United Kingdom

The following article provides more details on what the current situation is and how it came about. 

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 With just less than a month until voters in both Ireland and Northern Ireland choose their representatives to the European Parliament, the Belfast police have for the past four days given the Irish republican Sinn Féin a potent campaign issue – and exacerbated tensions nearly two decades after the struggle between Irish Catholics and Protestants moved from killing and violence to the realm of politics.

Northern Ireland’s police force arrested Gerry Adams, the leader of the republican Sinn Féin since the early 1980s on Wednesday, holding him for four days in relation to one of the most brutal murders of the Northern Irish violence. Other Sinn Féin leaders, including Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister Martin McGuinness, have attacked the arrest as a political stunt, but other politicians in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland have been more reticent to comment on what’s become an unpredictable turn of events.

The  arrest relates to the 1972 murder of Jean McConville, a mother of 10 who was pulled from her home by armed gunmen within  the Irish Republican Army. She was later killed and ‘disappeared,’ her remains found only in 2003. It was a particularly cruel murder among many such killings during Northern Ireland’s  ‘Troubles,’ the violent struggle between unionist Protestants who largely supported Northern Ireland’s status within the United Kingdom, and Irish nationalist Catholics, who wanted northern Ireland to be part of a unified Irish republic. 

The struggle dates to 1921, when the United Kingdom partitioned Ireland into the largely Protestant Northern Ireland and the largely Catholic Southern Ireland. ...

Throughout the worst of the political violence in the 1970s and the 1980s, Sinn Féin emerged as the political arm of the IRA. ...

The 1998 ‘Good Friday’ agreement largely brought the sectarian violence to an end, and Adams now leads Sinn Féin as a force within both Northern Ireland, where the party sits on the Northern Ireland Executive – it largely governs alongside its rivals, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), and other parties. ...

The arrest seems certain to galvanize republican Catholics in Northern Ireland, motivating Sinn Féin supporters just before the May 22-25 European parliamentary elections. In the aftermath of the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Féin has increasingly supplanted the SDLP, which largely rebuked the IRA’s political violence during the Troubles and which dominated politics in the era before the Good Friday Agreement. ...

Arrest could stall Adams’ momentum in Republic of Ireland

The effect in Ireland could be more damaging, where Sinn Féin had been forecast, before Adams’s arrest, to win three or four of Ireland’s 11 seats in the European parliament.

Before the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Féin had only a marginal political footprint in the Republic of Ireland — it won just one seat in the 1997 general election. But it slowly developed a growing support base, and it won five seats in the 2002 election. ...

Today, polls show that Sinn Féin has nearly doubled its support to 20% or higher. Under Adams’s leadership and with the emergence of a new generation of republican leaders untainted by the Troubles, such as Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Féin has emerged as the chief leftist opposition in Ireland. It was poised for a three-way race with the governing center-right Fine Gael and the more conservative Fianna Fáil to become Ireland’s largest party as the next Irish general election approaches, likely in 2016 – notably, the 100th anniversary of the failed Easter rising that launched modern Irish nationalism.

Adams today is less influential in Irish politics than he was in 2011, especially after it emerged that his brother Liam sexually abused his five-year old daughter, possibly with Gerry Adams’s knowledge.

If Adams helped put Sinn Féin on the political spectrum in Irelandproper over the past 15 years, it’s the emergence of a new guard of leaders like McDonald that are largely powering Sinn Féin’s rise as a real contender for power. 

Nonetheless, it’s not hard to envision that Adams’s arrest will jeopardize those gains — and a murder charge or conviction would almost certainly make it impossible for Sinn Féin, at least under Adams’s leadership, to take part in a coalition government with Fine Gael, Fanna Fáil, Ireland’s social democratic Labour Party. Irish voters aren’t going to elect a government that’s focused on fighting the battles of the 1970s and 1980s, so every day that McDonald and the other rising stars on Sinn Féin in Ireland are forced to defend Adams and declaim his involvement with the IRA is a day lost from more germane policy issues in the Irish republic.

http://suffragio.org/2014/05/05/whats-going-on-with-gerry-adams-and-the-...

Whatever one feels about Gerry Adams and his arrest 40 years after the murder of Jean McConville, there is no doubt the arrest is political. The left-wing Sinn Fein party of which he is a leader has been growing in political popularity in both the British-controlled North and in the Republic of Irleand. It has been poised to make major gains in the European Parliaments in a couple of weeks.

