A Tangled Web

Provo Promises



Looking through the bullet points (Freudian slip) of Sinn Fein's election promises I wasn't sure whether or not I was reading a cheap copy of the Communist Manifesto. In terms of Left-wing quintessence, it makes the British Labour Party's manifesto of 1983 look positively neo-Conservative by comparison. Yet, whilst Labour in 1983 suffered their worst electoral drubbing of modern times, the Brownshirts are experiencing contrasting fortunes in the Irish Republic.



There is obviously a growing constituency in that country which believes that, so long as their needs are catered for, it matters not what methods are used to bring about achievement. Sinn Fein voters in both Ulster and the Republic may be, in my humble opinion, despicable cads who have about as much right to inhabit God's clean earth as a weasel (to paraphrase Blackadder), but they are not stupid: they are fully aware of what they are voting for and see nothing wrong with conferring ever-greater popularity on the most revolting crew of blood-thirsty insurgents in Europe.



Let's just see where all this adulation might lead. It is obvious from reading Sinn Fein promises the party has not the slightest clue of how to engender prosperity in an economy - let alone anything else. Their rapacious tax increases on the very sections of society who gear and steward fiscal vitality would be counter-productive in the extreme - reversing growth in the economy; elevation of trade union muscle would bring about a situation we in Britain experienced before the advent of Thatcherism; abolition of mechanisms designed to curtail terrorism in the name of the Irish State would give Provo filth free reign to carry on criminality with impunity; support for Palestinian murderers against Israel could not only poison still further all round relations between the EU and the Jewish State, it could also deepen the already vicious strain of anti-Semitism which exists in Irish society; and withdrawal from from the EU Rapid Reaction Force together with a steadfast commitment to neutrality would endanger the country's international standing - especially with a United States committed to winning a war on terror.



If that's what the Irish find desirable then so be it. One thing the elevation of Sinn Fein will not bring about is the nationalist Nirvana of 'Irish unity'. Granting Sinn Fein leverage over the governance of a sovereign state will, I confidently predict, bring relations between Unionist Ulster and the Irish Republic to an all-time low. You see, there's always the one constituency never factored into the 'united Ireland' equation - the pro-Union majority in Northern Ireland. Unionists will not - and never - permit themselves to be governed by an Irish polity. This is not a threat or an expression of hysteria, it's simple fact. Putting the IRA's puppet masters in Dail Eireann will only destabilise the Irish state socially and economically: it will not advance one iota of republican constitutional objectives.