A Tangled Web

Feeney Watch - 23.09.04



Heavens to bitsy (as Kathy Bates said in the film Misery), Bigoted Bri's venom-laden digits must have been shaking with rage when he penned this week's little number. We have, arguably, more vitriol and vehemence than any article the old 'sage' has concocted since early Spring.



I know jokes are made worldwide about the intellectual capacity of the average Irishman, but I am simply aghast at their inability to understand plain English. In earlier times, when the pro-Union population expostulated their British birthright and identity, they were contemptuously dismissed by nationalists as 'confused Irishmen'. Now, when numerous DUP figures have told us that the party is not in the business of majority rule, up pops BB to tell us the DUP are unreformed advocates of majoritarianism.



Nationalists just don't get it, do they? Unionism will no longer accept the presence of armed terrorists in government, or the ability of nationalists to take cross-border decisions designed to undermine the constitutionally expressed wishes of a majority of Northern Ireland's population. If that is the 'majoritarianism' to which BB refers, then it is entirely in line not only with the fundamental foundations of the Belfast Agreement, but also with international law.



It is now patently clear that either a significantly reformed template of political cooperation will emerge from any discussions, or else London will persist with Direct Rule. For BB to argue (as amphierotic hack, Steven King, did yesterday) that Unionists will accept a modestly tailored version of the disgraceful sell-out agreed in 1998, is evidently misleading. As to the other question - posed by the restive 'rishi' - relating to the powers of the Irish Government, I think it has yet to dawn on BB that the Republic of Ireland in NOT the sovereign power where the Province is concerned. Tough luck!!