Platform for Change is launched

I have had the pleasure of being a member of the Platform for Change Management Committee for the past year or so. The Platform was launched today in Belfast.

It’s been an exciting time and great to see so many people, members of political parties, business types, community activists and ordinary citizens get involved in a political debate about the issues that matter to them.

The consultation meetings which took place with hundreds of people over the past six months were a real breath of fresh air. They proved to me that there is a huge appetite for real politics here in Northern Ireland and that people want their politicians focussed on the issues that matter.

I am in the Assembly to make the North work. Our ambition must be to build a strong region on Irish soil while respecting its inhabitants diverging national aspirations. The SDLP wants to make the North work because a strong North means a stronger Ireland. This is surely an ambition which we can share with the vast majority of people in this region. Platform for Change can play a big part in making Northern Ireland work.

Fairtrade Fortnight starts today – Executive need to do a lot more

The Executive is not doing enough to promote Fairtrade products within the public sector and its International Development strategy which is now two years overdue.

I’ll be at the launch of Fairtrade Fortnight today in Parliament Buildings. They are calling it the “The Big Swap” this year and consumers are being invited to switch a regular item for a Fairtrade substitute.

The Executive should be leading by example by encouraging the procurement of Fairtrade products in all of its departments to demonstrate the North’s commitment to ethical trading.

Yes there is some commitment to using Fairtrade tea and coffee, but no steps have been taken to ensure that there is the option to purchase Fairtrade cotton uniforms or bed linen in the Health service.

 The Minister for Education has also confirmed that she is not aware of a single school which includes a Fairtrade option in its school meals contracts.

Sales of Fairtrade products now top €2.3billion annually. This puts money directly in the pockets of some 1.5million farmers in the world’s poorest countries, benefiting an estimated 8 million people.

Here in these islands consumers have embraced Fairtrade. Sales are doubling every year. It is time the Executive caught up and showed a real commitment to the developing world by creating sustainable trade opportunities for small nations.

The Executive is totally out of step with thinking in the North, given that Belfast is the only city in the UK and Ireland to be awarded dual accreditation as a fairtrade city, acknowledging the commitment demonstrated by people in the city to Fairtrade products.

Today, I am calling on the First and Deputy First Ministers to publish their strategy on International Development and to review their procurement policies to ensure that Fairtrade is promoted within the Departments and that consumers are given the opportunity to choose Fairtrade and help promote better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability, and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world.

Proposed policing protocol will undermine independence of Chief Constable

The SDLP  has warned that a British government protocol on policing, agreed by the police and accepted by the DUP and Sinn Féin, runs the risk of ‘driving a coach and horses’ through Patten.

Policing spokesperson Alex Attwood said the so-called protocol on policing architecture fundamentally changes Patten.
 
The new beginning to policing has been one of the big achievements of the past ten years.
 
This protocol runs the risk of seriously damaging the hard-won achievement of Patten.
 
Last Thursday a former Patten Commissioner advised the Policing Board that the protocol ‘profoundly distorts the Patten architecture and makes the Chief Constable dependent on the Minister for Justice and will have the affect of ditching carefully crafted statutory provisions on the independence of the Chief Constable.’
 
The SDLP agrees with the Patten Commissioner that this proposal flies directly in the face of a Patten warning on the political direction of policing.   
 
In the view of the SDLP, the protocol has the potential to return NI to a new era of political policing and we have advised the Secretary of State that we reject the protocol.
 
This weekend I spoke to senior police and expressed the grave concern that the PSNI could have accepted such a flawed approach to policing. Unfortunately the SDLP, alone of the main parties, sees the risk.
 
On Thursday of this week Martin McGuinness said at an Assembly Committee that ‘there is nothing in the policing protocol that changes the Policing Board’s statutory responsibilities.
 
He is clearly wrong and his words demonstrate that only the SDLP are looking out for Patten to ensure that there is no going back to the bad days of the old Stormont regime.

Putting Irish Unity on the Agenda

I am speaking at a conference on Irish Unity in London today organised by Sinn Fein. I’m on with Gerry Adams, Jarlath Burns, Lord Alfie Dubs, Mick Halpenny, Margaret Ward and Diane Abbot MP. We will be discussing the prospects for Irish unity.

Here is my speech:

The Good Friday Agreement changes the debate about unity in a fundamental way.The question goes from being whether there will be a united Ireland to when and how Ireland will be united.  The referendums on the Agreement were also a full exercise in national self determination by the people of Ireland.

I believe Irish Nationalism, including provisional republicanism, has not even begun to debate the type of Ireland we wish to build.

Will this new country be built on the very thing that has made it possible – the Good Friday Agreement – or will it be cast in the image of the 1937 constitution.

In other words do we want to build a Catholic and Gaelic Ireland or somewhere more representative of the true diversity on our island?

