there are apparently 6 Ulster Democratic Unionists in parliament & 5 Ulster Unionists.
I can safely assume, I think, that they both support the continued membership of Ulster in the United Kingdom (whereas, I assume again, the 5 SNP’s, the 4 Plaid Cymru, & the 4 Sinn Fein party members each support their respective regions’ cecession).
But what divides these two “Unionist” parties?
Is it a simple left/right economic/social division such as between the Labour and Conservative parties?
If so, who sides with whom on economic & social issues other than those pertaining to the Union?
And, if so, does the 5-4 split reflect a much more conservative outlook in Northern Ireland as compared to 408-163 Labour-Conservative split in Commons as a whole?
(allowing the assumption that Labour is in fact, left as compared to the Conservatives)
The short answer. Democratic Unionists are anything but democratic. They refuse to co-operate with elected representatives from Sinn Fein. This is the main reason that the Northern Ireland Assembly is still suspended. The hard-line Paisleyites are also anti-gay, anti-abortion, etc. - I guess they’re a bit like the Christian Right Wingers in the USA.
The “short answer” above isn’t incorrect, but the distinction insofar as cooperation with Sinn Féin goes has become rather blurred recently. Don’t forget that it was the Ulster Unionists’ refusal to cooperate that shut down the Assembly in the first place. The UUP has, lately, been trying to out-DUP the DUP on this issue.
The DUP was founded at a time when the UUP leadership was making concessions - grudging and minor concessions, but concessions nonetheless - toward the nationalist population of the North. The DUP’s founders believed that those concessions would weaken (and ultimately destroy) the Union and the party was formed in order to challenge them. At the time one of the founders, Desmond Boal, stated that the DUP would be left-wing in every other aspect but in reality the right-wing religious fundamentalism of its other founder, Ian Paisley has dominated. There is still a “secular wing” of the DUP, however, and when Paisley finally kicks the bucket there is a reasonable chance this wing will come out on top.
The main difference between the UUP and DUP at the moment is that the UUP’s leadership supported the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, and still claims to be pro-agreement, although some (like me) would argue that they’ve done everything they can to undermine it. The DUP makes no such claim - they want the agreement scrapped (or “renegotiated” to use their term).
ruadh and ZombiesAteMyBrain are talking about the DUP, the Democratic Unionist Party.
1000monkeys, you may be interested to know there was also a party called the UDP (Ulster Democratic Party) but that was disbanded.
I think it finally went because of the whole UFF/LVF/UVF/Johnny Adair mess.
It was the political wing of the Ulster Freedom Fighters, a Loyalist terrorist organisation, it also had links to the LVF, which is basically a bunch of psychopaths who think that the UVF (another Loyalist terror group) are too namby-pamby.
The UDP was also the only party in Northern Ireland that was pro-choice (but they didn’t really stress it much), which didn’t really help the pro-choice movement much. It’s generally not a good thing to have terrorists on your side.
the answers are actually more in depth that I was even hoping for, and in some ways are a littke beyond me, as my knowledge of teh current trends in Northern Ireland isn’t much more in depth thatn the US media tells me.
that doesn’t mean the responses are unappreciated in any way. I am enjoying the learning process, and hope that any other interested posters would care to expand on what has already been said.
The only other thing I would bring up is your reference to “the continued membership of Ulster in the United Kingdom”. “Ulster” properly refers to a nine-county province, of which only six counties are currently part of the U.K. It’s strictly a Unionist usage to refer to those six counties as Ulster in its entirety, and you’re best avoiding that usage unless you’re in strictly Unionist company (and you’re not ).
The distinction between the UUP and the DUP has been recently (and amusingly) described as “big-house unionism” and “big-mouth unionism”.
“Big-house unionism” refers to the former ascendancy in the north of Ireland, who arguably exploited the working class of both traditions as well as exploiting the sectarian divide in furtherance of their own position. “Big-mouth unionism” is a reference to Dr Paisley, whose rhetorical style is famously bombastic.
Whenever the question of Northern Ireland comes up here, I find it strange that the people who mouth off about it are mostly from Dublin - people who’ve never even lived here AFAIK.
Does that logic apply elsewhere? Canadians shouldn’t be allowed to comment on American issues, Paul in Saudi should be our sole spokesperson on the Middle East, …
:rolleyes:
I was the first person to reply to the OP, and I was trying to keep the answer short, but Ruadh was in like flynn to point out that my answer wasn’t quite right. I wasn’t trying to write a history of the multi-faceted unionist party in Northern Ireland, for goodness sake, just to answer the OP’s question.
The Southern view of Northern Ireland can be very different from the viewpoint of people who actually live here. The version of Irish history that I was taught in boarding school in the South was very different from what I had previously been taught in a Northern Grammar school, so I guess you could find documentary evidence supporting both views, if you were so inclined. I just couldn’t be bothered - if people were interested enough they would come here and find out for themselves about the shambles that goes by the name of ‘politics’ in this country, instead of whinging about whether it should be called ‘Northern Ireland’ or ‘Ulster’ from the safety of Dublin. Have any of you ever been bombed out of your house by the IRA because of your ‘perceived’ religion? It’s easy to support Irish Republicans from a safe distance - somewhere where you don’t have to live with the consequences.
As for
I wasn’t saying that people outside Northern Ireland shouldn’t have opinions about it - but what version of ‘facts’ were those opinions formed with? For such a small place, the political situation here is very complex - there are as many versions of ‘history’ as there are political parties - and newspaper reports differ according to the papers’ bias. I was only expressing surprise that the people responding most vehemently to this post don’t actually live here - and aren’t therefore speaking from actual experience.
I am talking about the different Northern and Southern views of Irish history, as taught in schools. I think that’s pretty clear from my post.
Perhaps even as relevant as your previous gripe about Northern Ireland being referred to by someone as Ulster??? Your previous postings about Northern Ireland have seemed pretty biased to me.
As a matter of fact I have an BA [Hons] in History.
The OP referred to it as Ulster, hence it was relevant. Nobody besides you mentioned republicanism, though.
I don’t claim to not have a bias. But the OP posted a factual question and I gave a factual reply. Again, can you find anything factually incorrect in what I (or anyone else) posted? That’s what this forum is all about FFS.
BTW, since you seem to think only Northerners have the right to discuss this conflict, I think it’s also worth pointing out that itwasn’tonlyNorthernerskilled in it.
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