Stormont Assembly Elections 2017

[Take Your Points]

It's quite simple.  If you believe that the government parties of DUP-SF have been doing a poor job over the period of the last 10 years, 5 years or 8 months then vote for the opposition parties in the way you believe that will be best to work against DUP-SF.  DUP-SF have largely controlled the government even when other parties took one of the ministries allocated to them because both parties controlled the purse strings and turned funding on or off to the minority parties as they decided, e.g. McGimpsey suffered in Health and Kennedy was destroyed in what is now Infrastructure.  DUP-SF fed their own ministries as they wanted with additional funding from the funding reviews each 4 months and starved the others. So DUP-SF have to be considered as a block and the government. So, if you want to change government vote in a way that could make change if enough others put some thought into the use of their voting pattern in each constituency.

This voting preference will depend on your constituency.  Nesbitt and Eastwood should have been giving this clear advice to the voters.  Vote management in this election across the opposition parties will allow a small chip away from the DUP-SF block and give encouragement to electors in future elections.  First issue to address is turnout.  Strong performances by DUP-SF are discouraging turnout as voters see no hope of effecting change and take the easy option of not voting.

[armaghniac]

It's quite simple.  If you believe that the government parties of DUP-SF have been doing a poor job over the period of the last 10 years, 5 years or 8 months then vote for the opposition parties in the way you believe that will be best to work against DUP-SF.  DUP-SF have largely controlled the government even when other parties took one of the ministries allocated to them because both parties controlled the purse strings and turned funding on or off to the minority parties as they decided, e.g. McGimpsey suffered in Health and Kennedy was destroyed in what is now Infrastructure.  DUP-SF fed their own ministries as they wanted with additional funding from the funding reviews each 4 months and starved the others. So DUP-SF have to be considered as a block and the government. So, if you want to change government vote in a way that could make change if enough others put some thought into the use of their voting pattern in each constituency.

This voting preference will depend on your constituency.  Nesbitt and Eastwood should have been giving this clear advice to the voters.  Vote management in this election across the opposition parties will allow a small chip away from the DUP-SF block and give encouragement to electors in future elections.  First issue to address is turnout.  Strong performances by DUP-SF are discouraging turnout as voters see no hope of effecting change and take the easy option of not voting.

Ordinarily, there is a lot to be said for this analysis. However, IMHO Brexit does not make this ordinary times. While May and Brokenshire will not give a veto to the Assembly, there is no doubt that their job is made easier if the Assembly cannot manage to actually agree that there is a problem. Consequently, I think it is important to have a majority in the Assembly to reflect majority opinion that some sort of special deal for NI is essential to reflect its geography.  The UU identified Brexit as threat to peace in the referendum, but have now plumped for flying the fleg and have supported it every since, without qualification. The PBP treated the whole thing like a debate in QUB, rather than as a serious political issue and you now have McCann hypocritically sounding off about the border when he supported Brexit despite everyone telling him this might happen. SF did not campaign re Brexit and haven't a great record on EU matters, but at least they seem tuned in at this stage. So I think people should first and foremost vote for an Assembly that will at least oppose a non agreed Brexit and this is worth turning out to vote for. So SF/SDLP-Alliance-Greens and only then UU.

[Take Your Points]

SF did not campaign re Brexit and haven't a great record on EU matters, but at least they seem tuned in at this stage.

Not only did they not campaign against Brexit but they failed to collect £10,000 by not registering as a party campaigning against the exit from the EU and this was highlighted yesterday in the Dail.

Not campaigning against Brexit will soon become apparent as an own goal by SF.  It will results in a continuing fall in the turnout of their previous voters.  It was an opportunity to get on the doorsteps to explain their case and mobilise their support.  Apathy is growing fast.  A successful referendum campaign would have provided a proper slap for their DUP partners and brought in a result similar to Scotland.  It could have given a springboard now for a further campaign against the DUP. 

[haranguerer]

Whats this all about then?

'Sinn Féin to campaign against Brexit in EU referendum'
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/sinn-f%C3%A9in-to-campaign-against-brexit-in-eu-referendum-1.2476720

And this?

'Sinn Féin launches campaign against UK Brexit'
http://www.rte.ie/news/2016/0603/793106-brexit-campaign/

[armaghniac]

DUP spent less than £90,000 on the Assembly Election last May but spent £250,000 on Brexit campaign

http://sluggerotoole.com/2017/02/16/where-did-the-dup-get-250k-for-that-brexit-metro-wrap-around-answer-ni-law-says-they-dont-have-to-tell-us/

THis flow of money to the DUP is very suspicious, none of the money they spent was their own.

Whats this all about then?

