To not get the hysteria over the DUP?

[dingit]

Cropping up on Facebook statuses today, photos with rainbows to stand against them.
I admit until last week I knew nothing about them. A quick look at their website does not show them to be homophobic, racist etc. And surely Teresa May has bigger worries than LGBT rights? They have 10 seats!
I'm not posting to be goady, I genuinely don't get it?

Laurie. With the greatest of respect. Not all the people of Northern Ireland vote either dup or Sinn Fein

I didn't.

But if you're in an area with a split vote, where it's a sharp nationalist unionist divide, people vote so as not to split the vote and vote for the candidate most likely to keep the other side out.

@Syc4moreTrees You said she had "never been affiliated with" any paramilitary groups. She has been and she is. I'm not putting her in the same category as McGuinness - but I would put Ian Paisley, who founded three paramilitary groups and had close connections to the UVF - in the same group as him.

Both the DUP and the IRA have their hands dirty. Both are trying to move on, neither particularly successfully. But of those two parties, the DUP are the ones currently in talks with the Government. That's why we're talking about them.

Sorry, the DUP and Sinn Fein! What a very unfortunate typo!

@treaclesoda No problem, the whole thing is a horrible messy grey area that is inevitably damaging to women.

Laurie. With the greatest of respect. Not all the people of Northern Ireland vote either dup or Sinn Fein. I didn't.

Of course not everyone does and I wish there were more people like you. However SF/DUP swept the board and that says a lot about people's priorities.

I don't vote DUP or Sinn Fein either but if your main priority, over and above everything else is maintaining the union, or dismantling the union, then that's the policy that you're going to base your decision on. I can fully understand how people vote for these parties because health/education/welfare/social care are all issues to be sorted out after we sort out the border staying or going.

And so it goes on.

Not voting for terrorists/human rights abusers is right up there on my list of priorities.

In an area not completely obsessed with one issue (like the union) that's true of most people. Sadly not Northern Ireland.

Both sides have a less extreme alternative to get behind. Everyone in NI could be attempting to reform the political dynamics. But the majority don't. They just vote for terrorist affiliated parties for fear 'the other side' get in. That's not morally good enough in my book.

Not voting for terrorists/human rights abusers is right up there on my list of priorities

And it's right up there on my list. But by and large neither side believe that they are supporting actual terrorists. Everyone here thinks 'the other lot' started it and they were only acting in self defence. It's just that who 'the other lot' are depends on who you ask...

While I'm not denying that treacle this conflict has been going on for more than 50 years now. You'd think in that time it may have dawned on people that it takes two to tango and start facing up to the role their own side have played in continuing the conflict.

And everyone is capable of distinguishing the degree of blood on the hands of the DUP versus the UUP. Or SF compared to SDLP. Yet they still make the choices they do.

Even if I was confident that my side was 100% and completely in the right. I still wouldn't be comfortable voting for parties affiliated with groups who have murdered innocent people.

Laurie I wish it was as simple as just voting in the middle ground but as others have said whilst the central argument remains whether we are united to Ireland or the UK there is very little consideration to be given to the day to day issues - this is sad, but it is also true.

Unless one side or the other give up their position on this point there can be no sensible forward movement in my opinion. It's just frustrating that people are blanket calling the people of NI idiots or bigots because of the notions of the parties they vote for. No one I know is voting for the DUP to stop female autonomy, its just an unfortunate side effect of wanting to maintain the union.

There is also the glorious north down constituency which has managed to hang onto its independent seat for a little longer.

I would welcome the day when people could vote in NI in line with the policies they support but it's a bit daft to suggest that that time is now. I wish it was.

Syc people have to lead the change they want to see in the world.

A vote for the DUP is a vote for terrorist sympathisers who want to deny women and gay people basic human rights. If you put a tick on the ballot, that's what you're voting for. If they come to power and deliver on those policies, you are part of that problem.

Same for SF, though I think they're not so antiquated on gay rights. Not that it makes much difference, they're still repulsive.

If none of the other parties are palatable, then there are things you can do. Get behind an Independent, run as an Independent, join the UUP/SDLP and try and galvanise from within, campaign for electoral reform, even spoiling your ballot is a protest of sorts.

But a vote for the DUP is a vote for the whole package. You don't get to write a note in the margins of the ballot paper saying, 'I'm just voting for the union, not the other stuff'.

LaurieMarlow I agree with you that people have to be the change they want to see, and I do think the UUP and SDLP had an opportunity to make something work, but the SDLP wouldn't risk the nationalist vote in the end. My Aunt and Uncle still live in NI and they are in the independent district, but say when Lady Hermon stands down next year the DUP candidate will probably mop up her votes.

Laurie I think that's a simplistic view

The most important thing to those who vote SF or DUP is the union. They vote based on the party position on that.

What's the point of any of the other policies if they don't relate to the country you want to be a part of?

Not defending either but I don't think it's fair to deride those who chose to vote like that.

I may disagree, but it's a valid choice.

Sunny you may not think it's fair, but I think that's a typical Northern Irish, I don't want to confront the hard questions, cop out.

