[Part of the series on Northern Irish MEPs' first year in the 7th European Parliament]
Diane Dodds (NI) (DUP). Member of: the Agriculture Committee and the Delegation for Relations with Israel (Substitute on: the Fisheries Committee and the Delegation for Relations with Australia and New Zealand).
Statistics (VoteWatch Profile):
Attendance in plenary: 87.27%
Loyalty to Europarty: N/A
Loyalty to national majority: 46.15%
Speeches: 54 (In plenary, 49 [via VoteWatch, which wasn’t updated as recently])
Parliamentary Questions: 5
Motions for resolutions: 0
Written declarations: 0
Reports Amended: 5 (3 on the Future of the CAP after 2013 and 2 on the Draft Report on the Green Paper on the Reform of the CFP)
Drafted Reports: 0
Opinions: 0
Dodds’ speeches mostly refer to agriculture. According to these speeches, she supports a localist approach (speech on the amendment to regulations on agriculture in the outermost regions of the Union, and supporting local rather than EU geographical indicators when it comes to labelling ). She also raised the issue of the penalties against Northern Irish farmers due to allegations of fraudulent claims with Commission President Barroso during the Question Hour, and Barroso defended the procedure as objective, highlighting that the member state has space to present its case (though the matter is really one of the regional Northern Irish government). When it comes to the Common Fisheries Policy, she made a speech in favour of its regionalisation as set out in the Green Paper on CFP reform – however her ideal would be for the scrapping of the CFP and a return to member state control. From her speech on Icelandic accession to the Union, however, she seems to feel that Icelandic fishery policies on mackerel are unsustainable and that letting Iceland into the EU would damage UK fisheries; she opposes Icelandic entry on the basis of fisheries and the Icesave crisis.
Diane Dodds has also made speeches on the Israel/Palestine conflict and on terrorism in NI. She seems very supportive of security services, technology and intelligence: see here for her speech on body scanners at airports. She also voted for the EU-US SWIFT agreement (on the sharing of bank transfer info for terrorist investigations).
The 5 Parliamentary questions generally follow the same trend as the speeches. (4 of them were submitted on the 2nd July 2010, with the other one submitted back in December 2009, judging by the European Parliament website). Topics include: the EU-Libya cooperation agreement negotiations, the volatile diary market, the right to fish, and discrimination against producers and processors. Apart from the 2 questions asking for an update on how negotiations with Libya are going, the other questions concern work and discrimination of products; two of these ask for clarification on if/when discrimination is allowed (the producers and diary questions – though the questions are short and don’t provide a background or context so it’s unclear exactly what circumstances Dodds is asking questions about).
Only one question refers to a specific law (rather than just asking what the law is). This question asks whether restrictions on fishing conflict with the rights to find an occupation and engage in work in the Fundamental Charter of Rights.
In general the main focus of Dodds’ speeches are agriculture, fisheries and security/terrorism, which fits in with the rural character of Northern Ireland and the DUP’s general stance on security issues. If you want to check out her speeches and stances in more detail, you can find them here. You can check her voting record here.
Analysis:
Diane Dodds’ national party, the Democratic Unionist Party, isn’t aligned with any of the Europarty/political groupings in the European Parliament. Groups get certain resources and being part of a political group increases your chances of forming alliances and getting high profile roles such as rapporteur, etc. So in some ways the role of an independent MEP can’t be compared easily to that of a party MEP: party MEPs gain profile, political advantage and political leverage by influencing their party’s position and working to get more influential posts; while independents may be more constituency focused and focus on a wider range of issues based on their constituents’ interests. Party MEPs may be more specialised and become a party’s spokesperson in a policy area (and so depend on other party MEPs to defend their common interests in other policy areas and ask questions/table amendments there), while an independent might not have the time or resources to be experts on everything, but have the time (and freedom from the party line) to work on constituency concerns more directly.