'Sinn Féin to campaign against Brexit in EU referendum'
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/sinn-f%C3%A9in-to-campaign-against-brexit-in-eu-referendum-1.2476720

And this?

'Sinn Féin launches campaign against UK Brexit'
http://www.rte.ie/news/2016/0603/793106-brexit-campaign/

None the less they did not register as a party for the Brexit compaign and get the £10,000 available.
They also didn't really put the work in on the ground, as evidenced by turnout.

[haranguerer]

Whether or not they collected £10k, or the effectiveness of their campaign are both moot points - the statement was that they didn't campaign against Brexit - the sources I've quoted say they did. Which is it?

[Take Your Points]

Have you ever heard the term, lip-service? 

[haranguerer]

I'll take that as an acknowledgement that you were talking shite

[seafoid]

It's quite simple.  If you believe that the government parties of DUP-SF have been doing a poor job over the period of the last 10 years, 5 years or 8 months then vote for the opposition parties in the way you believe that will be best to work against DUP-SF.  DUP-SF have largely controlled the government even when other parties took one of the ministries allocated to them because both parties controlled the purse strings and turned funding on or off to the minority parties as they decided, e.g. McGimpsey suffered in Health and Kennedy was destroyed in what is now Infrastructure.  DUP-SF fed their own ministries as they wanted with additional funding from the funding reviews each 4 months and starved the others. So DUP-SF have to be considered as a block and the government. So, if you want to change government vote in a way that could make change if enough others put some thought into the use of their voting pattern in each constituency.

This voting preference will depend on your constituency.  Nesbitt and Eastwood should have been giving this clear advice to the voters.  Vote management in this election across the opposition parties will allow a small chip away from the DUP-SF block and give encouragement to electors in future elections.  First issue to address is turnout.  Strong performances by DUP-SF are discouraging turnout as voters see no hope of effecting change and take the easy option of not voting.

Ordinarily, there is a lot to be said for this analysis. However, IMHO Brexit does not make this ordinary times. While May and Brokenshire will not give a veto to the Assembly, there is no doubt that their job is made easier if the Assembly cannot manage to actually agree that there is a problem. Consequently, I think it is important to have a majority in the Assembly to reflect majority opinion that some sort of special deal for NI is essential to reflect its geography.  The UU identified Brexit as threat to peace in the referendum, but have now plumped for flying the fleg and have supported it every since, without qualification. The PBP treated the whole thing like a debate in QUB, rather than as a serious political issue and you now have McCann hypocritically sounding off about the border when he supported Brexit despite everyone telling him this might happen. SF did not campaign re Brexit and haven't a great record on EU matters, but at least they seem tuned in at this stage. So I think people should first and foremost vote for an Assembly that will at least oppose a non agreed Brexit and this is worth turning out to vote for. So SF/SDLP-Alliance-Greens and only then UU.

It's not just Brexit that make it not Business as usual.
The economic system is dying. The UK is one of the most heavily exposed economies to the dying system so the upheaval is amongst the greatest. 

https://mronline.org/2006/06/19/on-neoliberalism-an-interview-with-david-harvey/
"SL: You write that a fundamental feature of neoliberalism is the disciplining and disempowerment of the working class.  Paul Volcker, who headed up the Federal Reserve first under Carter and then under Reagan, played a pivotal role in doing this in the United States.  Describe for us the conditions in the US in the 1970s -- the array of class forces, so to speak, at that time -- and how Paul Volcker played a crucial role in shifting the balance of power.
, that is, the loss of manufacturing jobs.  It was a slow process and in many areas of.  What Paul Volcker did in 1979 was to reverse that, to say, we're no longer interested in full employment; what we're interested in is control of inflation.  He brought inflation down quite savagely in about three or four years, but in the process he generated massive unemployment.  And massive unemployment of course was disempowering for workers and at the same time the deindustrialization that I mentioned accelerated.  So there was quite a massive loss of industrial jobs, manufacturing jobs, in the early 1980s.  And of course that means less union power.  If you close down the shipyards and the steel industry lays off people, then you have fewer people in the unions.  The loss of jobs in the unionized sector disempowered the unions at the same time unemployment was rising; unemployment disciplines the labor force to accept lower paying jobs if necessary.  So Volcker's shift away from full employment strategy at the Federal Reserve to control inflation, no matter what the impact on unemployment, was a major shift in public policy and which we stil implement.

