Author: Purple Brolly

Ever since its legal creation in 1921, Northern Ireland has had its own Parliament, or Assembly, but its operation has never been without difficulties. This has resulted in several temporary suspensions or even the shutting down of proceedings for years at a time. In the current Assembly model, the top post is shared equally between the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister, one of whom will be unionist, the other nationalist.

There are 90 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), 5 for each of 18 constituencies, and they must register as  ‘Nationalist’, ‘Unionist’ or ‘Other’. There are 9 Departments dealing with matters such as education, health, justice and agriculture. The Ministers and Committee Chairs are allocated according to the D’Hondt formula for proportional power-sharing among all the parties.

The very first elected Members gathered together on 7th June 1921 at Belfast City Hall and there was a Royal inaugural ceremony two weeks later. There was another in 1932 for the completion of work on the new ‘Parliament Buildings’, a rather stately addition to Stormont Castle on a 235-acre site near Belfast. The nationalists criticised it as a symbol of Ireland’s permanent partition. In contrast, the unionists saw it as solid confirmation of Northern Ireland’s new status.

(Image of Parliament Buildings: Mike Faherty at geograph.ie / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Considering that the UK has four constituent nations, it was perhaps inevitable that nationalist parties would emerge on the political scene. They have always advocated for leaving the UK but today none seem to seek true independence. Instead, they wish to swap membership of the UK for the much larger European Union, either directly or via reunification with the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state.

In Northern Ireland, where a Catholic minority did not agree with the partition of Ireland in 1921 or the pro-UK referendum result of 1973, the Social Democratic & Labour Party (SDLP) and Sinn Féin (the political wing of the Irish Republican Army) have garnered some support. The SDLP currently has two MPs. Sinn Féin has seven, but they refuse to attend the House of Commons.

Scotland also has its separatists, mainly in the Scottish National Party (SNP) but also recently in the Alba Party, which has two MPs. The SNP, formed in 1934, has been the most successful nationalist group and currently has 45 MPs, meaning that the devolved Scottish government is run by them, albeit with financial assistance from Westminster. In Wales, Plaid Cymru has three MPs and one of their main policies is promoting the Welsh language.

(Image: Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)