It’s a great pleasure to be in a Labour building; a place where social justice and equality are more than just slogans. Where working men and women are given a voice and where politics is about the interests of the many not the vested interest of the few.

One of the great tragedies of 20th century Ireland is that this politics took a back seat to national struggle. Partition and the emergence of the southern state set the cause of equality and social justice back a hundred years. It did not just divide our island but smothered any debate that sought to move beyond the national question. 

It gave rise to a tokenistic neutrality and protectionist economics; to armed republicanism and ultimately a dirty and futile war.

The question today is surely not whether we wish to simply reintegrate the national territory in the image of the Irish state but whether Irish men and women, Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter wish a New Ireland to emerge.

An Ireland that reflects our diversity, built on good government and that places equality, prosperity and justice at the heart of everything it does.

My generation has been handed the keys to that Ireland. We are the inheritors of peace not the perpetuators of conflict.

We can open the door in front of us and with courage recast all about us or we can look back and repeat the mistakes of the past.

It is a tragedy that some young committed and passionate Irishmen and women are in a danger of throwing their lives away because they still cannot see the futility of armed struggle.  Our generation must prove through results that violence always fails, that another generation must not repeat the mistakes of the last and that it is persuasion not conflict which will bring about change.

The great poet John Hewitt was a proud Protestant, a proud Ulsterman and proud Irishman in a letter to his friend John Montague in 1964, he observed:

“By trying to waken folk to the concept of the Region, it seemed to me the necessary step to prize Ulster loose from the British anchorage: then and only then, when free in ideology, the unity with the other part of our island could be realised and established.

The North cannot be invaded, and taken by force in the Republic: if simply outvoted by a nationalist majority resentment would remain, but, realising themselves for what they are for the first time, not Britain’s pensioners or stranded Englishmen and Scots, being instead a group living long enough in Ireland to have the air in their blood, the landscape in their bones, and the history in their hearts, and so, a special kind of Irish themselves, they could with grace make the transition to federal unity.

I always maintained that our loyalties had an order to Ulster, to Ireland, to the British Archipelago, to Europe; and that anyone who skipped a step or missed a link falsified the total. The Unionists missed out Ireland: the Northern Nationalists (The Green Tories) couldn’t see the Ulster under their feet; the Republicans missed out both Ulster and the Archipelago; and none gave any heed to Europe at all. Now, perhaps, willy nilly bundled in the European rump of the Common Market, clearer ideas of our regional and national allegiances and responsibilities may emerge.”

You may like his words or loathe them but after 3,594 dead, 36,293 shootings, 16,209 bombing and attempted bombings and 70 years of old unionist discrimination they have a ring of logic to them.

They are the philosophy on which the Good Friday Agreement is built. That Ireland and its people have allegiance to region, to nation, to these islands and to this great continent. 

When I talk to young northerners I meet people who embody Hewitt’s dream; proudly Northern and proudly Irish.

Many are proudly British too and most happy to be Europeans.

The truth is the people of our region are not as divided as our politics suggests.

Irish nationalism can take the old road of a one size fits all future or it can walk a new one in which unity is neither a unionist nightmare nor a nationalist pipedream.

But to do that it must change and change radically.

First the very issue of unity needs to be elevated above politics. That’s why the SDLP has recommended the reconvening of the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation to discuss unity. We owe it to ourselves as a nation to debate and agree a model of a united Ireland and to do so before 2016. We cannot be complete as a nation without a shared vision of our future. North needs south but south will need the North if a new Ireland is to emerge and the absolute potential of our island is to be fulfilled.
 
Secondly we need to make the North work. Ignoring the opportunity of regional government is to ignore the common ground on which a new Ireland will be built.

That means maximum devolution but also imaginative regional solutions to local problems. Its means real power sharing that is capable of building the best education system in Ireland, defending the NHS – a British institution made Irish in Northern Ireland.

It also means getting serious about the economy because we will never build a strong all Ireland economy if we have a weak northern one.

We need to make the North a place where sectarianism is the real enemy and government leads the fight against it. 

A strong North means a strong Ireland. A weak, underperforming and politically dysfunctional one means a weaker Ireland.

Our home is a region of Ireland. Our dream is for it to flourish under the flag of our nation. Others hope it will remain a region of the UK. But we all surely agree that it is our region and needs governed for the benefit of all our people.

That is the as yet unfulfilled opportunity of the Good Friday Agreement. To build a great region on Irish soil, united in a common desire to see their neighbours flourish.

Where culture is shared; where the GAA is honoured and celebrated, never politicised and denigrated. Where the weave of diversity is strong and common ground is worked.

Where endeavour and enterprise are promoted and where prejudice is rejected.

