit (ERU).

The units will have access to a fleet of high-powered vehicles, special body armour, high-powered weaponry and specialised firearms training.

- Ralph Riegel

By Ciarán Barnes
Andersonstown News Thursday
Belfast Media
**Via Newshound

A man shot four times in a brutal dissident republican paramilitary-style assault has vowed to quit Twinbrook for good.

Speaking from his hospital bed, Christopher Sell said he fears he will be killed if he returns to West Belfast.

The 21-year-old was in bed with his girlfriend at his grandmother’s house in Laburnum Row on Tuesday night when four masked and armed men stormed in.

One held his grandmother downstairs while the others burst into the bedroom, bundled their victim to the ground and shot him twice in both legs.

Christopher initially struggled with the gunmen, however they warned them that if he continued fighting things would be much worse.

The West Belfast man’s shocked girlfriend witnessed the entire incident.

Christopher says he has no idea why he was attacked, claiming to never have heard of the ‘Óglaigh na hÉireann’ group which telephoned the Andersonstown News yesterday with a codeword to claim responsibility.

“I don’t have a clue why I was shot.

“I’ve never broken into a house in my life and I’ve never been in a stolen car.

“Sure, I sell a bit of blow to my mates, but only a wee bit, nothing big,” he said.

Surgeons yesterday removed two of the bullets from Christopher’s legs, however the other two will remain lodged below his knees for life.

“I don’t know what I am going to do, but I won’t be able to go back to Twinbrook.

“It’s too dangerous, I could be killed,” he added.

Last month Christopher’s older brother Mark was attacked by a samurai-sword wielding gang.

Shortly afterwards he says both he and his brother were ordered to a meeting with the Continuity IRA.

They failed to show and two weeks later a shot was fired through Christopher’s mum’s home in Laburnum Park.

It was after this that he moved into his grandmother’s house in Laburnum Row – the scene of Tuesday’s paramilitary-style attack.

In a call to the Andersonstown News, using a codeword, ‘Óglaigh na hÉireann’ said it was responsible for recent gun attacks on individuals across West Belfast.

“Some attacks have been attributed to the Real IRA or CIRA, this is not the case,” said the caller.

SDLP MLA Alex Attwood condemned the attack on Mr Sell.

He said: “Whatever this was about, or whatever issues face the community, attacks of this nature are not justifiable.”

Hernán Rozemberg - Express-News
My San Antonio
**Via Newshound
3 Sept 2008

The moment border agents in a desolate, brush-laden highway in South Texas asked him to pull over for further questioning, Pól Brennan knew he was in for a long day.

But he never thought he’d end up behind bars in the Rio Grande Valley, waiting to get the boot back to a place he long ago had put out of his mind.

Even though U.S. authorities have known about Brennan, a fugitive militant from Northern Ireland who originally came into this country 24 years ago using another person’s passport, they essentially have looked the other way for more than a decade, allowing him to remain in the country in legal limbo.

Brennan, now sitting in a Raymondville immigration prison, said recently he has become the U.S. government’s latest immigrant patsy.

“I’m a product of the anti-immigrant bent this administration is pushing,” Brennan, 56, a former member of the Irish Republican Army, a guerrilla outfit that employed terrorist tactics in a decades-old fight against British rule, said by phone. “They’re doing anything to clean up the system, even if it makes no sense.”

If there was a time he’d run into trouble, he said, it would have been more than two decades ago after he illegally entered and settled in the country. Brennan sought clandestine exile here after he and 37 IRA activists took part in a famous prison break — dubbed “The Great Escape” — from the Northern Ireland capital of Belfast.

He’d served eight of 16 years after being convicted of bomb and firearms possession.

Brennan’s new shadow life, settling down in San Francisco as a carpenter, thrived until he applied for a U.S. passport under a newly assumed identity.

Background checks on his application eventually led authorities to unearth his fugitive status, and the FBI arrested him in 1993.

