UNIONIST POLITICIANS clashed over the causes of the Troubles during a debate on a proposed bill of rights for Northern Ireland in the Northern Assembly yesterday.
Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) leader Dawn Purvis accused the former unionist establishment of denying that discrimination existed, “mostly” against Catholics, while Ulster Unionist MLA Basil McCrea said the conflict was caused by republican attempts to achieve a united Ireland.
The two politicians engaged in their historical argument during discussion of an Ulster Unionist Party motion, supported by the DUP, calling on Northern Secretary Shaun Woodward not to proceed with a bill of rights for Northern Ireland.
UUP deputy leader Danny Kennedy said that if Mr Woodward proceeded with the bill of rights as supported by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission it would be “to reject the democratically expressed will of the majority in this Assembly”.
Sinn Féin, the SDLP, Alliance and Ms Purvis, leader of the PUP, which is linked to the UVF, support the bill of rights proposals.
The DUP and UUP oppose the proposal and have concerns that regardless of their opposition Mr Woodward could enact a bill of rights for the North at Westminster.
The Assembly rejected the UUP motion and supported an amendment by Ms Purvis calling on Mr Woodward to publish a consultation document on the Bill, as a prelude to the introduction of the Bill.
During the debate Ms Purvis raised the issue of how the Troubles started.
She asked, “What came first: stinking, polluted politics or bloody awful violence?” She accused mainstream unionism of having a “particularly blinkered view” of the causes of the conflict.
“They deny discrimination existed. They deny that all working-class people, but mostly Catholics, endured in slums, squalor, poverty, and unemployment in order to preserve the power of the political elite,” she said.
“You continue to deny working-class children, Protestants, the right to a decent education by holding on and wanting to hold on to academic selection,” added Ms Purvis.
“I have to say to you, you have to stop living in denial, you have to start looking at what happened here, what caused the conflict here, because you are doing a great disservice to working-class people, in particular Protestant working-class people, and the most vulnerable in our society,” she said.
Lagan Valley MLA Mr McCrea said the issue simply was whether it was right to put the bill of rights proposals out for public consultation when two of the major parties opposed them. Such a move would contradict the cross-community consensus essence of the Belfast Agreement.
He rejected Ms Purvis’s analysis of how the conflict started. “We argue as a party for the social justice that is demanded by all the people of Northern Ireland and we will not be browbeaten by people from whatever side of the house who wish to rewrite history,” he said.
“Those that argue that the source of our troubles was some form of social, economic problem, those who say it was all about housing, miss the fact that this terrorist activity that we have had over the last 30 to 40 years was not about social deprivation: it was about a political aim for a united Ireland perpetrated through people that believed that violence was the way forward. That is not the way,” said Mr McCrea.