I think what happened in the 1970s is that when the neoliberal move came in, the idea erupted that, okay, neoliberalism will give you individual liberty and freedom, but you just have to forget social justice and you just have to forget environmental sustainability and all the rest of it.  Just think about individual liberty and freedom in particular, and we're going to meet your desires and your interests through the individual liberties of market choice -- freedom of the market is what it's all about.  In a sense, there was a response by neoliberals to the sixties movement by saying, we can respond to that aspect about what the sixties was about, but we cannot respond to that other aspect.  And I think therefore what we see is a movement in the 1970s where many people who were active in the 1960s were co-opted into the neoliberal train of thinking and neoliberal ways of consumerism as part of how neoliberalization established itself.  It is a very broad way of looking at it, but I tend to think that that is what happened.  That then leaves us with the question right now, what are we going to do about  social justice, what are we going to do about equality, what are we are going to do about environmental sustainability, all those things that neoliberalism cannot confront.  "

[OgraAnDun]

I'll take that as an acknowledgement that you were talking shite

I'm a SF voter but I think there was a certain amount of it as lip service. They took the risk (correctly in my view) that the 6C and Scotland voting to remain while the English voted to leave would drive wedges in the 'union', boost nationalism and move the border to Holyhead, Heathrow and Heysham. Time will tell if that risk will pay off. I think it will.

[armaghniac]

I'll take that as an acknowledgement that you were talking shite

I'm a SF voter but I think there was a certain amount of it as lip service. They took the risk (correctly in my view) that the 6C and Scotland voting to remain while the English voted to leave would drive wedges in the 'union', boost nationalism and move the border to Holyhead, Heathrow and Heysham. Time will tell if that risk will pay off. I think it will.

This is all very fine, but NIs would have been supported by the high remain vote, which it did not get largely because SF voters did not bother to vote. We are now in a very dangerous period and it isn't clear if SF have a good plan to ensure the border is at Cairnryan and not Culloville.

[JohnDenver]

I'll take that as an acknowledgement that you were talking shite

I'm a SF voter but I think there was a certain amount of it as lip service. They took the risk (correctly in my view) that the 6C and Scotland voting to remain while the English voted to leave would drive wedges in the 'union', boost nationalism and move the border to Holyhead, Heathrow and Heysham. Time will tell if that risk will pay off. I think it will.

This is all very fine, but NIs would have been supported by the high remain vote, which it did not get largely because SF voters did not bother to vote. We are now in a very dangerous period and it isn't clear if SF have a good plan to ensure the border is at Cairnryan and not Culloville.

Where can the evidence of this be found?

[armaghniac]

I'll take that as an acknowledgement that you were talking shite

I'm a SF voter but I think there was a certain amount of it as lip service. They took the risk (correctly in my view) that the 6C and Scotland voting to remain while the English voted to leave would drive wedges in the 'union', boost nationalism and move the border to Holyhead, Heathrow and Heysham. Time will tell if that risk will pay off. I think it will.

This is all very fine, but NIs would have been supported by the high remain vote, which it did not get largely because SF voters did not bother to vote. We are now in a very dangerous period and it isn't clear if SF have a good plan to ensure the border is at Cairnryan and not Culloville.

Where can the evidence of this be found?

West Belfast had the lowest turnout of any constituency in the UK and two thirds of people there vote SF.

[Applesisapples]

I will be voting but lets say a miracle happens and SF are voted in as the largest party what do people think would happen....thats right straight to direct rule thats what. Unionists will never accept a nationalist majority and that is why a shared government will never work here.

SF being the biggest party is unlikely, and IMHO would not be helpful at this point. I think a period when unionists do not have a majority and the balance of power is held by Alliance/Greens etc would be less likely to break the whole thing.

There is the crux it would not be helpful lest it offend unionist sensibilities, ffs it is time unionists wised up to the notion of equality not being a threat. Nationalist controlled councils treat unionist a lot more fair than unionist treat Nationalists.

[omagh_gael]

I'll take that as an acknowledgement that you were talking shite

I'm a SF voter but I think there was a certain amount of it as lip service. They took the risk (correctly in my view) that the 6C and Scotland voting to remain while the English voted to leave would drive wedges in the 'union', boost nationalism and move the border to Holyhead, Heathrow and Heysham. Time will tell if that risk will pay off. I think it will.

This is all very fine, but NIs would have been supported by the high remain vote, which it did not get largely because SF voters did not bother to vote. We are now in a very dangerous period and it isn't clear if SF have a good plan to ensure the border is at Cairnryan and not Culloville.

Where can the evidence of this be found?

West Belfast had the lowest turnout of any constituency in the UK and two thirds of people there vote SF.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-36616830

Bit disingenuous there, you picked  the outlier amongst the SF heartlands. As far as I can tell turnout was much higher in nearly all other green constituencies compared to the assembly elections.. West Tyrone, Newry, mid ulster etc.q