He was imprisoned in the Bay Area for more than three years. But he thought he finally was home free in 1998 when, as part of a U.S.-brokered agreement to end the violence in Ireland, Brennan and other IRA militants in America were given “deferred action” — immigration limbo status allowing renewable yearly work permits with governmental discretion to seek deportation at any time.

That discretion now is being applied to Brennan’s case, after Border Patrol officials questioned him and his wife, Joanna Volz, at the agency’s checkpoint in Sarita on U.S. 77 in January when they were on their way to Austin after visiting Volz’s mother in Brownsville.

Brennan pleaded his case with border agents for six hours to no avail, even as his lawyer faxed records from San Francisco.

Border agents concluded Brennan’s work permit had expired — he countered he had applied but not yet received a new one — and thus he was in the country illegally.

“You should have seen those border agents — they thought they had caught Osama bin Laden,” said Volz, 62.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency responsible for the detention and deportation of unauthorized immigrants, declined to comment on the case.

Besides the expired work document and fraudulently entering the country, the agency’s deportation case also is backed by Brennan’s 1995 felony conviction for buying a gun with a fake identity.

Representatives with the Irish and British governments also declined interviews, citing confidentiality issues. They wouldn’t clarify which country would take Brennan back if he’s ordered to leave.

Beyond the terms of the international agreement allowing him to stay, Brennan also cites a years-long asylum application that has yet to be decided, as well as a more recent sponsorship petition through Volz, who’s a U.S. citizen.

There’s also a fledgling political movement backing Brennan, including an online petition that has garnered nearly 1,000 signatures.

Three U.S. congressmen are calling for him to at least be released on bond — a call seconded by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the largest Irish-American group in the country — saying he’s not a flight risk since he previously put up a $1 million bail in California and never disappeared.

Brennan’s not shy about openly discussing his past revolutionary politics, but his dedication to Irish independence has got nothing to do with his clean life in the United States, he insisted.

“They did nothing to us in the eight years since they let us out and now all of a sudden we’re being thrown into the terrorist threat mix,” he said. “I haven’t been hiding. And if you look at my record here, I’m a law-abiding citizen. I pay my taxes. I’m a working stiff.”

Should he lose his case and end up deported, Brennan said he undoubtedly will be dispatched straight to prison in Northern Ireland. That move would be equivalent to a death sentence, he noted, since his former enemies would find a way to get him.

If he’s sent packing, Volz is not sure what she will do. She already has uprooted her life in San Francisco and settled in Brownsville to be closer to him, as well as to care for her ailing mother.

She was clueless about the past politics of the man she fell in love with after he asked her to dance in a bar. Volz initially was shocked when, after they had moved in together, he told her a family featured in a U.S. magazine article she was reading on the Irish conflict was his family.

He was the unidentified man mentioned as being on the lam.

Though she would have preferred to hear the story up front, Volz agreed with Brennan’s political convictions and they stayed together, eventually marrying.

The conflict in Ireland is centuries old, dating to the 16th-century Reformation when the British, who claimed Ireland, adopted Protestantism.

The independent Republic of Ireland was created in 1949, but deep divisions turned into bloody struggle in the smaller northern portion of the island that maintained allegiance to London, as Northern Ireland and as the Catholic majority unsuccessfully tried to boot out Protestant British loyalists.

By Lorna McKay
Antrim Times
**Via Newshound
02 September 2008

SINN Fein councillor AnneMarie Logue has been warned of a loyalist death threat against her.
The Crumlin councillor said she had been contacted last week and informed of the threat.

“Although the PSNI have failed to provide any details about this threat, it is clear that those issuing them have nothing to offer our communities and will not deter Sinn Féin from pursing our objectives of Irish Unity,” Cllr. Logue said in response to the threat to kill her.

Party colleague, South Antrim MLA Mitchel McLaughlin added: “This is a sick threat against a councillor who works tirelessly for her constituency in South Antrim.

“She works for everyone and I would challenge unionist representatives to speak out and intervene directly to have this threat publicly withdrawn.”