What's the point of any of the other policies if they don't relate to the country you want to be a part of?

Some of the other policies (affiliation with murderers, denial of human rights) are much more fundamental than that. They're about the kind of human you want to be. That goes deeper than nationality in my book.

Laurie. I vote alliance and campaign for abortion rights. What more exactly do you expect me to do?

Sunny, I only wish there were more people like you. That's the kind of behaviour people in NI should be modelling.

I don't live in Northern Ireland now, but if I did, I'd join the Alliance party and campaign my ass off. And I'm not particularly into politics generally speaking.

I'm talking about DUP / SF voters and their justifications for doing what they do. My comment above was in relation to your thoughts on them.

A person may justify their vote by saying it is purely on one issue, ie the Union.

But the reality is, you vote for a party, you get the whole package. They are not to know it is qualified vote and you don't actually approve of their other policies. They are in fact totally emboldened on all fronts by the vote they get and act on it .

People in NI are in the Union.

They cannot be taken out the Union by trickery. Everyone has signed up to the principle of consent and the right to self determination of the people in NI.

Article 1 (ii) of the Good Friday Agreement says that the participants recognise that it is for the people of the island of Ireland alone, by agreement between the two parts respectively and without external impediment, to exercise their right of self-determination on the basis of consent, freely and concurrently given, North and South, to bring about a united Ireland, if that is their wish, accepting that this right must be achieved and exercised with and subject to the agreement and consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland

So really, I find the justification of voting for a party like the DUP on the basis of worry about the Union to ring a bit hollow tbh

Surely it is possible to be in favour of the Union without the nasty social policies?

Laurie An affiliation with murderers is the only reason there even is an assembly, or should we continue to ignore that fact. One only needs to look at the GFA to consider the sacrifices that were made in the name of progress.

I also think it's more than a little insulting to suggest people in Northern Ireland aren't willing to confront hard questions. My brother and I were orphaned because of the actions of the IRA...we have both confronted very hard questions and have done what we can to set aside our feelings in the interests of the greater good.

The issue is and will always be the Union.

It sounds horribly lame but I am so sorry for what you have endured, Syc.

I will ask a dim question and prepare to get slated.

Why do the people of NI care more about the union issue than about social policies? I understand that the law on abortion is equally strict in the ROI as it is in NI currently. So staying in the union or out, that would not change. Other than that, the ROI is a nice country with freedoms similar to in mainland UK. If Ireland were to be united they are not going to come in and force everyone to become a catholic. It seems to my perhaps ignorant viewpoint that the two sides in NI are more similar to each other than they are to either ROI or the rest of UK, with their strict religious affiliations that are now considered very old fashioned elsewhere, whereas most people in UK/ROI do not really adhere to any religion and it's considered unusual to care too much about it. I understand that for historical reasons people have a preference for being ruled by one side rather than another. But should this really outweigh all other considerations? In other words I voted Remain in the EU ref, but this would not outweigh all of the other issues and priorities in the UK.

What I am asking is, to any northern Irish person that admits to voting DUP, WHY do you think the union outweighs any other policy? Why are you so keen on remaining in the UK? (I am not sure that there would be much chance of a united Ireland anyway even were Sinn Fein to win, not without a lot more political wrangling anyway)

I know several people from University who were Northern Irish (from both sides). I generally found that when they first came over (to England) they were full of the whole business and were generally surprised to find out that no-one here cares about religion in the slightest (and most younger people don't even care about politics either!) and then toned themselves down a bit. I have to say that the protestant leaning ones tended to be a lot more militant, going on about the orange marches and how they were a right and obsessing over politics etc, whereas the catholic ones tended to be less bothered. Small sample sizes obviously. Some of them had close relatives killed by terrorists so obviously feelings were strong, but these terrorist actions were performed by fellow northern irish people not by those from either the UK or ROI, so why this should translate into a fear of a united Ireland seems a bit illogical.

The need to protect NI place in the Union is always going to trump everything.
The need to bring NI into the Republic is going to trump everything.
Anything that undermines either position is to be avoided and , previously, viciously fought against.

And , correct me if I am wrong, Sinn Fein have seats in the Irish Parliament (Dail).

Carefree.

Suppose that tomorrow you were taken from England or Scotland or wales and joined to France. And you had to send your kids to the French school systems.

And / or atrocities had been done to your family for generations by the French. That your particular part of England wales or Scotland had fought for freedom or to be with France for 1000 years.

You and your family wanted to be with England but you were forced to join with France and the only way to not join with France was to vote for party x because no matter what else they said they would do on any otherness policy they promised to keep you with England or wales or Scotland.

Or you and your family for generations had wanted to join with France and your culture and identity was French and and and

Do you get it?

carefree surely you can't be surprised to hear that people would be unwilling to give up the NHS? The lower cost of living? Easy access to non-Catholic state education? There are very practical reasons why people wish to remain in the union.

LaurieMarlow as Syc4more.... put much more eloquently than me - how do you think the GFA worked? Hundreds of thousands of voters voted in a way that they found unpalatable for the greater good, people that lost more than you could imagine voted for a way forward. At the minute you're sounding very intransigent.