Middle right Nationalism, is there such a thing?

[firestarter]

Thats what I am tryiing to establish, if there are any such people with a similar view. In regard to what you were saying about the wide spectrum of views amoung the SF electorate eg business men I would imagine some of them vote for SF as a means to an end!

I would be of similar view to yourself and my own political views would be middle right, but given the general thinking of people in the North there is no way a middle right nationalist party would survive.  Real 'politics' as such has never existed in the North as primarily our voting has been based along nationalist / loyalist lines and very few of our 'politicians' can actually handle themselves when faced with questions based aroung tax rates, inflation, the general economy etc... which is why Stormont is in such a mess. 

Economically the 6 counties are too dependent on state handouts, governement sponsored jobs etc... that it wouldn't 'pay' to argue for middle right politics, just compare the number of civil service jobs here compared to the south or the UK. 

If a middle right party started there would be a fear that it would split the nationalist vote and let in unionists so therefore it is very unlikely to happen.  Would you vote for a middle right unionist before you vote for a leftist nationalist just because they are middle right?  Very few would.

Real politics has never existed here before but its starting to rear its head. Voters are starting to become interested in political issues other than the constitutional question. As regards splitting the vote; its an age old fear, but if you were to assume that seats lost by SF/SDLP went to this new entity and not to Unionist candidates I fail to see how it could weaken nationalism.

[Eamonnca1]

Real politics has never existed here before but its starting to rear its head. Voters are starting to become interested in political issues other than the constitutional question. As regards splitting the vote; its an age old fear, but if you were to assume that seats lost by SF/SDLP went to this new entity and not to Unionist candidates I fail to see how it could weaken nationalism.

It would only weaken nationalism in Westminster elections. All other elections are on proportional representation, so it doesn't really matter how many parties you have.

BTW, didja see that thing in the Tele today about Martin McGuinness advocating making it easier for people in Ireland to claim British passports if they want them? Another step in the right direction. Hopefully unionists will begin to notice this sort of thing and stop their instinctive reaction of blocking everything our ones want.

[armaghniac]

IMHO as long as Northern Ireland in its current form remains part of the  UK, it will for a long time to come at least have a public sector  employment rate higher than the UK average and its pretty much  unavoidable.

In the Republic the public service is widely believed to overstaffed and full of wasters. Now this isn't really true, the reality being a mixture of sections like this and other understaffed sectors. Yet in NI there is two-thirds as many in public employ for 40% of the population, so many of these are surely surplus to reasonable requirements.

This padding of public expenditure on largely unproductive things is influencing political development.

BTW, didja see that thing in the Tele today about Martin McGuinness advocating making it easier for people in Ireland to claim British passports if they want them? Another step in the right direction

This is a bit of seriously cute hoorism, since it doesn't really affect many people, but will inevitably be contrasted with unionist intransigence on some other issue of real importance.

[Leo]

Far from being on the left, Sinn Fein as it is manifest today is a close to the pre-war mid Europe Nazi movement as to make sleelpess nights for us all.

[Eamonnca1]

Far from being on the left, Sinn Fein as it is manifest today is a close to the pre-war mid Europe Nazi movement as to make sleelpess nights for us all.

[LeoMc]

Far from being on the left, Sinn Fein as it is manifest today is a close to the pre-war mid Europe Nazi movement as to make sleelpess nights for us all.

First time in years I have seen a sensible grown up political debate on this board and somebody has to try to ruin it. Shakes head.