Cllr. Logue - who is a member of Antrim District Policing Partnership - and her Sinn Fein colleagues on Antrim council - Henry Cushinan and Anthony Brady - have all had death threats made against them in the last year.

Last October, Cllrs. Brady and Cushinan were visited by the PSNI and informed that their lives are under threat from Loyalist paramilitaries.

At the time, Cllr. Cushinan said the threat would not prevent him from his civic role,

” I can assure everyone that it will not deter me from continuing to work for the people who elected me and for the wider community,” he said at the time.

Indymedia.ie
7 Sept 2008

Four Republicans captured in Newry and South Armagh have been released without charge.

Four men who were being held captive in Antrim RUC Barracks were released by 23:15 hours GMT on Saturday. The four were taken captive in Counties Down and Armagh on Friday evening.

One of the men revealed that he had been interrogated during four different sessions over nearly 30 hours of captivity. The first session focused on his work, and the second focused on how he knew the other detainees. The RUC claimed that the operation was “intelligence-led” and that the raids were pre-planned.

Director of Publicity, Richard Walsh, said:

“The people of Newry and South Armagh will realise, however, that the actions of the RUC are merely the continuation of a long tradition of oppression and intimidation of Republicans. Those who seek to control the RUC from Stormont wish to prove their bona fides when it comes to dealing with Republicans, and have regularly called upon people to inform upon them and set them up.

“There is an onus on Nationally-minded people to reject the RUC and those who seek to promote them. These are enemies of Irish Republicanism.”

By JIM CUSACK
Independent.ie
Sunday September 07 2008

**Related links onsite

THE minister who set up the Criminal Assets Bureau and one of the top investigators in the Veronica Guerin case have spoken of their anger and frustration that John Gilligan’s gang is still operating from prison.

Nora Owen, the Minister for Justice when Veronica was murdered in 1996, yesterday expressed her “utter exasperation” that after 11 years in prison, Gilligan’s sidekick, Brian Meehan, was last week still using a mobile phone to direct arms and drugs importation to the State.

Retired Detective Inspector Todd O’Loughlin, the man who brought both Gilligan and Meehan back to Ireland, yesterday said there was “great disappointment” among gardai who had investigated Veronica’s murder that the criminals were still active.

“We feel very strongly for Mrs (Bernie) Guerin and the family. It must be terribly upsetting after all these years to have to hear that this gang is still reportedly operating from prison. We devoted four years of our lives to putting these people behind bars and breaking up this gang. I have no great desire to become involved but I am certainly very disappointed.

“This is a problem that has to be addressed, that these people can still operate with this amount of freedom. There are only a handful of very serious people in the system and they should be able to deal with them.”

Nora Owen, who set up the CAB in the same year that Veronica was murdered, said: “It really shocks me that in the 10 years since the technology became available, there is still no blocking of mobile phones in prison and nobody seems able to identify where the phones have come into prison and stop them. It is not good enough for the Minister for Justice to be constantly saying, ‘We are introducing systems to stop phones’. The actual concept of prison is completely undermined.”

It is the first time that any of the core team of detectives who tracked down Gilligan and his gang and broke up the then biggest drugs smuggling operation in the State has spoken publicly.

The decision to break the silence came after police in Holland, Northern Ireland and the Republic uncovered the main arms route for criminals to the State, seizing 41 guns in Ireland and another 165 firearms, along with grenades, silencers, laser sights, ammunition and cash, in raids on four premises in Amsterdam last Thursday. From Portlaoise Prison, Meehan had been in touch with the other members of the Gilligan gang, orchestrating the smuggling through Britain and Northern Ireland.

Ironically, the seizures have placed the future of the entire Gilligan gang in jeopardy. The calls from Meehan’s phone allowed gardai to tip off Dutch police, who tracked Gilligan gang members to the premises being used by major arms dealers in Europe.

Sources said yesterday that word had spread throughout the European underworld that Gilligan’s gang was to blame for arms smugglers’ operations being broken up. It seems likely they will seek retribution. Three Dutchmen and a woman are in custody in Holland following the seizures in the Amsterdam suburbs of Zaandam and Oud West.

