‘Time is right’ for Fianna Fáil move into six counties

by Brónagh Murphy

“To bring republicans and nationalists together under the one banner to make a better future for us all,” – that is the aspiration of Crossmaglen native, Martin McAllister, as he embarks on one of the most significant political steps taken in recent history.

Mr McAllister is the driving force behind plans to establish Fianna Fáil as a prominent, and indeed leading, party in the north.  He feels the time is now right for Fianna Fáil to set up shop in the six counties and has thrown down the gauntlet to the party’s leadership in the Dáil to establish a strong presence here.

In December last year, a Fianna Fáil Forum was set up in Crossmaglen.  Since then, its membership has grown considerably and in just a few weeks, it will open a permanent office in the town.

Martin McAllister is the party’s spokesperson in south Armagh. His foresight for the future of politics in the north, and particularly in his native area, is one of a number of viewpoints which will be debated on this week’s BBC flagship politics programme, Hearts and Minds.

On the programme, Mr McAllister will share his views with the public on how he sees the political landscape developing in south Armagh.

Speaking to The Examiner ahead of the programme’s transmission, McAllister explains why he believes Fianna Fáil to be the way forward for ‘all shades of green.’

“We are in a position of stagnation at the moment.  Both the DUP and Sinn Fein have each other in a headlock.  There has been no forward movement on any of the issues, be it education, policing or whatever, neither party has given the proper leadership to their own electorate.  This process is devoid of any clear direction at the moment,” he says.

Martin McAllister is no stranger to politics.  A former political prisoner, he describes himself as ‘a proud republican’ but says he now feels disillusioned at, what he terms, the ‘political stagnation’ in the north.

He says he is saddened that Sinn Féin has failed to show any clear leadership to its people and thus has created a ‘political vacuum’.  It is as a result of this that McAllister believes Fianna Fáil should seize the opportunity to become a 32-county party and establish strong roots across the border.

It’s his belief that the DUP and Sinn Féin will never be able to successfully work together as both parties carry ‘too much baggage.’

“We are in this stalemate because we have made no progress. We’re still as far apart as we were ten years ago.  The only difference is, from my perspective, this process has yielded just ten percent of what it could have yielded had it been entered into in the right spirit, with open minds and without the baggage of the past.  Fianna Fáil comes into the political arena with no baggage and now is the time to move that process forward,” he said.

McAllister is particularly vociferous on the subject of policing.  He accuses Sinn Féin of not going far enough to point out the divergence in current policing structures from those which previously existed.

“The folk memory of policing is a very hard place to move away from in the minds of people here. Folk memory is a current, vibrant, living thing here in terms of what went on with the police in the form of the RUC over the years.  Sinn Féin hasn’t attempted to redress that view, they have not brought their people with them.”

Although acknowledging the steps taken by the Sinn Féin leadership in encouraging its members to engage with the police and report crime, he says the party’s credibility is not transparent enough.  McAllister singled out the comments made by MP Conor Murphy in the wake of the murder of Cullyhanna man, Paul Quinn, and, more recently, the SOCA raid on Sean Hughes and his family in Dromintee.

“He [Murphy] cannot be that selective, you cannot cherry-pick when you support the police.  He is giving out a mixed message and the message needs to be clearer.  On one hand Sinn Fein are saying support the police but when the police make any kind of movement which in any way impinges on their own view of policing and how it should be implemented, they come out with a statement like that instead of saying let the thing take its course.”

He claims few in south Armagh wish to be associated with the police because Sinn Féin hasn’t defined the difference between the ‘colonial model of policing’ in the past and that which now exists.

“I’m not saying we’re happy with everything, but you cannot compare the structures that were used and abused in the past.  It was the symbiotic relationship between state and police that caused the problem of policing here in the first place.  We had a police force working for one side of the community, we did not have a force that was representative of ordinary people throughout the six counties.  We were ruled by a one party despotic state and we are still reaping the whirlwind of seventy years of misrule by unionism. We still cannot get away from the politics of yesterday.

“The DUP is still caught up in yesterday’s politics and, I’m afraid, Sinn Féin is as well.  None of them have come to the position where they have ‘left the bags down’ so to speak.  And until such times as they do that, we are going be on a very sad merry-go-round.

“The ordinary republican nationalists of south Armagh have been through a nightmare this last forty years and have paid a very high price for their political beliefs and aspirations,” he said.

“The tabloid press, at the behest of former Secretaries of State Merlyn Rees and in particular, Roy Mason, have called us gangsters and bandits and that title has stuck with us.  People in south Armagh have scraped a subsistent existence since Partition and the Stormont regime has never, at any point in its history, nodded in this direction, never mind given us jobs, employment or equal treatment.  I think it’s time now that we are better provided for.”

Liberty, Equality and Fraternity are the founding principles of republicanism and Martin McAllister fervently believes that, with these qualities, Fianna Fáil can be the party of the future for republicans and nationalists in the six counties.  All he needs now is the nod from Dublin.

Hearts and Minds will be broadcast this Thursday November 26th on BBC2 at 7.30pm and again on BBC1 at 11.35pm.