While the IRA participated in violence, so did the other side including the police notifying Protestant militant groups when IRA prisoners would be released so that they could kill them immediately after their release. On Bloody Sunday 1972, the British Army shot 26 unarmed civil rights protesters killing thirteen of them (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1972)). None of the soldiers or police have been prosecuted.  A perception of one-sdided justice could destabilize the peace situation again. However, Adams did call for calm after his release. 

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 There seems little doubt that the arrest of Irish republican leader Gerry Adams this week over alleged involvement in a tragic murder 44 years ago is politically motivated.

The political interests pushing this agenda have no respect for victims of Ireland’s recent 30-year conflict. These interests are being selective in their focus on victims, cynically vying for political gain, and in particular to damage the rise of Sinn Fein, the Irish republican party.

Later this month, Ireland is heading into European Parliamentary elections, which up to now was promising to see major electoral gains for Sinn Fein, the party of which Adams has been president of since 1983.

In recent years, Sinn Fein has emerged has the fastest growing political party in both the British-occupied north and the independent southern state. It has become the second biggest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, while in the southern legislative chamber, Dail Eireann, Sinn Fein has seen its number of parliamentarians expand three-fold over the past three elections to become an increasingly pivotal force there.

Sinn Fein can rightly claim to be the only all-Ireland party with representatives and organizational structure that transcend the British-imposed border, which partitions the island into northern and southern jurisdictions. Sinn Fein is distinguished from all other political parties by its manifesto calling for a united, independent country.

That manifesto not only threatens the British interest of maintaining its political presence in the North of Ireland; the so-called Irish political parties in the South of Ireland also see their establishment interests challenged by the growing popular support for Sinn Fein and its calls to shake-up the stagnant status quo on both sides of the border.

https://alethonews.wordpress.com/2014/05/01/gerry-adams-arrest-politics-...

Although much (but not all) of the polling was done before Gerry Adams arrest, a poll of Irish voters shows that the left-wing Sinn Feiin party is poised to do very well in the upcoming Nay 23rd European Parliament and local elections. 

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 Sinn Fein is in contention to win three of the Irish republic's 11 seats in the European Parliament, a poll showed on Saturday ahead of an election which the party says the arrest of leader Gerry Adams was timed to disrupt. ...

Sinn Fein, which shares power in Northern Ireland and has gained popularity south of the border during the country's financial crisis, could win as many European Parliament seats as Prime Minister Enda Kenny's Fine Gael party in the May 23 poll, according to a survey in the Sunday Business Post newspaper. ...

Sinn Fein, which is the second largest opposition party in Dublin's parliament after Fianna Fail, failed to win a seat in the last European elections five years ago after capturing its first ever seat in the European parliament in 2004.

It was the second opinion poll in a week which has shown Sinn Fein are poised to perform well in the elections that will take place the same day as local polls. ...

However, the 500 potential voters surveyed in each constituency were interviewed between Monday and Thursday of last week, mostly before the arrest of Adams on Wednesday.

Sinn Fein will also contest European and local elections in Northern Ireland.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/05/03/uk-ireland-sinnfein-idUKKBN0DJ0...

Sinn Fein, the left-wing Irish Republican party, of which Gerry Adams is a leader, is running in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It has put out its election platform for the European Parliament and local elections.

The comments on austerity at the end of the article can be applied to the entire world, but apply in particular to the Republic of Ireland. The right-wing Irish government had very little government debt, unlike the other European economies after the 2008 financial crisis, but plunged the entire economy into crisis and high unemployment when it took over the Irish banks' debts, which came mainly from a housing bubble, as a favour to their capitalist cronies. 

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Sinn Fein launched its elections manifesto in Belfast and said the EU had a role to play in peace building and supporting the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement.

The party said: "This Agreement provides for a border poll to determine the continued partition or reunification of Ireland.

"The EU should continue to play a role in supporting the peace process, promoting cross-border working and ultimately respecting and supporting any vote for reunification."

Key republican commitments included:

:: Securing greater investment from the European Investment Bank to create jobs in Ireland north and south.

:: Defending workers' pay and conditions and promoting a "basic threshold of decency" for all workers.

:: Ensuring "fairer" distribution of Common Agricultural Policy payments.

:: Promoting urgent action on climate change.

:: Returning powers to member states and increasing the influence of state parliaments in the EU legislative process.

:: Reducing the power of the European Commission and increasing that of smaller states at the Council of Ministers through reform of the voting procedure.

:: Promoting Irish unity and EU support for a border poll.