In my opinion, the role of an independent MEP is to ask questions, make speeches, and table amendments on a wide range of issues that matter to the constituency – and can’t be blamed necessarily for the lack of report drafting, etc. Dodds has made a lot of speeches in the key areas of interest for the constituency, but there are few questions and amendments, considering that there is no Europarty work and my “model” of an independent MEP. Do the questions and amendments serve her constituents well? I doubt it. Questions are few and vague, and I doubt that they’ll get much more than a copy-and-paste reply of the general law in that area. Questions would need to be direct and specific to tease out a good reply; otherwise it seems as if she is just asking the Commission’s opinion to a question a constituent might have asked so she can pass the answer on. The statistics don’t show or measure other constituency work, however, so there could be other areas of local work that just aren’t highlighted by this.
How you judge Diane Dodds’ performance as an MEP may depend on how you view the role – as one of making speeches on matters important to the constituency, constituency work, asking questions or submitting amendments, and what combination you think is important. Apart from the question of ideology is also the question of party alignment: do you think an independent or a party-aligned MEP would be better? The European Parliament has gained new powers after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and is now equal to the Council (member states) in nearly all areas. Though the EP is no longer the talking shop it once was, Dodds seems to treat it as if nothing’s changed.
[For analysis on the other Northern Ireland MEPs and an overall analysis: link]
Showing posts with label DUP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DUP. Show all posts
Monday, 19 July 2010
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Perpetual Peace Process
Northern Ireland is back in the news, and this time it's not because of sex and money. The more familiar peace process crisis has returned (though, technically, it never really went away), with the devolution of police and justice powers to the regional government in Belfast the central issue (apart from all the other issues). Once again the British Prime Minister and the Irish Taoiseach have waded in to try and sort the mess out, and, with no deal reached today, set a deadline of 48 hours for the main parties to strike a deal, or the two governments will set out their own proposals.
It's been almost 12 years since the Good Friday Agreement (or Belfast Agreement) which set up the devolved regional government in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland had its own government from 1922-72 until the outbreak of the Troubles led to London imposing direct control (known as "direct rule"). The new system is a consociational one: in other words, both communities share power. This was to ensure that the institutions would have a broad cross-community support, which was absent from the first period of regional government. But while the Assembly and Executive are seen as legitimate, they're also seen as ineffective - after all, it's been 12 years and we're still stuck in the same old process, with the same old arguments.
It's hard to explain to people who didn't grow up in NI exactly what it's all about, and every time I try it always strikes me how ridiculous the whole thing must sound.
So, here it goes with the very, very brief and crude description of the state of play [Warning: may contain traces of exasperated cynicism]:
- The government (Executive) is a coalition of four parties, but the main ones are a party of former revolutionaries/rebels (Sinn Féin) and a party of reactionary fundamentalist Christians (DUP).
- Sinn Féin wants the devolution of police and justice powers to the Executive/Assembly because it would complete the set of devolved powers, and because the whole issue of decommissioning of the IRA's weapons has been resolved.
- The DUP want other issues to be settled in the deal, including the abolition of the Parades Commission (PC).
- The PC was set up to restrict/ban contentious parades, in practice this mainly concerns the parades of the unionist Orange Order (or the "Loyal Orders", which commemorate the overthrow of an English king and the enthronement of the Dutch Staatholder William of Orange in the 17th century [I know this might not make sense, but it's best not to think about it]). Some of their parades run through nationalist areas, and have been sources of what we might politely call tension.
- Sinn Féin are angry at what they see as a precondition to any deal, and feel that they shouldn't have to make many more concessions because the DUP have blocked the introduction of an Irish Language Act and other Sinn Féin pet policies. They don't want to look weak.
- The DUP are hurting from the Robinson sex scandal and are worried about loosing support to the more extreme unionist TUV party. Want a political victory and obstructionism worked well with decommissioning.
- DUP & Sinn Féin don't really want an election, but the brinkmanship may bring it about.
- The other 2 (more moderate) parties are angry about just generally being ignored; increasingly only get publicity involving them being angry about being increasingly ignored.
- IF a deal is reached, the minister who takes up the portfolio can neither be from the DUP or SF parties because they don't trust each other and it may be the leader of the (tiny) opposition cross-community party. Maybe.