The old Ireland aspired to a separate but equal relationship with others. It adopted an old fashioned conservative and British view of equality.

It cast progressive and labour politics aside in favour of a great nationalism that could bind a nation in a common struggle but was incapable of accommodating those who did not fit with its sense of identity.

The New Ireland must honour those who believed in their cause whether we agree with it or not, but it must not repeat the mistakes of their past.

James Connolly’s assertion that “The cause of labour is the cause of Ireland, the cause of Ireland is the cause of labour” can become the words on which a new Ireland is borne and when we remember the centenary of his death in 2016 we do so having agreed as Irishmen and women what a new united and free Ireland will look like.

We will honour his dream by ensuring that in the twenty first century labour need not wait. That progressive national politics is a possibility.

That two centuries and ten years after Tone professed the unity of the people of this island, his dream can finally become a reality.

Radical economic plan launched

 A group of economists have launched a radical set of economic proposlas for the North today. I dont agree with every word but definitely think they are worthy of consideration.  I have reproduced their statement below.

Today the Northern Ireland Economic Reform Group of senior economists, accountants and business interests launches a major report on reduced corporation tax for Northern Ireland. The report argues that a low rate of corporation tax is the only change which will quickly turn the Northern Ireland economy around and that without this reform the Northern Ireland economy faces a difficult future with continued dependence on a huge subvention from GB, low levels of employment and low wages.

Twelve years after the Good Friday Agreement Northern Ireland remains the UK’s poorest region. It has the lowest average wages and among the lowest productivity. Despite having proportionately the smallest private sector, it has suffered the largest percentage loss of jobs of any region during the current recession. Its unemployment rate has risen to the third highest of any region, and a higher percentage of is working age population are inactive than in any other region. Around half of all government expenditure in NI is financed by tax-payers in GB, and in reality tax-payers in South East England. The subsidy to NI is worth in the order of £9 billion every year. This
means £5,000 for every person living in NI, or £20,000 a year for a couple with two children.

The authors point out that all of this has happened despite the highest levels of government support for business in any UK region. Most large businesses in manufacturing and agriculture, and many service businesses with export potential, receive generous grants or subsidies. It is clear that this regime of economic development policy will not turn around the Northern Ireland economy, alter the balance between the public and private sectors or significantly narrow the prosperity gap with the rest of the UK. As if this were not bad enough, the situation may well get worse. The EU plans to begin reducing from next year the ceilings for the maximum amount of grant that Invest NI is allowed to give private firms. If these plans are realised, it is possible that no, investment grants may be permitted at all after 2013 The evidence presented in this report shows that the fast track solution to increasing economic prosperity and rapid job growth it to attract high value added Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and that one of the key ways of doing this is to offer a low rate of corporation tax.

The experience of the Irish Republic shows the ability of a highly competitive corporation tax regime to attract Foreign Direct Investment. It would greatly enhance Northern Ireland’s promotional message at any future Investment Conference if it were able to look forward to having one of the lowest corporation tax rates in the world. A low tax regime would also of course act as a spur to investment by indigenous companiesThe Report argues that reduced corporation tax is the only change which will quickly turn the Northern Ireland economy around. Other changes are also needed, such as those described in the recent Independent Review of Economic Policy, but this is the only reform that can induce the major structural change which is needed if Northern Ireland is to get out of the present economic rut. A reduction in corporation tax to a level comparable to that in the Republic of Ireland would raise overall tax revenues in NI.

The benefits would be widely spread:

• NI would benefit from a much larger private sector, including at least 90,000 extra jobs over 20 years. Many of these jobs would have salary levels well above the average for NI. Unemployment should fall back much further than would otherwise be the case.

• The UK Treasury would gain from additional tax revenues from income taxes, national insurance, VAT etc. The subvention from London needed to support public expenditure levels in N.I. would be reduced accordingly, by over £1 billion within 20 years.

EU rules insist that any region gaining control over its own tax must bear the costs of any reduction in tax rates. In this report we have calculated that the reduction in revenue from reduced corporation tax is around 2% of Executive spending, but this could be smaller if the tax base expands as fast as it has in some other countries following a tax reduction.

The Report is a comprehensive response to the Treasury’s Varney Review in December 2007 whic rejected the request from all of the main Assembly Parties for reduced corporation tax in Northern Ireland. The Report builds on the Varney Report’s admission that reduced tax would be legal under the Azore’s and Gibraltar Judgements of the European Court. Northern Ireland would, of course, in line with that judgement, have to shoulder the cost to the Treasury of any reduction in the yield from corporation tax resulting from the cut in the tax rate. This would be a small price to pay in exchange for the ability to deploy such a powerful new policy weapon Other issues previously raised concerning a reduced rate of corporation tax include the concern that brass plating will occur in that shell companies will set up in Northern Ireland without any real activity or will shift excessive profits into Northern Ireland operations, with the sole purpose of claiming the benefit of the low corporation tax rate. This report addresses these concerns and indicates that HMRC
already have most of the tools necessary to police inappropriate behaviour. The report does however suggest that a ‘headcount’ test could be introduced as a means of ensuring that companies availing of the low tax rate are genuinely located in Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland Economic Reform Group consists of senior economist and accountants together with Sir George Quigley, Chairman of Bombardier-Shorts. The group shares a common view that Northern Ireland has a pressing need for economic reform and that reduced corporation tax is the only effective means of meeting that need quickly. All members of the group have long experience in arguing for this reform including advising the Assembly in their previous attempt to persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make this change.