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams said the recession had led to a social crisis north and south of the border.

"The response of the EU institutions, actively supported by governments in the member states, has been to socialise the cost of the crisis," he said.

"The needs of the banks have been put before the needs of people.

"Austerity, imposing the costs of the economic crisis on those least able to pay, has become the dogma of politicians in Dublin, London and Brussels."

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/s...

New polls in the Republic of Ireland confirm that there is growing support for left-wing Sinn Fein, a steep decline in support for Labour, which had the second most seats in the 2011 election but formed an alliance with right-wing Finn Gael to continue the austerity program (http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/sinn-féin-rise-and-low-labour-support-reflected-in-polls-1.1801224). One of the two recent polls shows Sinn Fein in first place with 23% of the vote in a multi-party system. The large percentage of voters intending to vote for independents also shows dissatisfaction with the right-wing austerity policies of the government. The decline in Labour support shows what happens when left-wing parties implement right-wing austerity programs. 

ETA: Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, despite his arrest in Northern Ireland for alleged murder, had the lowest percentage of dissatisfied voters among leaders, indicating that his arrest is seen primarily as a political act aimed at trying to dampen the growing support of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.   

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The low support for the Labour Party and the strong prospects for Sinn Féin shown in today’s Irish Times Ipsos/MRBI poll is also reflected into two other polls which have been published today.

With just days to go until the local and European elections, a Red C poll for The Irish Sun today puts Labour at 8 per cent, 11 percentage points below its 2011 General Election showing of 19 per cent.

The Irish Sun poll also reflects the increase in support for Sinn Féin which is up 10 percentage points on the 2011 General Election result to 20 per cent. The party’s support is up two percentage points since the last Red C poll on May 4th.

Sinn Féin looks like getting three seats , one in each European constituency, according to today’s Ipsos/MRBI Irish Times poll

The Sun poll shows that Sinn Féin is now on par in the poll withFianna Fáil, which is three percentage points above its disastrous 2011 general election showing at 20 percent. ...

Fine Gael remains the most popular party with a quarter of voters surveyed supporting it, according to the Red C survey. The result is 11 percentage points below its General Election result.

Independents continue to grow very strongly at 24 per cent, up from 17 per cent in the general election. ...

A Millward Brown poll for the Irish Independent also confirms the low rating for Eamon Gilmore’s Labour party, at 6 per cent, unchanged since the paper’s last poll three weeks ago.

This poll finds that Sinn Féin has the highest party support in the country at 23 per cent, two percentage points higher than its last poll.

It shows a decline in support for Fianna Fail in recent weeks at 21 percent (down 2 points) while Fine Gael’s support has also fallen to 20 per cent (down 5 points since the last poll). Supports for the Independents continue to grow up by by 4 per cent age points to 27per cent.

The poll also finds that just 20 per cent of voters surveyed are happy with the Government.

Of party leaders Gerry Adams has the least number of dissatisfied voters at 57 per cent (up 5 points), Tánaiste and Labour leader Eamon Gilmore has the highest dissatisfaction raiting at 72 per cent (up 2),followed by Taoiseach and Fine Gale leader Enda Kenny (at 67 percent up 4) and Fianna Fail’s Micheal Martin at 60 per cent (up 8). 

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/sinn-féin-rise-and-low-labour-support-reflected-in-polls-1.1801224

The UKIP (UK independence Party) has made major gains in the UK local elections making it the fourth major party in the UK. UKIP Leader Nigel Farage and some of his candidates have faced major criticism over racist and homophobic remarks.

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 The UK Independence Party (UKIP or Ukip /ˈjuːkɪp/) is a Eurosceptic[7][8] right-wing populist[9] political party in the United Kingdom, founded in 1993.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Independence_Party

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Britain’s three main political parties are assessing the damage from local elections in which they were all hit by the “political earthquake” that Nigel Farage’s Ukip promised and delivered.

Nick Clegg could become a casualty of the Ukip advance. The Independent has learnt that Liberal Democrat activists have launched an online petition, #libdems4change, demanding a leadership contest so the party can install a new leader this summer. ...

Mr Clegg insisted he would not quit as he blamed the party’s loss of more than 280 council seats on a “very strong anti-politics feeling”. But the pressure on him may grow if the party loses most of its 12 MEPs when the European election results are announced on Sunday night.

Mr Farage predicted that his party’s sweeping gains outside London in Thursday’s council elections in England will be matched by coming first in the Euro poll.

The Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems all put their best gloss on the town hall results. But behind the scenes, they were frantically calculating the impact that the new “four-party” political landscape would have on next year’s general election. With results declared in 152 local authorities, the Tories had lost 201 seats and had lost control of 11 authorities. Labour gained 292 seats and six councils, while the Lib Dems lost two authorities and 284 seats. Ukip gained 155 seats. ...

A BBC projection indicated similar voting patterns would result in a hung parliament after the general election, with Ed Miliband just short of an overall majority. It gave Labour 31 per cent of the national vote, the Conservatives 29 per cent, Ukip 17 per cent, the Lib Dems 13 per cent and others 10 per cent. That would give Labour 322 seats (up 64), the Conservatives 261 (down 45) and the Lib Dems 37 (down 20).

Ukip’s share of the vote was below the 23 per cent it secured in last year’s county council elections in Tory heartlands – due partly to a disappointing performance in London. David Cameron rejected pressure from some Tory MPs for local pacts with Ukip. ...

Although Labour did well in London, gaining four authorities, ... Traditional Labour strongholds have fallen to Ukip. Southern England isn’t yet swinging to Labour in big enough numbers.

“Labour has to refocus and fast. The ‘cost of living crisis’ is a good line but not enough to sustain the party through a general election campaign in which economic credibility will be everything. The party needs to build its message around the commitment to economic competence, fiscal responsibility and a sustainable recovery which brings new jobs and new industries to every corner of the UK.” ...

Ukip inflicted damage to the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems alike as it picked up a succession of seats across England, performing strongly in many of the marginal seats that will decide the outcome next May. It scored stunning successes in Essex, gaining 11 seats in Basildon to end Tory control and gained five seats in Thurrock to eject Labour from power. ...

Speaking in Basildon, Ukip’s leader predicted his party was heading towards a historic breakthrough in next year’s general election. He hinted he would contest a constituency in his home county of Kent. He said: “There are areas of the country where now we have got an imprint in local government. Under the first-past-the-post system we are serious players. We will see you at Westminster next year. The Ukip fox is in the Westminster henhouse.” ...

John Healey, the Labour MP for Wentworth and Dearne on the outskirts of Rotherham, said the result was an expression of the electorate’s anger at mainstream politicians.

“It's a message for all the political parties,” he said. “Wake up! People are angry. They are saying they aren't hearing enough of what they feel in what we are politicians are saying.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/local-election-results-201...

With half the votes counted, left-wing Sinn Fein is also making large gains in the Republic of Ireland as voters protest against the austerity measures of the coalition government. The big loser is Labour which joined the right wing Finn Gael, which lost one third of its voting percentage but still led in popularity by 1%, in a coalition and has paid a huge price for implementing the austerity measures. As in the North, the arrest of Gerry Adams appears to have little effect on the outcome. 

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Ireland's coalition government suffered a bruising setback at local elections on Saturday as the opposition Sinn Fein party made major gains to capitalize on frustration over six years of relentless austerity cuts.

Ireland emerged from an international bailout under Prime Minister Enda Kenny's government last year and employment is growing strongly after a long recession, but the economic recovery is not being felt by large numbers of voters.

Kenny's Fine Gael party looked set to narrowly remain the largest party in councils, even though midway through the count it was polling at 24 percent versus 36 percent at parliamentary elections three years ago. More of the backlash was saved for junior coalition partner Labour, whose vote collapsed.

The surge by Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army, whose anti-austerity policies helped move it into third place in local polls, will pile pressure on the government ahead of one last austerity budget needed to reduce a deficit that is still among the highest in Europe.

"We went into this government with our eyes wide open to pull this country back from an economic abyss," Kenny told national broadcaster RTE.

"But this vote is one of frustration, is one of anger, is one of saying to government we need you to do better ... Obviously it's not a good day for government. It's been a hard day for (deputy prime minister) Eamon Gilmore and the Labour Party."

Kenny needs the support of Labour to push through October's budget, for which a further 2 billion euros of tax increases and spending cuts must be found. Finance minister Michael Noonan has warned of little leeway unless the recovery picks up pace.

Education minister Ruairi Quinn of the Labour Party said in an interview that if the government were to consider changing course, it could risk damaging recent increases in consumer confidence and in turn stifle economic growth.

Labour, which became the second-biggest party in the state for the first time at the last parliamentary election just months after the bailout began, had 9 percent of the vote after 72 of the 137 local authorities returned first preference votes.

