NI Dec 22 Assembly Election

Whilst I disagree with jim on most stuff, he answers the ‘arrogant belligerent’ point fairly clearly here francie, when you suggest that the recent election does not give unionists a mandate to abstain from stormont until protocol is sorted - a mandate that will be increased at the next election (hence no election). Tbh there is no point in stormont if the protocol is imposed

Lord Trimble wasn't a party to the GFA; the UUP was. But, of course, by the time Lord Trimble adopted this view, he was no longer in a position to speak for the UUP; he was taking the Tory whip.

There's no getting around the fact that the people most loudly protesting that that the Protocol invalidates the GFA are, for the most part, people who never accepted the GFA in the first place. They have a desire to see it invalidated. And the suspicions that this gives rise to are reinforced by the observation that they don't follow through on their own professed convictions, by objecting to hard Brexit, or expressing a demand for a mode of implementing Brexit that doesn't imperil the GFA in other ways (most obviously, by creating a hard land border).

Nothing would be achieved by getting rid of the Protocol and implementing Brexit in NI in a different way that still threatens the GFA. If your concern is the GFA, then you need to be demanding that the UK government be willing to implement Brexit in a way that does not jeopardise the GFA. The DUP are not demanding this.

Except that we have special rules for Stormont.

SF have never had sufficient seats for a majority in Westminister, yet claim they have the mandate to boycott those seats. DUP are doing the same in Stormont. Both are wrong, but sauce for the goose etc. I have no problem with Alliance supporters or others outside the North complaining about the DUP but to see the naked hypocrisy from SF supporters is sickening when not only have they wrecked Stormont a few times, but they do the exact same thing in Westminister that they are complaining about DUP doing now.

No they don't wreck it. Westminister carries on fine despite SF abstenionism.

As I said earlier and you didn't address. The culture of removing yourself from Government/devolved government is not unique to NI. Any party in government can walk whenever they want.

The problem here is that the DUP have removed themselves over a non devolved issue and are in effect holding the welfare of their own people to 'ransom' to get their own way as a minoity opinion.

SF seek nothing in return for their participation in Westminster, they have a well defined principle of not interfering in the running of other countries. I.E. it is not ransom politics.

P.S. You sought to make an equivalence between what the DUP are currently doing and what abstentionism is about. Nobody put words in your mouth. The implication was clear.

Choosing to absent yourself from government or walking away from government is entirely democratic and is part of the political culture in all democracies.

However the Protocol is not a devolved matter.

The DUP using it therefore to deprive NI of a devolved government is bogus, wrong and a rejection of democracy. It is the very essence of ransom politics.

Agreeing only to administer your own country is not ransom politics.

Again, in order to make this about the Irish in NI you pretend that these things are the same.

Doesn't work blanch if you accept that it's a democratic right to remove yourself from government. Anyone can. Many have. That isn't the issue here.

The issue is that the DUP have removed themselves because of something that has nothing to do with Stormontt. And add to that, over something the majority have no issue with. They have also routinely lied about the effects the Protocol has had.

SF removed themselves over something that had everything to do with Stormont and rights the majority wanted enforced that a minority were blocking.

Totally different scenarios and your triteness trying to connect them to make 'both sides' the same here is transparent...again.

A plague on those who seek to fudge issues for a tired narrative.

You don't have a right to remove yourself over issues that the devolved government can do nothing about and something the majority have no issue with. It's a refusal to accept democracy in fact.

Doesn't suit the narrative to accept that but we know the game here.

You just want to find equivalence because, well we know why.

Tierd and sad.

Yes, by the way, they can take onto themselves a right...anyone can. But I also have the right to call it what it is, undemocratic, for the reasons stated.

Every party everywhere has taken leave of government. You cannot say though that bringing down a government because you won't pass a confidence motion in a Minister for Health and bringing it down because you object to CETA are the same thing. Same as this situation. There is no equivalence between what the DUP are doing and what has happened before. Fact.

No.

Anyone has a right to walk away from devolved government or government over issues that those governments can fix. Do try to understand that.

What is undemocratic is using your devolved government involvement in ransom politics to try get something that devolved government cannot give you and to get rid of something which a majority of those elected are happy with

Not hard to understand.

So if a majority of people are happy with the union, refusing to take part in Westminister is wrong, by your twisted logic.

Your Jesuitical angels dancing on the head of a pin examples don't fool anyone.

I am just saying that anyone who refuses to take seats when elected is anti-democratic and unacceptable. So both the DUP and SF are wrong.

I am not using convoluted jesuitical arguments to enable me to defend one over the other because of biased political views as others are doing.

What has the majority of the people being happy with the Union got to do with it?

SF voters know that their MP will not sit in Parliament because they do not want to involve themselves in the affairs of other countries. They get all the representation they need in Westminster, SF MP's work there and do the routine work of an MP that they were elected to do.

The DUP are refusing to enter a devolved government because they are using it to try and bully Westminster into something that has nothing to do with Stormont and are preventing government happening. Completely different things, SF's abstentionism does not prevent governance.

This post above is evidence of the problem with many posts on here.

the DUP NEVER said they would not sit with a sf fm

the DUP have said many times that they will sit with a sf fm

jeffry has said he will sit with a sf fm

the unionist people are not energised by any debate about who has the irrelevant fm position and are focused on protocol issue.

had there been an election, unionist politicians were going to be asked to sign a pledge to never enter stormont until protocol was sorted.

unionist people were going to sign a pledge to lend there vote to the local MLA (any party) who signed the pledge - which included to never vote for them again if MLA pledge was broken

……. and yet we get nonsense actually typed on here that the issue is that unionists won’t accept a catholic fm. It’s really sad, apart from being impossible to debate with