A Tangled Web

The 'Greening' of the SDLP

 

Have a look at the media website for the SDLP.  It is hard to comprehend that this used to be a party which practiced some degree of moderation.  Today, at a time when they need to form alliances with fellow democrats, and attempt to win back some of the moderate Catholic voters who stayed at home during the last few elections rather than transferring their votes to Sinn Fein Brownshirts, they simply emulate the extremism of their nationalist rivals.  We have to remember that the SDLP lost more votes than Sinn Fein gained.  Consequently, all the talk of Sinn Fein mopping up the hitherto moderate followers of the SDLP is somewhat wide of the mark.  I have always thought there was a sizeable moderate Catholic proportion of the population (Catholics who served in the various institutions of the State) who were pro-Union with a small 'u', but who could not bring themselves to vote for Unionist parties underpinned by a Protestant ethos.

 

They are now as ambivalent about the whole structure of Ulster politics as the Protestant middle-classes.  Furthermore, they are unlikely to be attracted back to a party that makes a greater fuss over the alleged 'flouting' of a legally dubious decision by the Parades Commission, than the wanton violence and fascistic protestations enacted by republican militants.  Dolores Kelly, for example, advocates the banning of the Royal Black Preceptory from Lurgan town centre for all eternity.  Why?  Could she not train her critical focus on republicans who propelled their warped emotions into a pit of violent abandon at the sight of the RBP.

 

Institutionalised sectarianism is another bad side-effect of the Belfast Agreement.  This fundamentally odious piece of governance is now responsible for the entrenchment of sectarian divisions and the crucial need to compete politically in a sectarian arena.  In other words, it streamlines the politics of Ulster into two mutually exclusive antagonistic blocks instead of engendering a sense of pride and willingness to make the province stable.  When people ask me why I demand an end to the Agreement, I think they need look no further than this article.