Mark Durkan and a United Ireland

4 Rotherwood Drive Tel 71285807 Email macgil@hotmail.co.uk

Kilfennan

L’Derry

BT47 5SY

13/08/09

Dear Mr Durkan

I thank you for your reply to my letter and for bringing to my attention your policy document A United Ireland and the Agreement, which I have read carefully. M y first impression of the document is that it bears no relationship to the Ireland in which I live. The document says that the S.D.L.P. is 100% for a United Ireland and is 100% for the Good Friday Agreement. These are fine words but they spring from Republican dogma about a united Ireland but Federal Unionism-Early Sinn Fein disavows dogma as the curse of Irish Politics and puts in its place secularism, which operates on reason logic and observation.

On observation what has followed from the Good Friday Agreement? There is now a Right Wing Union Jack Unionist Assembly at Stormont propped up by Republican/Nationalist people. Sectarianism is now institutionalized and partition copper fastened. In Belfast and Derry the people sulk behind peace walls flying a sectarian Union Jack on the one hand and flying a sectarian Irish Tricolour on the other. Kerbs are painted red white and blue by some and green white and orange by others. This actual world is absent from the S.D.L.P. document on a United Ireland. For Federal Unionism-Early Sinn Fein this observed world is irrational and illogical and needs change. These circumstances in the cities can only be changed with a new genuinely Irish constitution expressed in the National Government of Ireland Act which will give symbols and emblems acceptable to all, namely loyalists and others. That vision of unity is clear. The S.D.L.P. see unity in Ireland through a glass darkly.

You highlight the following: -

We seek a united Ireland that is confident pluralist and non-sectarian. One that can find the magnanimity to offer a home to those who are Irish but also to those among us who are British. One that is not afraid of differing identities and allegiances. One that will respect and protect them all.

And Also

The right to identify ones self as British or Irish

I say with respect that all of this is dangerous nonsense The S.D.L.P. and many others misunderstand pluralism Correctly understood a pluralist society or state is one made up of many religions. There is no difficulty with that. America is a prime example, so is Germany but I can’t think of any stable democracy in the world that is made up of many identities. From the melting pot in America the citizen emerges with a single identity American. The S.D.L.P. recognition of a spurious right to recognise oneself as either British or Irish would perpetuate sectarianism in Ireland and would build instability into the country just as the six counties /N. Ireland is now unstable with a dual identity.

In this the S.D.L.P. lacks insight into the nature and sensitivity of being British just as Right Wing Union Jack Unionism lacks insight into the nature and sensitivity of being Irish. In your document you say the S.D.L.P is the party of true Republicanism. In that statement is written the death sentence of an S.D.L.P. UNITED Ireland. The sap of being British is the right to be loyal to the Crown so how can that right be recognised in an S.D.L.P. Republic? Loyalty to the Crown is the sine qua non of being a unionist as well so how can a unionist exist in a United Ireland proposed by a Republican S.D.L.P.? In a Republic the right to be loyal to the Crown would be suppressed just as loyalty to the Crown has been suppressed in the 26 county Republic. Because of that loyalist Ireland in the South voted against the state with their feet by walking out until Protestant loyalists on the banks of the Shannon are nowadays as scarce and rare as Sioux Indians are on the banks of the Mississippi. On the other hand Catholics in the six counties increased and multiplied under the Crown.

Unlike the S.D.L. P. Federal Unionism-Early Sinn Fein has a vision of a new united Ireland in which there is no inconsistency in being loyal to the reformed Crown and in being Irish. In Ireland the right of loyalty to the reformed Crown would be freely expressed in a Federal Kingdom of the Sovereign Nation of Ireland And Great Britain. It should be noted that loyalty would be to a reformed Crown not a BRITISH Crown. To ask the Irish to be loyal to a British Crown would be an historic inconsistency. The necessary reforms of the Crown are examined in the novel THE WAY IRELAND OUGHT TO BE (Authorhouse). In the National Government of Ireland Act all on the Island would be defined as Irish citizens but the sap of loyalty would still rise in the historic trunk of loyalist Ireland and surge into its traditional branches so that in a united Ireland, Loyalist Ireland would flourish increase and multiply.

To look at loyalty in a human way as a secularist using reason logic and observation, it can be observed that loyalty is a praiseworthy worthwhile human attribute be it loyalty to wife, husband, family, friend, company, church, country, or the Crown. Because loyalty is a human attribute its free expression is a human right. Loyalty to the Crown goes with out mention in the S.D.L.P. document a United Ireland and because of that the document is seriously flawed. This blind spot in the vision of the S.D.L.P. wounds the historic psyche of Protestant Ireland and thus wounded, Protestant Ireland will avoid unity.

