Everything Ulster - Election 2005

Sinn Fein launched their manifesto on Friday and what a whopper - a veritable 56 page sleeping pill! It's all the sort of drivel you'd expect from Sinn Fein. Let's see what we've got...

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Firstly I'd like to dismiss all those silly rumours that Gerry Adams's statement on 6th April for the IRA to embrace democracy was for political gain. How could you have thought that?! Oh wait, the first page of content in Adams's personal statement he says "the crisis in the peace process is the central focus in this election" and that "in a serious effort to hold the backward slide, I made an unprecedented appeal to the IRA to commit to purely peaceful and democratic methods. The IRA leadership has now agreed to take this debate forward."

So Gerry, if it wasn't for political gain - why the hell is it in the first page of your manifesto you two-faced sniveling bastard?

Apparently the fact that Gerry is talking to himself in this manner is a "huge challenge to the British government to face up to its responsibilities on equality, human rights, demilitarisation, justice and policing."

What a pile of ballocks. The British government, aside from the fact that it already embraces all those issues (to the extent that it can with demilitarisation), doesn't have to face up to anything as a result of an IRA leader's public ramblings to himself. When the IRA demilitarises, we'll talk about the Army. When republicans cease their criminality, we'll talk about policing. I could go on but we're still on the first page!

"Building Peace, Building Unity"
What a joke! It ill befits the leaders of an armed terrorist organisation to talk about building peace. Stopping killing innocent men, women and children does not a pacifist make! This self-righteous, self-congratulating drivel makes me feel utterly sick!
They talk about challenging Unionists to reject sectarianism and accept equality, human rights, inclusivity and mutual respect. What a pile of ballocks. As a Unionist I fully accept all those things. To claim that Unionists don't already accept human rights and equality is blatant and naked sectarianism in itself!! What I don't accept is my country being held to ransom by gun wielding sociopaths angling for lucrative government posts.

Oh and in the interests of peace, Sinn Fein want a police service that is routinely unarmed. Well I've got news for them: we all want that, but unfortunately due to 30 years of being targeted by the IRA, and republicans still denouncing the police as their enemies, it isn't going to happen any time soon! They want policing control devolved to "an Executive and Assembly and the all-Ireland institutions" - YES! You read right, they want policing powers devolved locally to Belfast, then given over to Dublin!

These guys crack me up, they want "changes to the inquest system [so] the wholesale abuse of the past will cease". I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!! Of course republican 'wholesale abuse of the past' will continue until they achieve their utopian 32-county Irish soviet socialist republic.

"Equality"
This is where the MOPEry really begins. Apparently British Direct Rule Ministers are consistently undermining the rights of those seeking full equality in our society. Not quite sure how though.

They list a number of reasons that nationalists are the Most Oppressed People Ever. Apparently the fact that they are "less likely to be in employment" (number 2) is a completely separate reason than that they are "more likely to be unemployed" (number 3). Apparently they're also "at greater risk ... of being dependent on benefits," but that's not really a big surprise is it? We all know about the Disability Derry Living Allowance for a start.

Obviously there are no figures for any of these reasons, because we'd realise that there's not much of a contest! Interestingly, Sinn Fein equality obviously doesn't extend to tackling the under-representation of working-class Protestant males in our university system. Everyone knows that in Sinn Fein's "Ireland of Equals" equality will only work one way. All these years after equal rights legislation has been implemented, and 'positive' discrimination (remember, if it's anti-Protestant, it's positive) we still have Sinn Fein moping away about "second class citizenship".

Irish Unity/Independence
Bit of a yawnfest this section. Lots of piddly waffle about peace funding, Irish passports in "the Six Counties" and Northern representation in the Irish parliament, which according to Sinn Fein, should be wasting Irish taxpayers' money in commissioning a green paper and a dedicated committee on something that will not happen in our lifetime (and quite possibly never!) - the Irish Republic annexing Northern Ireland. They want the "Six Counties" to have votes in the Presidential and Senate elections too. Seriously, 2 of the most impotent elected positions in world democracy and this is what they waste their time worrying about.

This is funny. They talk about a "Caucus of the Irish Diaspora" to give emigrants an "ownership role in the pursuit of an Irish national democracy. Ballocks. Sinn Fein has spent years trying to win support from foreigners, especially in America, and now they want to get official help from them to demonise and marginalise Unionists.

