Slugger O’ Toole thinks: ”Sinn Fein’s Irish Unity drive in Britain is still too restricted to the usual suspects”
http://sluggerotoole.com/index.php

Diane Abbott?? Does she know anything about Ireland?

As for what Americans think, check out comments 13 and 14 of this thread:
http://www.sluggerotoole.com/index.php/weblog/comments/54-of-catholics-reckon-failure-to-agree-should-result-in-the-collapse-of-in/

Slugger O’ Toole thinks: ” Sinn Fein’s Irish Unity drive in Britain is still too restricted to the usual suspects”.
http://www.sluggerotoole.com/

Diane Abbott?? Does she know anything about Ireland?

As for holding similar events in America, have a look at comments 13 and 14 here:
http://www.sluggerotoole.com/index.php/weblog/comments/54-of-catholics-reckon-failure-to-agree-should-result-in-the-collapse-of-in/

Come on Damon,
Your probably right about the usual suspects, but all political conflicts usually end up in that situation but surely the situation is better now, then it was 20-30 years ago.
You don’t want to go back to those days. Do you ?

The principal problem for those who wish to re-unite Ireland is that the overwhelming majority of Irish people don’t want it, which is what

Sinn Féin’s continuing strength in the North is in stark contrast to its poor performances in recent elections in the Republic

actually means. And I’m not sure how many of the younger generation of SF see it as a priority, either. SF have never been willing to offer Unionists a quid pro quo for re-unification, presumably because they regard them as Scots who should be repatriated anyway.

Oh, and for the record, the Irish peace process was principally caused (at least according to Mr Adams) by the British government’s decision to put almost all its intelligence on Sinn Fein inside one Chinook helicopter which then crashed into a Scottish hillside in thick fog, killing all aboard.

I doubt the State of Israel is going to be so stupid. And it is its continued existence which is, at bottom, the cause of the alienation of young Muslims.

Oh, and for the record, the Irish peace process was principally caused (at least according to Mr Adams) by the British government’s decision to put almost all its intelligence on Sinn Fein inside one Chinook helicopter which then crashed into a Scottish hillside in thick fog, killing all aboard.

No computers. Was Labour to blame ?

I doubt the State of Israel is going to be so stupid. Backing HAMAS over the more secular FATAH in the early years of that’s organisation’s development was pretty stupid. Or was it ?

As for the general idea of engagement is that not a good thing. Whether it be a disffected young muslim or white working class lad. At least hear what they have to say

@2
Of course not, I was just defering to that excellent Slugger O’ Toole website, and to highlight some really good links off that article about the conference.
Like this one:
http://sluggerotoole.com/index.php/weblog/comments/all-can-look-back-on-their-ira-involvement-with-pride/

Americans who still have an ”England get out of Ireland” outlook might as well talk to the wall for all the notice NI unionists will take of them.
So what contribution having meetings in New York and San Francisco will bring, I don’t know.

One of the people at the conference will be Lord Paul Bew, who, if you look at the link above, says in CiF:

Despite recent openness to dialogue from Sinn Féin, real progress in Northern Ireland may still be decades away

And I think that’s right. Republicans have played all their cards, and still the majority of unionists are not interested in any talk of a united Ireland.

Allthough the peace process has been a success in that now almost everone rejects violence, things have become frozen and remain polarised.

Even something as simple (you’d imagine) as getting greater recognition for the Irish language in NI causes sectarian tensions …because hardly anyone speaks it anyways, and IMO it’s just a distraction and an unecessary point of antagonism. I think Sinn Fein should just drop it. If people want to learn Irish then fine just do it, but don’t try to rub unionists noses in it by bringing it into politics.

”The peace process” goes on and on without really getting anywhere.

The thing is, that in those 28 years, the cause of Irish unity has barely taken a step forwards.

IIRC, even 18% of SF voters are not in favour of it, and a lot of the sectarian headcount thinking attempts to sidestep a range of immovable objects, including….

* The citizens of the unoccupied 26 are about keen on unity in an inverse relationship to British taxpayers outside of NI
* 50% + 1 as a mandate is as unobtainable as it is insufficient

Even if we were to accept that some kind of referendum in which everyone has an equal vote and a sufficient majority were prepared to vote for it, you hit the problem of votes that don’t have trade-offs. The fact that a sizable minority (or ‘majority’ as we’d call it for the foreseeable future) would reject it with an intense passion means that it would trump many of the mild preferences that could conceivably vote for it in the first place. If I lived in NI, I suspect that I’d have a mild preference for unity, but chop a fiver off my weekly shopping bill in return for maintenance of the Union and I’d probably take it.

The tragedy is that this is taking up energy that should be devoted to dealing with real material problems, and that it is allowed to dominate debate in NI to the point where voters are left with a hobson’s choice between parties that are still primarily sectarian and communal.

For one thing, that under-estimates the real significance of such debates for London. Livingstone’s willingness to provide a political forum for today’s ‘suspect community’ of young Muslims has played an important role in countering the anti-politics of Islamist extremists.

Where’s the evidence for this?

I agree with Dave Hill. I liked Ken for his policies on housing, transport and promoting equality. I really disliked his weird ‘foreign policy’ adventures and his willingness to cosy up to Islamists.

Speaking at a conference on Irish unity is similarly ridiculous, in my opinion. For one thing, I dislike talk of ‘Irish unity’ when the majority of people in Northern Ireland want to remain part of the UK and the nationalist idealism of Republicans is a distraction from more pressing social and economic priorities.

On a more practical matter, if Ken wants the support of Labour members like me for the party’s mayoral nomination for 2012 he should be out canvassing every weekend now – not wasting time with his pet causes that most people find at least a little odd.

What dialogue? A couple of token unionist(ish) writers and no unionist pols. Just another shinner shape throwing session for the more gullible breed of British lefty. It’s not rocket science. If you want to reach out to a community, don’t shoot them.

Tom Griffin, if you went to this I’d love to hear a report back from it.

Sinn Féin’s continuing strength in the North is in stark contrast to its poor performances in recent elections in the Republic. Saturday’s conference, along with similar events in New York and San Francisco, can be seen as an attempt at renewal in the face of those setbacks.

I looked on google for the events in the USA, and came up with this from Sinn Fein about last year’s event in San Francisco.
http://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/16889

I’ll just point out one paragraph …… and make of it what you will.

One speaker was applauded when he suggested that an effort should be made to co-ordinate all of the St. Patrick’s Day events in the USA and to ensure that they adopt the United Ireland theme. Another spoke of the support which the Irish struggle had won over the years from other ethnic groups and that a real effort should be made to win support for a United Ireland from them.