{"id":84261,"date":"2024-06-30T01:50:13","date_gmt":"2024-06-30T01:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/30\/how-much-weight-do-ni-parties-westminster-manifestos-carry\/"},"modified":"2024-06-30T01:50:13","modified_gmt":"2024-06-30T01:50:13","slug":"how-much-weight-do-ni-parties-westminster-manifestos-carry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/30\/how-much-weight-do-ni-parties-westminster-manifestos-carry\/","title":{"rendered":"How much weight do NI parties’ Westminster manifestos carry?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"How<\/div>


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\"GettyGetty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Enda McClafferty looks at the role manifestos play in Northern Ireland<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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General election manifestos in Northern Ireland are a bit like campaign confetti.<\/p>\n

They are launched with great fanfare and hang around for a short while but once they hit the ground, they are quickly forgotten.<\/p>\n

Like confetti, they also hold little value for voters.<\/p>\n

That is because elections in Northern Ireland are never decided by who has the best policies on tax, health and education – they are fought along constitutional battle lines.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On one side unionists, who want to keep the union with Great Britain; on the other nationalists, who would prefer to see Northern Ireland joining with the Republic of Ireland. <\/p>\n

And in the middle, as it were, the centrist Alliance party, who don’t take a position on the constitutional matter and define themselves as a cross-community party. In Assembly elections, they have grown to become the third largest party<\/a>. <\/p>\n

It’s a very different political landscape from the rest of the UK and Northern Ireland\u2019s 18 MPs have no real power at Westminster.<\/p>\n

By comparison, London alone elects 73 MPs to the House of Commons.<\/p>\n

Added to the mix one of the NI parties – Sinn F\u00e9in – does not take any Westminster seats it is elected to.<\/p>\n

The party has always held a policy of abstentionism when it comes to the House of Commons.<\/p>\n

There has been one small exception to the rule that NI parties generally do not have a huge influence on Westminster politics.<\/p>\n

You may remember the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) propping up Theresa May\u2019s government<\/a> with a confidence-and-supply arrangement seven years ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Do manifestos work in NI?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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So in truth, any pledges in a general election manifesto always ring hollow in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

Even promises made in Assembly election manifestos carry little weight.<\/p>\n

That is because of the system of government here.<\/p>\n

A four-party mandatory coalition means no one party can make big changes without the consent of its political opponents.<\/p>\n

So manifesto pledges can quickly disappear when they meet the hard reality of coalition government.<\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t stop all the local parties publishing glossy manifestos full of policies and promises.<\/p>\n

That is because manifestos are a baked in feature of election campaigns.<\/p>\n

And the day they are unveiled is the one day during the campaign when the parties are guaranteed the spotlight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Passing the analysis test<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Each party, depending on size, gets allocated minutes on air or space on online sites.<\/p>\n

This year, BBC News provided in-depth analysis online on key party pledges, posing questions around how they will be delivered, and crucially, paid for.<\/p>\n

You can read that analysis for the five main party manifestos in the articles linked above.<\/p>\n

Journalists elsewhere also deconstructed the manifestos and exposed more weaknesses than strengths.<\/p>\n

To quote one party source: \u201cPassing the analysis test is key because we know voters don\u2019t read manifestos.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will though remember if a pledge is demolished by journalists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is why parties always play it safe.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"GettyGetty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Parties have been launching their manifestos in the run up to next week’s Westminster election<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

A manifesto pledge from outside NI can hold the most weight<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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But there was one manifesto pledge which had a huge impact on hundreds of families across Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

That was the election promise by the Conservative Party in 2019 to end Troubles-related prosecutions against military veterans.<\/p>\n

That led to the controversial Legacy Act<\/a>, opposed by all parties here but made law nonetheless.<\/p>\n

It also offered immunity from prosecution for suspects though that has since been successfully challenged in the courts by victims’ families.<\/p>\n

It remains though an example of how a manifesto pledge from a party with UK-wide power can mean more for Northern Ireland than just words on a page.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Getty Images Enda McClafferty looks at the role manifestos play in Northern Ireland General election manifestos in Northern Ireland are a bit like campaign confetti. They are launched with great fanfare and hang around for a short while but once they hit the ground, they are quickly forgotten. Like confetti, they also hold little value […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/bbcx\/grey-placeholder.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[603],"tags":[559,62546,1998,11606,5804],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84261"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84263,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84261\/revisions\/84263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}