There was silence last week from the Prison Service, but the Prison Officers’ Association called for a greater clamp-down on mobile phones in prisons. Senior management, builders and contractors are still allowed take mobiles into prison — unlike the UK, where all mobile phones are banned.

POA deputy general secretary Eugene Dennehy said: “All mobile phones should be banned. Strangeways Prison in Manchester is one of the biggest prisons in Britain with 3,000 prisoners, yet the governor of Strangeways is not allowed to take his mobile into the prison. It is the same in Northern Ireland.That should be the case here.”

There was no comment this week from the head of the Prison Service, Brian Purcell — who, as an official in the Department of Social Welfare in the late Eighties, was shot in both legs by Dublin gangster Martin Cahill after the department stopped his welfare payments.

- JIM CUSACK

Senior Ulster Unionist McGimpsey says link-up would be a betrayal of working-class members

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Guardian
Sunday September 7 2008

A senior Ulster Unionist who worked as a secret negotiator for his party and the Irish government warned this weekend that he would resign if the UUP merged with the Conservative Party.

Dr Chris McGimpsey, a former UUP honorary secretary and current president of the Ulster Unionists’ west Belfast association, said a merger would be a betrayal of working-class party members.

In an article in today’s Observer, McGimpsey predicts that a new alliance between the UUP and David Cameron’s party ‘would deprive working-class Northern Ireland of an important voice, and as such it should be resisted’.

UUP leader Sir Reg Empey has come out in favour of a formal relationship with the Conservatives, believing his party and the Union will be best served by a closer connection to UK political power. He and other senior Ulster Unionists are convinced the Tories will be back in Downing Street within the next two years. Cameron, meanwhile, is understood to be in favour of some kind of merger because, according to Tory sources, it would ‘plant a Conservative flag in every part of the UK’.

One of the main forces behind the proposed merger is David Trimble, former First Minister of Northern Ireland and Nobel Peace Prize winner. The ex-UUP leader is a rising star in the Tory party and is expected to be given a seat in the cabinet should Cameron win the next general election. But McGimpsey, whose brother Michael is the health minister in the current Stormont government, says merging with the Tories would be anathema to ‘left-wing unionists’ like himself.

He writes: ‘It would be a positive step if the Conservative Party within Northern Ireland was to reinvigorate itself. We need Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats to contest elections here. I deemed it a privilege in the past to go to the ballot box and not vote for my local Conservative candidate.

‘But I, and the many thousands of left-wing unionists like me, need to be offered the option of voting both for the Union and for social justice. If that ceases to be an option then it may be time for some of us to look for a new political home.’

He adds: ‘The Ulster Unionist Party is much more than a political party. It can be more accurately described as a movement. It is a coalition of conservative, liberal and labour interests who have come together to defend and promote the strategic interests of maintaining and strengthening the Union.

‘But the defence of the constitutional status quo was never enough for left-wingers like myself within the UUP. Certainly we value the Union, but we also want a society that is much more fair and equal than the Conservatives will ever believe in.’

McGimpsey says there is little in common between Cameron and his ‘Notting Hill set’ and some of the poorest constituents in the UK whom he represents.

‘My ward was rated as the most deprived district in Northern Ireland. Housing was poor, two-thirds of live births were to single parents, unemployment reached nearly 50 per cent in some areas and almost two-thirds of children left school with no qualifications whatever. Our dental health was the worst in western Europe and our general health was among the worst in the UK. Such a district does not return Conservatives.

‘We believed that if the Union was to mean anything it had to cherish its citizens and deliver on a whole range of socio-economic policies specially tailored to the needs of a population which was overwhelmingly working class.

‘The Union is poor compensation if the quality of life of our citizens is unacceptable. Many members of the UUP are more comfortable with left-of-centre politics and, more importantly, that is the position of a large number of our voters, particularly in urban areas.’

