Dear Nick Griffin we do have a democratic mandate against hate

Speaking on the Stephen Nolan show yesterday Nick Griffin brought his BNP rhetoric to Northern Ireland, including saying that there was no “democratic mandate” for the influx of foreign nationals into the Province.

While there may be a mandate for the number of people that come into Northern Ireland from elsewhere, there is however a democratic mandate for how they should be treated, in the Northern Ireland Act.

Section 75

Statutory duty on public authorities

(1)A public authority shall in carrying out its functions relating to Northern Ireland have due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity—

(a)between persons of different religious belief, political opinion, racial group, age, marital status or sexual orientation;

(b)between men and women generally;

(c)between persons with a disability and persons without; and

(d)between persons with dependants and persons without.

(2)Without prejudice to its obligations under subsection (1), a public authority shall in carrying out its functions relating to Northern Ireland have regard to the desirability of promoting good relations between persons of different religious belief, political opinion or racial group.

Of course this was in the Belfast Agreement so therefore racial equality was democratically mandated by the people of this island for Northern Ireland on 23rd May 1988.

So when Griffen went on to say:

“When you see a town changing from something which is, in fact, divided among Protestants and Catholics, and when you go there 25 years later and whole areas of it look like Africa or China, you know there is a problem.”

Yes the problem is you Mr Griffen, speaking against the democratic will of the people that all people should be treated equally is the problem.

So now we are overseas

How do you define abroad?

UK shown in lilac

For some, as we are an island state, the term is often interchangeable with overseas. But seeing as we are the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland those of us in the Northern Ireland branch of the Liberal Democrats didn’t think the term applied to us.

Yesterday myself and other members of Northern Ireland Liberal Democrats received the April newsletter from Liberal Democrats Abroad much to our surprise. Now we know that the Assembly Commission are going to be considering whether to fly the Irish Tricolour alongside the Union Flag at Stormont.

But we think that as election and referendum geeks we might have noticed a referendum for the people of Northern Ireland to determine if they were part of the UK or Ireland or independent. Indeed many of the local party would probably have been heavily involved in campaigning during such a self determination referendum.

Scarily also considering there are local elections next month in parts of England, and all councils in Wales and Scotland the only request for telephone canvassing is London.

Maybe, just maybe, this may be another instance of party members in charge of various sections of our party based in London not realising that the Northern Ireland Lib Dems are part of the Federal Party, part of the UK. Or maybe we are just part of them ignoring the needs of the party outside the M25.