The S.D.L.P. document talks of an Irish constitution. What does an Irish constitution mean to the S.D.L.P.? Is it a code for a Republican constitution in which Irishness and Republicanism are intertwined and loyalism is excluded like the 1937 constitution? The National Government of Ireland Act is a genuinely written Irish Constitution giving equal recognition to both Irish Ireland and Loyalist Ireland. Its full content can be found in the novel mentioned previously.

The S.D.L.P. states that in their United Ireland there would still be Unionists. These unionists Federal Unionism-Early Sinn Fein calls Right Wing Union Jack Unionists to distinguish them from Royal Flag of Ireland unionists, as is Federal Unionism. So in a S.D.L.P. united Ireland these union Jack Unionists would fly the Union Jack while others would fly the Republican Irish Tricolour. In such a United Ireland sectarianism would be writ large and civil strife would be endemic. Has the S.D.L.P. got s policy document on the eradication of sectarianism? In a United Ireland with the Irish constitution, The National Government of Ireland Act, sectarianism would wither away and die out.

Federal Unionism- Early Sinn Fein states clearly it is union friendly. In principle there is no objection to a union between these islands just as there can be no objection in principle to a union between European Nations. What can be objected to is the implementation and maintenance of such a union? If the 1801 Act of Union had been implemented democratically according to the wishes of the Irish People there would never have been a problem with the union. It is recognised that democracy wasn’t in place in the Ireland of the time. Instead the Union was implemented by chicanery deceit and corruption and imposed and maintained militarily. Such a union is unacceptable and was right fully opposed. In 1922 the Act of Union was again imposed militarily on those who didn’t want it and objected to it. The Union was challenged in the Civil Rights Movement and that movement altered the nature of Union Jack Unionism but Civil Rights became infected with the dogma of sectarian catholic 1916 uprising. This dogma infects the thinking of The S.D.L.P. The secularist Federal Unionism-Early Sinn Fein maintains and rightly so that the U.K. constitution which has been rejected by the vast majority of the people of this Island and by a significant body of people in the six counties/N. Ireland, needs to be replaced by the Federal Kingdom expressed in the Irish constitution, The National Government of Ireland Act, which will give an Irish Constitution acceptable to the Catholics of Kerry and to the Protestants of Derry.

The S.D.L.P. also lay great stress on a majority in the six counties/N Ireland. It is accepted by the S.D.L.P. that N. Ireland can remain within the U.K .for as long as the Majority so wish. When analysed that means that the U.K. constitution will remain for as long as the majority so wish. But this deception should be nailed in Ireland. For a constitution to be democratic it has to enjoy the support of the overwhelming majority of the people not a marginal majority, as is the case in N. Ireland. Suppose in the U.S.A. the constitution was supported by the white community but was opposed by the black community. Suppose this set-up resulted in the flying of the Stars and Stripes for whites and The Hammer and the Sickle for blacks with an Anthem for whites and an anthem for blacks, with a passport for whites and a passport for blacks, with a first president for whites in the Oval Office and a deputy first President for blacks also in the Oval Office, the U.S.A. would be torn with civil strife and the United States would fall apart. But that constitutional set-up is in place in the Six counties so it is small wonder there are walls in the cities and sectarian strife in the streets despite the Good Friday Agreement.

It is also mentioned in the S.D.L.P. document that Late Sinn Fein accepts Union Jack Unionism’s consent and assent to a United Ireland. That day will only come when Right Wing Union Jack Unionism converts en masse to Republicanism and does an historic volte-face and disavows the Crown.

A regional Parliament is also recognised at Stormont. Why should Ulster be given special treatment in Ireland? Why not devolve power from the central government in Dublin to assemblies in the capitals of the four Irish provinces and bring the democratic legislative process as close to the grass roots as possible.

Finally the S.D.L.P. makes no mention of the presence of a British garrison in Ireland That presence is now accepted by the S.D.L.P. and Late Sinn Fein. The presence is not acceptable to Federal Unionism-Early Sinn Fein but it has the Know-how to deal with the problem. If the National Government of Ireland Act were in place in Ireland then it would be a Constitutional Imperative that the British garrison leave Ireland and take the Union Jack with them, the Union Jack being replaced by The Royal Flag of Ireland the design of the flag being described in my original letter. This is a complex military matter; the full complexity is dealt with in THE WAY IRELAND OUGHT TO BE (Authorhouse) and can be found in article 9 page 223

All of this requires that the U.U.P., The S.D.L.P. and the Alliance Party form a central coalition as Federal Unionism-Early Sinn Fein. In that way these three parties would cease to be small fish in three small ponds but would become large fish in one large United Ireland pond. In such a United Ireland, Irish Ireland and Loyalist Ireland would live happily together with a single Irish identity and with the children of each tradition cherished equally in a Federal Kingdom where Catholic Protestant and Dissenter are united in the name of Irishman under the Crown. . The Government of Ireland Act partitioned the island only the National Government of Ireland Act can unite it
With Regards Michael Gillespie