In a separate by-election caused by the resignation of one of its members of parliament, Labour fell to seventh place as Sinn Fein again performed well, narrowly missing out on a seat. ...

Sinn Fein, which shares power in Northern Ireland but until recently was viewed as a political pariah south of the border, captured 17 percent of the vote to close in on the main opposition Fianna Fail party, which won 23 percent, a similar level to that of local polls five years ago.

Independent and smaller party candidates, traditionally strong performers in local polls in Ireland, were on 28 percent, adding to the pressure on the mainstream parties.

The rise in support for Sinn Fein from a record 10 percent at parliamentary elections in 2011 showed the arrest and four-day detention of party leader Gerry Adams over a 1972 murder earlier this month has done little to halt its momentum.

"The strong performance right across the state indicates that there has been a fundamental shift in terms of public sentiment and political opinion," Sinn Fein deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said in an interview at a Dublin count center.

"We haven't by any means reached our potential, much less peaked, but there's no doubt that today is a very significant milestone on the journey to becoming a large, strong political party that can challenge for government." ...

 

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/24/us-ireland-election-idUSBREA4N...

More over chuck the prince...

Prince Charles Strikes Another Blow for the British Republic  -  by Tony Gosling

http://rt.com/op-edge/161020-prince-charles-strikes-blow/

"There is an air of unreality to Prince Charles' spin-squad attempting this week to prove that the future British Head of State's comparison of Putin to Hitler, while surrounded by journalists on a royal tour, was said in a 'private conversation'.

It is not just that his views show how out of touch he and his PR team are with the nation and the real world, but Charles' flippant remarks draw unwelcome attention to his own and his family's close connections to Nazis and related war-mongering..."

The New Aristocracy in Britain

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/05/23/pers-m23.html

"...The financial crisis of 2008 was a signal for the ruling class to embark on the deepest assault on working people sicne the 1930s,  in order to take back all of the concessions it was forced to make in the postwar period.

Any talk of economic recovery applies exclusively to the wealthy.

The uncritical acceptance of repugnant levels of social inequality by all the major political parties is striking..."

Yes, here too.

Mark Carney fits right in both places

In the Northern Ireland European Parliament elections, the left-wing Sinn Fein candidate topped the polls (notice that in the results each of the parties runs one candidate for three seats in order to not split the vote for the three European Parliament seats and that if a certain threshold is not reached the bottom candidate is dropped and next voter's choice is added on until three candidates are elected).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland_European_Parliament_consti...)

Then click on

• Search for "Northern Ireland European Parliament constituency" in existing articles.

Then click on

Northern Ireland (European Parliament constituency)

Only two days after the UK local elections UKIP leader Nigel Farage is dealing with new racist and homophobic remarks, in addition to those already made by Farage himself and other candidates. 

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Nigel Farage has been reported to Britain’s racism watchdog.

The Ukip leader suggested people in London would be right to be concerned if Romanians moved in next door.

The watchdog confirmed today that it has powers to investigate acts of prejudice and take individuals to court.

The move follows weeks of coverage on Ukip election candidates making controversial comments, which Mr Farage had previously put down to a few “idiots”.

The constant accusations of racism dogging Ukip appear to have damaged the party with a poll today showing its lead going into Thursday’s European elections has plummeted.

In response, it organised a carnival-style event in London today — complete with steel drums — in an effort to show it has candidates from diverse backgrounds.

Mr Farage was yesterday reported to the Equality and Human Rights Commission in a letter by Labour MP Keith Vaz ...

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/nigel-farage-faces-racism-watchd...

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Nigel Farage is dealing with fresh allegations of racism and homophobia in his party only days after the local and European elections as Ukip was forced to launch an investigation into comments made by one of its newly elected councillors.

Dave Small, who was elected to Redditch borough council on Friday, faces being kicked out of the party for referring to gay people as "perverts" and African immigrants as "scroungers".

 

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/24/ukip-councillor-investig...

By-elections are learning moments. It will be interesting to see what the different 'mainstream' parties learn from this debacle.

Jack Straw needed the money so he could build a moat.

Different sites, different projections.

http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html

NorthReport wrote:

Right now at least it sure looks like SNP could be the kingmaker - so who will they support? 

SNP's Nicola Sturgeon calls for pact with Labour to oust Cameron; BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/snps-nicola...

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Nicola Sturgeon has issued a public appeal to Ed Miliband to join with the SNP in "locking David Cameron out of 10 Downing Street".