The UUP veteran says there is little appetite for Tory-style politics even among the pro-Union community in Northern Ireland. ‘Local Tories set up constituency associations throughout Northern Ireland during the 1980s, and although the Conservative Party in London initially refused to recognise them, they were able to return 12 councillors in 1989. In the 1992 general election the Conservatives contested 11 constituencies and received 5.7 per cent of the vote.’

Henry McDonald
The Observer Guardian
Sunday September 7 2008

A bill of rights for Northern Ireland would end the need for parties in the assembly to designate themselves solely as unionist or nationalist, the SDLP leader Mark Durkan predicted this weekend. The Foyle MP said that a ’strong and robust’ bill of rights could be the beginning of the end to sectarian designation in Northern Ireland politics. Unionists are still resisting the implementation of the bill which would, if introduced, have equal legal clout to the European Human Rights Act.

In a speech to the British-Irish Association conference in Oxford, Mr Durkan said the designation that a party was either unionist or nationalist had been necessary at the time of the Good Friday agreement 10 years ago. But the protection of minority interests could now be enshrined in a bill of rights, he argued, while the d’Hondt voting system would protect political mandates in any future executive.

‘I remember, at the time, saying that the system of designation was necessary because of what we were coming from, but should not be necessary where we were going,’ he said. ‘As we move towards a fully sealed and settled process we should be preparing to think about how and when to remove some of the ugly scaffolding needed during the construction of the new edifice.’

He added: ‘If we are serious about a truly shared future then we have to allow for truly shared politics where parties can - and have to - appeal across the traditional divides. The fault line in our society will still be there but it should not determine the party political cleavages for future generations.’

News Letter
7 Sept 2008

THE DUP has met the leadership of both the UDA and the UVF in an effort to get the loyalist paramilitary organisations to lay down their guns, it has been revealed.

A delegation of party leader Peter Robinson, deputy leader Nigel Dodds and MPs Jeffrey Donaldson and Sammy Wilson held separate meetings with both the armed groups in Belfast on Thursday.

One of those present at the UDA meeting was south Belfast leader Jackie McDonald, who is widely seen as the de facto chief of the organisation.

Mr Robinson said: “These meetings represent an opportunity to engage and discuss the process of transition from paramilitary organisations to people playing a full part in a peaceful and democratic Northern Ireland with violence and criminality being firmly a thing of the past.

“The DUP has always been of the view that Northern Ireland needs to move forward without paramilitary structures and where future intentions are firmly rooted in exclusively peaceful and democratic pursuits.

“The response from both the UDA and the UVF/Red Hand Commando has been positive and there was a commitment to an ongoing engagement.

“Where needed, the DUP will assist in developing and completing this process.”

Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson said: “We feel the time is right to have an engagement with loyalist groups as it is essential that they complete the transition from paramilitary organisations to people involved in the normal life of our country.

“We had a useful discussion with both groups and there was a positive response so we’re hopeful further engagement will help move the situation forward.”

Ulster Unionist Party leader Sir Reg Empey stopped short of praising the DUP move but said the UUP had continuously worked to get rid of weapons.

“I’m in the middle of arranging similar meetings and we have kept up contact over the last number of years.

“We pioneered and led the way, and while it was unpopular at the time, I believed it was right.”

Sir Reg said he thought loyalists were finally waking up to the realisation that guns had to go, before the international decommissioning body is wound up.

“I think we’re very much at that stage because once the decommissioning body stands down – perhaps as soon as early next year – we are back to ordinary criminal law and that leaves them extremely vulnerable.”

Sir Reg said if the devolution of policing and justice powers did take place the situation could get even more complicated.

“If they hang on to weapons and Stormont takes control, it’s going to create an enormous problem.”

The SDLP’s Alban Maginness said: “The SDLP has never shied away from the need for full decommissioning by all groups.

“I am heartened that the DUP is now beginning to act on this issue.”

Traditional Unionist Voice MEP Jim Allister attacked the party for meeting members of illegal organisations and said the UDA and UVF should be “hunted down by the state”.

Mr Allister said: “Self-styled loyalist terrorists – like their Republican counterparts – should be hunted down by the forces of the state, not courted by government ministers.