The SDLP, having weighed up what was on offer in the budget against its serious shortcomings, voted against it- fair play to them. Margaret Ritchie stood firm in the face of the DUP/ SF axis bullying tactics and managed to squeeze extra money from them for much-needed social housing. However, it remains an essentially right-wing, anti-community budget. There is of course the lack of detail on water reform and education, and by the recent performance of Nigel Dodds with regard to the abolition of relief for the installation of energy efficient measures, the two big parties cannot be trusted to deliver unless they spell out exactly what they are intending to do.
Some people don't seem to be able to get their heads around the concept that the SDLP are in the Executive as a right, not because they have agreed on a way forward with the DUP and Sinn Féin. This isn't like the situation in the Republic where parties coalesce voluntarily because they agree on a way forward. The SDLP has a democratic mandate to oppose anything they wish to oppose in the Executive.
Technically Margaret Ritchie had to vote in favour of the budget, but the wider party is not bound by these rules and has every right to oppose the budget. That does not undermine its right to be in the Executive- they have a mandate and right to use any Executive seat they have in any way they see fit, as the other parties also can do. Likewise with their party vote in the Assembly. There is nothing morally or legally to say they have to dance to the tune of the DUP/ Sinn Féin axis.
There are some, including the perennially self-righteous Alliance Party, who say the SDLP should quit the Executive. Quitting would be contravening the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement which the SDLP framed. This is about powersharing and scrutiny, not leaving the lunatics in charge of the asylum unchecked.
And then there are those who say that the SDLP should back the budget and every other DUP/ SF point-of-view because they share Executive membership with them. This would essentially mean that the SDLP would have to support the budget even if they disagreed with it. That would be anti-democratic.
There are also those who argue that the SDLP should quit the Executive and form an opposition (a position not provided for in the GFA and which is anti-powersharing and has no legal basis). That would be tantamount to the Westminster-style set-up of the old Stormont regime.
No, the SDLP should remain in the Executive as the guardian of the rights and needs of the people. So what if it has to vote against Executive decisions? If it means standing up for what is right, then so be it.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
SDLP Rejects Budget
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7 comments:
No one forced Margaret Ritchie to support the budget, investment strategy and pfg last week at the executive. The sdlp would have been more credible if she had voted against last week and then voted for this week while her party voted against in the assembly. Elmat could you explain why Margaret Ritchie voted for at the executive table?
That's definitely a good point made about the SDLP having a right to be in the government and being under no obligation to vote with the grand coalition, except for their ministers.
No one has yet answered the simple question. Why did Margaret Ritchie vote for the budget, investment strategy and pfg at the executive?
Because if she didn't she could lose her seat on the Executive and throw the Assembly into disarray - simple as that - and if you had read the article you would realise this - this is something that the DUP pushed through at the negotiations in St Andrew's and of course in the interests of 'democracy' - SF did not oppose - so this is the outworking of all of this and no doubt it wll keep raising its head - if I remember SF did the same over water but no one batted an eyelid - SF is spinning - as usual
I see that Gerry Adams - who has been wheeled out of mothballs - is now the new face of CR rememberance - Irish News yesterday - I don't remember him being too hot on civil rights of people who didn't agree with his brand of politics and I don't rememeber him being to the fore of civil rights but then the revisionists in SF will say that he was the leading light!
now now anon don't get too exicted. Maragaret Ritchie could have voted no at the executive and voted yes in the Assembly with no penalty. The sad SDLP are slowly but surely becoming more and more invisible and he believes this stunt can make him and his relevant.
Gerry Adams like many others who were politically active at this time is just reminding us all that the Civil Right period or movement doesn't belong to the SDLP. Another silly stunt to make them relevant. At least when Fianna Fail take over we will have a political party with some substance, at times corrupt and very conservaive but substance all the same.
Oakleaf,
You're wrong. Margaret Ritchie would have been in breach of the Ministerial Code if she had not voted in favour of the PfG.
Also, the SDLP will not take lessons on civil rights from Gerry Adams of all people. Sinn Fein gave up any credibility on the issue when they started killing people.
Francie Molloy can lie through his teeth when he says that SF did not endorse violence but then why would Conor Murphy say that the Brighton Bombing was justifiable and why would Mitchell McLoughlin say that the murder and disappearance of Jean McConville wasn't a crime?
We are waiting for an answer oakleaf!!!!!!!
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