Parliaments vote to test status quo - Two seismic political changes

IT is not uncommon to overestimate the heft of contemporary events.

Parliaments vote to test status quo - Two seismic political changes

IT is not uncommon to overestimate the heft of contemporary events. However, votes in two parliaments this week seem to be of a character that can, even at this stage, be described as historic. Neither is certain to re-route the society they reflect but both have the capacity to do so.

In Dublin, the Oireachtas committee on the Eighth Amendment voted 14-6 in favour of removing it from the Constitution. The adjective “seismic” is not often inadequate but this shift away from a long-held Alamo position seems more than seismic. A majority of the committee endorsed access, without restrictions, to the termination of a pregnancy for up to 12 weeks, echoing the Citizens’ Assembly conclusion. Even a decade ago this would have been unthinkable.

It is interesting that the committee process led a number of members once badged as anti-abortion to, after three months of deliberation, change their position. Whether this shift is reflected among voters or even in the wider Oireachtas before the inevitable referendum remains to be seen.

It is certain, however, that in the first half of 2018, the campaigns around the Eighth Amendment will move from shadow boxing to full-on confrontation. Even in this season of goodwill it seems a forlorn hope that the enmity and toxic hostilities of earlier campaigns might be avoided. Sadly, we may not be seen at our best in the first half of 2018.

It is easy to argue that Wednesday night’s House of Commons vote represented the very best of democracy.

On the eve of yesterday’s Brussels summit, UK prime minister Theresa May and her anti-EU stormtroopers suffered a stop-their-gallop defeat when 11 Conservative MPs rebelled and ensured that parliament has a vote on any final deal with the EU. It seems incredible that a national parliament might not have the decisive say in such a seismic separation and the suggestion that it might not feeds into the view that Brexit

is more a right-wing coup d’etat than an exercise in real democracy.

Even if Irish concerns did not overly influence — if at all — the Commons vote, the margin of the victory, 309 to 305, raises questions that push long-held but ever-more questionable positions into a new, sharper focus.

It’s just over a century since the first Irish abstentionist MP was elected to the Commons. Count George Noble Plunkett was elected to represent North Roscommon in February 1917 but, following Arthur Griffith’s policy, he did not take his seat. That policy continues today as if nothing has changed in 100 years.

That is patently not the case and the margin of Wednesday night’s vote suggests that should the six Sinn Féin MPs take their Commons seats they might have more influence over events that the 30-year campaign of terror conducted by their armed wing. Not only that but they would be a real voice for the majority in the North who voted to remain in the EU, a majority betrayed by the self-serving but cornered DUP.

By the time the Brexit endgame is reached, Sinn Féin will have a new leader and only then will we know if that person is more influenced by the past than inspired by the future.

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