Sinn Fein talk about an all-Ireland common currency, as well as a lot of other rubbish about phone systems and stuff. I've no objection to any of that and think it's a great idea! When the Irish Republic want to become an integrated part of our British systems they'll have my full support.

They want to expand the all-Ireland bodies to take on responsibility for loads of things - basically our entire government. You see, Sinn Fein don't want the Assembly. They want to use it to set up all-island bodies who will run everything for us and we'll have direct misrule from Dublin instead of London and everything will be just peachy! They even want all-island control of culture and arts - we all now how well Protestant/Unionist culture survived in the Free State, don't we!

This is good too "The Border Corridor is one of the most deprived areas of Ireland," which I'm sure has nothing to do with it being an IRA heartland at all. According to Sinn Fein the border is the reason why the communities in the area suffer lower quality of life. Nothing to do with the IRA gangsters running the place and the fact that it's effectively a no-go area for the police and other state representatives. Sinn Fein/IRA caused this problem, and now they're trying to blame it on the self-determination of Ulster's people.

They go on to talk about All-Ireland bill of rights, civic forum and inter-parliamentary forum. Some of the ideas may be alright in themselves but is there any need to prefix them all with 'all-Ireland'? Replace "all" with "Northern" then we'll talk.

Education
You'd think Sinn Fein would try to avoid the embarrassing topic destroying our grammar schools, but nope. It's the first thing they talk about. Obviously they target the unpopular 11+ rather than our successful grammar school system (which churns out more University students than any other school system in the UK) despite the fact they are directly responsible for scrapping both. They blame the imposition of "British Direct Rule" for the lack of direction on what will replace the 11+, never mind the fact that McGuinness had years to think of this and any responsible minister would have had a firm idea what to replace it with before he announced it's abolition!!

Again, they have to get the term "all-Ireland" in somewhere, and in education its about harmonisation on an all-Ireland and European basis. I think this shows the real reason they want to destroy our grammar schools - Ireland doesn't have them, so we can't either! It's as simple as that. It's not an egalitarian gesture, otherwise why would they destroy the only chance poorer pupils have of getting into the top schools.

Again, their fascist pro-Irish agenda comes to the fore in university education too as they seek to "create and maintain an adequate third level Irish medium provision" for that whole 1% of the population who can speak Irish, usually as a second language!

"Children and Young People"
They can't even let kids get by without throwing their "all-Ireland" agenda in. Apparently they want to replace the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People and the Irish "Children's Ombudsperson" (yes, that's their real title) with an all-Ireland commissioner. So basically, despite all this rubbish about caring for children, they want to see a commissioner who focuses wholly on the children of Northern Ireland replaced with one who will devote about 1/3 of his time to the same children in the interests of their rampant Irish republicanism.

"Health"
I finally found something I agree with them on. Sinn Fein are calling for a total ban on tobacco advertising and smoking in the workplace and increasing the age a person must be to purchase tobacco to 18. Of course this takes a back seat to integrating everything with the Irish systems, which is more important obviously.

They do talk some sense on healthcare regarding flexible working to help increase the number of female doctors, but go on to spoil it somewhat by ruling out categorically any private sector involvement in healthcare and of course they finish with more "all-Ireland" nonsense calling for an all-Ireland health service. Thanks, but for all the NHS's failings, I'd take it over the Irish system any day, not least due to the amount they get charged for simple prescriptions

"Environment"
They have some reasonable points here, but again manage to ruin it by throwing in "all-Ireland" at every available opportunity. They call for investment to bring water treatment plants up to standard (but presumably still oppose water charging, I haven't seen that yet).They call for an Environmental Protection Agency to tackle "powerful vested interests" refusing to fulfill their obligations on pollution, which I won't disagree with in principle. For some reason this also has to be an all-Ireland body, for which I see no reason other than it makes them look greener than green (and not in an environmental sense). They later say that not only should there be an all island body, but that the Irish EPA should just take over responsibility for Northern Ireland. No bother!

They call for greater pressure on the US to tackle global warming. As they make regular visits to the US, I think they should be to the fore in making public calls for action there. I'd put money on it though that this policy doesn't feature strongly while they are there.

More all-island bodies called for later, including a waste reduction institute to be established. This is really getting tedious. Every problem they identify seems to need an all-Ireland body to sort it out - convenient or what?