Online racism alive and well in NI

Last night I blogged over on Slugger O’Toole about the latest online racism group to emerge from the North. It’s still online this morning and I hope Facebook  move quickly to remove it from the internet.

Today the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities is having its Annual Conference.  Let’s hope none of the young people being racist online pass by the Wellington Park Hotel which is beside many some of the bars mentioned on the site.

Ruane asleep on the watch on Sparklebox website run by paedophile

The Minister for Education did come to the Assembly today to make a statement about Sparklebox. She told us she had launched an investigation into her department’s handling of the issue. She tried to give the impression that this was something they were on top of and that a parent and not I had raised the matter with her.

I will be tabling a question tomorrow asking for full details of the investigation she has announced. Will report back on that one whenever I get an answer.

You can see our exchange at 31:40.

Equal deal day?

Martin McGuinness speaking yesterday in Derry said:

I have spent most of the past week in Hillsborough Castle. We have been engaged with the DUP directly. These talks were about equality. It was about rights. Your rights, my rights, our rights. These are not negotiable. They are entitlements.

 The right to a proper policing service, the right to institutions which deliver, the right to see poverty tackled. I am happy to say we have made significant progress. Institutions which don’t deliver are worthless and something I will not be involved in. I now hope we have a basis upon which nationalists, republicans, unionists and loyalists will move forward together on the basis of partnership and equality.

 There is no other realistic or viable path available.

Great words but do they stack up?

Not if you test them against the likely outcome of the talks which resume today.

We know Sinn Fein have conceded that a nationalist will never hold the Justice Ministry in Northern Ireland. 

But the truth is the current coalition is built on inequality. 

That a nationalist will never be able to hold the justice Ministry because SF negotiated away their right to do so is not just a denial of the SDLP’s mandate, it is an act of outstanding political and social discrimination, the epitome on inequality.

This inequality is also evident on the streets. It fuels the prejudice that boiled over last summer in naked racism. It’s in the flags that are flown every year on the Lisburn and Ormeau roads. It’s on the streets of the City Centre this Christmas and in the Internet hate groups.

 It’s in the gerrymandering of the constituency boundaries and the robbing of £4million in rates from Belfast ratepayer by taking Forestside Shopping Centre out of the city.

Lets hope that when the deals comes there is some evidence that Martin McGuinness is living up to his words.

Conall McDevitt MLA

Just after nine this morning I met with the Assembly Speaker, William Hay MLA and signed the register of members to formally become an MLA.

Carmel Hanna and Alban Maginness were there to witness the formality. On Monday I will take my seat on the SDLP benches becoming the party’s youngest MLA and the first in what I am sure is a new generation of MLAs convinced that the people of this region are not as divided as our politics suggest. 

This week is proof if every you needed it that the gap is growing between the people of Northern Ireland and their political leaders. 

The ‘negotiations’ are not about the job losses or the education crisis. Sectarianism or child protection aren’t on the agenda either as old ideologues and aging warriors hang on to power and the politics of the past. Meantime outside working families and pensioners must be wondering if the best the big two parties can offer their children and grandchildren is another generation of division built on victories and pacts rather then common ground and a shared future.

Are Tories heading back to the barricades?

Two things are worth mentioning about news that the Conservative party hosted a meeting last weekend with leadership figures from the UUP and DUP.

From a media point of view it is worth noting that the story was broken by Eamonn Mallie on Slugger O’Toole and not on the mainstream media. It seems quality serious online news and comment is now able to drive the traditional news agenda even in this small region of ours.  That’s a very positive development.

The other notable aspect of the story is altogether more depressing. No matter what way you look at this it stinks either of sectarian politics or good old fashioned Tory, win at all cost, power grabbing.

The last thing Northern Ireland needs is more bigoted politics. The vast majority of people in both communities are interested in making the common ground work, not building new walls between us. It all makes David Cameron’s calls for post sectarian politics sound a bad joke.

We saw what unionist unity looked like in the seventies. It brought down power sharing and gave us Vanguard and the ulster workers council strike. Is that the price the North is going to pay to get David Cameron into Number 10?