A friendly letter to Mark Durkan, SDLP leader

On Saturday 24^th January, Mark Durkan, SDLP leader, addressed his party faithful at their annual conference.  After watching his speech, I “wrote a letter” to him. Will he read it?  Would he ever consider or has he already thought about what I suggest?  We shall see.

 

Dear Mark,

 

All the people I have met, that have had dealings with you, have never hesitated to tell me that you are a gentleman and a decent man.  I have no doubt that is absolutely true.  However, you are in charge of a political party which badly needs some direction and leadership.  Unfortunately, when you gave your speech on Saturday, you did not provide that.

 

Just over a year ago, when your party had its previous conference, you looked set to join Fianna Fáil in a newly rebranded all-Ireland nationalist party.  Fianna Fail’s plan to join up with your party is all but dead and the SDLP now looks like a “rudderless ship”.

 

I believe that joining Fianna Fáil would have been a serious mistake.  In time to come, you may be glad that the merger did not happen.  After all, Fianna Fáil is very much a conservative party.  Your party is a socialist party.  If you had got together, you would have looked like “chalk and cheese”.  Yes, you might have eventually outmuscled Sinn Féin but you were only going to be competing for Catholic votes.  The only success you could ever have achieved would have been to perpetuate tribal politics.

 

You see, tribal politics is bad for Northern Ireland.  The hidden cost to the taxpayer runs into billions and leaves little inspiration for a society to ever be at ease with itself.  You may also wish to reflect on remarks made years ago by your former leader, John Hume, who indicated that Ireland could never be united until Northern Ireland was united with itself.  Do you not think that it should be an objective of your party to help communities to come together?  I’m afraid you can’t do that if you represent people from just one and not the other.

 

And don’t think you have only Sinn Féin to worry about.  You see, once we get momentum behind our project, you will start to lose a substantial number of Catholic voters to us.  You might like to reflect that many of those who support academic selection are likely to do that.  This is only the start.  There are many other policies which we have which will be very attractive to many of the voters who previously supported you.

 

Of course, it is not for me to tell you what to do.  After all, I am just a humble Conservative Party activist.  That said, it does seem that there is a way forward for your party to survive and flourish.  It would be of great service to Northern Ireland if you did this thing that I am going to ask of you.

 

I know that your party already has close links with the British Labour Party.  I know that when you find the time to visit the House of Commons and take up your seats, you and your fellow SDLP MPs sit on the Labour benches and you vote on their side almost all of the time. 

 

There is still a wonderful opportunity for you and your party, if you can see the light.  Of course, you will lose Catholic Conservative support but you would lose that anyway.  On the other hand, if you work hard, pursue a purely left of centre line and mothball your Nationalist objects at elections, you will pick up votes from the Protestant community.  You can even do that without ceasing to be a Nationalist Party. 

 

All you have to do is reach a formal agreement with the British Labour Party to represent them cross-community in Northern Ireland for all elections until such time as there is a referendum on the future of Northern Ireland. 

 

I hope you will do me the honour of considering this proposal for the greater good of the people of Northern Ireland

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Seymour Major

Conservatives need to anticipate a battle with a Celtic Cartel

For many years, the Northern Ireland economy has been buttressed by the rest of the UK.  A public sector representing more than 60% of Northern Ireland’s GDP and a net revenue deficit nearing £7 billion per annum looks gigantic if your population is 1.7 million.  On the other hand, if your population is more than 60 million, it hardly makes much of a difference to the overall UK budget – or does it?

 

Whatever is being said this side of a general election, it is as sure as night follows day that there will have to be massive cuts in public expenditure.  This is not a forecast any more.  It is something that we all have to face, whichever part of the United Kingdom we live in.  The UK economy has been damaged by this Labour Government to such an extent that we now have to accept that we will need a long period of austerity much more painful than that which we faced in the early 1980s and early 90s.

 

Where does this leave the economy of Northern Ireland?  It was not the fault of peace-loving people in Northern Ireland that we have arrived at this position of such dependence – yet we can not expect to be propped up while the rest of the UK goes through severe economic hardship.  How then will this affect Northern Ireland politics? 

 

If, as I am confident will happen, the Conservatives are returned to power, the Treasury will be looking to all departments to make savings, including the devolved Governments.  I would suggest that the Barnett formula , the mechanism by which the funding of the different parts of the UK are funded, will have to be revisited.  The Labour Government is unlikely to do anything with it because Scotland and Wales have long been its power bases. The Conservatives will not be so inhibited. 

 

Very large stresses are bound to appear as the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Governments fight to keep the cuts in their grants as small as possible. My suspicion is that this scenario has already been foreseen by Welsh and Scottish politicians who have invited their counterparts in Northern Ireland to join them, ostensibly, to share ideas for the promotion of good regional policy .  Whilst this is laudable, it could also be a cover for what I would call a Celtic devolution cartel.  The formation of such a cartel may have a sinister element to it, particularly if it becomes a vehicle for mischief-making by the Scottish Nationalists. 

 

Conservative politicians and planners need to be several moves ahead here. They must plan for a political fight over finances to the regional parts of the United Kingdom and plan how they are going to win the arguments.  Conservative spin doctors will also need to be at the top of their game to ensure that this Government retains the political blame for all the future pain.  This may be difficult for the UUP and Northern Ireland Conservatives as they put on their regional hats and look ahead to the Assembly elections in 2011.  They too will have to make some advance political planning.  They will not be able to stop the spending cuts but they can at least have some influence as to where the axe falls, the rate at which it falls and have control over the manner in which the news is presented.