Farming
Sinn Fein take serious issue with the CAP and think farmers should be free to compete in the market (I was surprised too). I have to agree on this, but I think the whole CAP system should be abolished.

"Equality for Women"
Yes, still. SF actually get 2 whole pages out of this! They want benefits for lone parents to be increased to the rate of standard earnings, keeping all those nice 18 year old girls with babies out of the workplace. Maybe not a bad idea after all. To be fair they do have a paragraph on violence against women, again unfortunately throwing in the obligatory use of the word "all-Ireland."

They want a wider range of educational career choices for girls and young women, despite the fact that males are falling behind females in terms of university education!

"A Socially Inclusive Ireland"
A lot of stuff here, they're basically pro-disabled people and old people. Good for them. They seem to want commissioners for everything, including Senior Citizens. They call for free phone lines, TV licenses and possibly internet access too.

God help us if Sinn Fein ever get into power, we'll all be paying 80% tax just to fund all the new government bodies and vote winners that they want.

They also talk about "promoting diversity in an Ireland of equals" as long as you're not a Unionist obviously. They do devote a significant paragraph or 2 to racism, an issue that is particularly important in Northern Ireland at the minute. They call for additional English language classes for ethnic minority children - which I completely agree with. If they are to integrate fully into Northern Irish society minorities will need to be able to understand the lingo. Thankfully they haven't also suggested compulsory Irish language classes, but I'm sure that will be in their next manifesto.

They go on into more all-Ireland rubbish in their "Asylum Seekers and Refugees" section. Lots of all-Ireland bodies and all-Ireland approaches supported by these all-Ireland bodies. They also want to see travellers given more rights - apparently the travellers are now an "indigenous minority community." And I thought they were just scroungers. More "all-Ireland strategy" in this section, this time about providing children of travellers with access to education, which indeed is something they seem to sorely need. Perhaps then they won't have to resort to squatting on the grounds of innocent hard-working businessmen to blackmail them into handing over large sums of cash to leave.

"The Irish Language"
I'm gagging already and I haven't started reading. They actually want to CREATE a bi-lingual society. Why on Earth you'd want to create something which is as divisive as that I've no idea, unless perhaps your political party survived on division and conflict... oh wait..

They want legislation to protect the Irish language in line with that in the Republic! Seriously. The Republic has areas where Irish is the main language spoken, it merits some sort of recognition there. In Northern Ireland the only place it seems to be spoken is in the ghettos in West Belfast where little mini-provos use it to show just how Irish they are! Sinn Fein even want a commissioner for the Irish language. Have I mentioned brass necks already?

They want to see the establishment of an Irish language TV channel and radio station within 5 years and formal recognition of Irish in the Communications Act. Christ almighty they're taking the piss!

They go on to call for "a Irish language college of higher and further education." I don't know where to start on that one.

"Regional Development"
Apparently another all-Ireland body we need is a single rail network. I think Sinn Fein need to be challenged to bring about a solution to a problem which doesn't result in an all-island integration of some kind!
They want to roll out the new cable infrastructure throughout the island apparently. Considering this is a Westminster election and Northern Ireland already has full broadband coverage, there is no reason to have this other than to show that they really value the South more than Northern Ireland.

"Economy"
7 words in and they've already mentioned an "all-Ireland" economy. They go on to attack the British government (surprise) and call for the £1.4 billion a year spent on security to be invested in job creation in areas of high unemployment (all the nationalist areas obviously!) - perhaps they need a gentle reminder that it's largely because of Sinn Fein's military wing, the IRA that these security measures are necessary!

Oh and I was right, they oppose the new rates proposals and water charges.

"Europe"
Here is probably where I agree with Sinn Fein most. To paraphrase: "the EU is a more dominant force than ever in political, economic and social life" . Sadly he wasn't talking about Everything Ulster, but the other EU - the European Union

Apparently they've supported EU measures to develop the all-Ireland agenda (definitely not Everything Ulster there!). I wasn't aware the EU had such an agenda, but since when has that bothered Sinn Fein.

I'm not reading the rest of this, even though Sinn Fein are skeptical about Europe like myself, they insist on ballocking about with any real points by sticking in "32 county" this and "all-Ireland" that.

So there you have it. 56 pages of, to coin a phrase, "Republican Claptrap." How many trees had to be cut down for this propaganda to be produced? What a waste.