This is not just problematic because a large percentage of their voter base are liberal Unionists.
It is problematic too because it sets Alliance apart from the rest of the political spectrum in Northern Ireland. Provisional Sinn Fein, the SDLP and PBP don’t deliberately go out of their way to insult or demonise the PUL community, at least not in public.
It is problematic too because it sets Alliance apart from the rest of the political spectrum in Northern Ireland. Provisional Sinn Fein, the SDLP and PBP don’t deliberately go out of their way to insult or demonise the PUL community, at least not in public.
Almost everybody in the British Isles already knows that Irish nationalists and republicans are hostile to Loyalism/Unionism, they (Sinn Fein, SDLP, PBP etc) don’t have to prove it, nor do they need to go out of their way to be offensive, crass and over-the-top in their condemnation of Unionism.
Of course, they say and do things (especially SF) which Loyalists find insulting, offensive, hypocritical and tactless but it is, at least partly, because of their core political beliefs, not because they wish to appear hostile to Loyalists and Unionists.
Of course, they say and do things (especially SF) which Loyalists find insulting, offensive, hypocritical and tactless but it is, at least partly, because of their core political beliefs, not because they wish to appear hostile to Loyalists and Unionists.
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It's hard to figure how a unionist party can be opposed to unionism while remaining a unionist party??
ReplyDeleteThere is a difference between being pro-Union (if that is what the Alliance party still is) and subscribing to a closed ethno-nationalist or supremacist unionism as the DUP do.
DeleteThe greatest crime that the Alliance party in committing in ISOT's view is to transcend the great divide through its "Other" community designation and in the process calling out bigotry, prejudice and racism wherever it comes from.
ReplyDeleteISOT's biggest fear is that more and more NI electors who do no want to belong to either of the two tribes are looking at Alliance, liking what they see and voting for them. Hurrah!