The line in Yes, Minister that government isn't so much a team as a loose confederation of warring tribes is perhaps more apt in this case.
What's so dispiriting is that politics really hasn't changed. There is still the sense that a gain for one community is a loss for the other. Both sides are guilty of this, but the DUP is unbelievably explicit and brash in its approach - in other words, the biggest party of government and the holder of the First Minister's office (which is a joint equal office with the deputy FM, despite the name) sees gloating about keeping the leading nationalist party - their government partners - down and out as "good politics". Is it any wonder that more extremist parties and groups are emerging if politics aren't being normalised? Maintaining such attitudes legitimises the extremes while the paralysis of the Executive mean that moderate voters loose faith in the purpose of government and are less likely to vote.
When decommissioning was achieved and the DUP and Sinn Féin apparently reconciled, some people thought that people would move to more moderate politics, but the weakness of the moderate parties (who refuse to leave the government and set themselves up as a separate alternative) and the ineffectiveness of the government mean that there's little oxygen for the moderates.
So the perpetual peace process trundles on, forever on life support...
It's been almost 12 years since the Good Friday Agreement (or Belfast Agreement) which set up the devolved regional government in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland had its own government from 1922-72 until the outbreak of the Troubles led to London imposing direct control (known as "direct rule"). The new system is a consociational one: in other words, both communities share power. This was to ensure that the institutions would have a broad cross-community support, which was absent from the first period of regional government. But while the Assembly and Executive are seen as legitimate, they're also seen as ineffective - after all, it's been 12 years and we're still stuck in the same old process, with the same old arguments.
It's hard to explain to people who didn't grow up in NI exactly what it's all about, and every time I try it always strikes me how ridiculous the whole thing must sound.
So, here it goes with the very, very brief and crude description of the state of play [Warning: may contain traces of exasperated cynicism]:
- The government (Executive) is a coalition of four parties, but the main ones are a party of former revolutionaries/rebels (Sinn Féin) and a party of reactionary fundamentalist Christians (DUP).
- Sinn Féin wants the devolution of police and justice powers to the Executive/Assembly because it would complete the set of devolved powers, and because the whole issue of decommissioning of the IRA's weapons has been resolved.
- The DUP want other issues to be settled in the deal, including the abolition of the Parades Commission (PC).
- The PC was set up to restrict/ban contentious parades, in practice this mainly concerns the parades of the unionist Orange Order (or the "Loyal Orders", which commemorate the overthrow of an English king and the enthronement of the Dutch Staatholder William of Orange in the 17th century [I know this might not make sense, but it's best not to think about it]). Some of their parades run through nationalist areas, and have been sources of what we might politely call tension.
- Sinn Féin are angry at what they see as a precondition to any deal, and feel that they shouldn't have to make many more concessions because the DUP have blocked the introduction of an Irish Language Act and other Sinn Féin pet policies. They don't want to look weak.
- The DUP are hurting from the Robinson sex scandal and are worried about loosing support to the more extreme unionist TUV party. Want a political victory and obstructionism worked well with decommissioning.
- DUP & Sinn Féin don't really want an election, but the brinkmanship may bring it about.
- The other 2 (more moderate) parties are angry about just generally being ignored; increasingly only get publicity involving them being angry about being increasingly ignored.
- IF a deal is reached, the minister who takes up the portfolio can neither be from the DUP or SF parties because they don't trust each other and it may be the leader of the (tiny) opposition cross-community party. Maybe.
The line in Yes, Minister that government isn't so much a team as a loose confederation of warring tribes is perhaps more apt in this case.
What's so dispiriting is that politics really hasn't changed. There is still the sense that a gain for one community is a loss for the other. Both sides are guilty of this, but the DUP is unbelievably explicit and brash in its approach - in other words, the biggest party of government and the holder of the First Minister's office (which is a joint equal office with the deputy FM, despite the name) sees gloating about keeping the leading nationalist party - their government partners - down and out as "good politics". Is it any wonder that more extremist parties and groups are emerging if politics aren't being normalised? Maintaining such attitudes legitimises the extremes while the paralysis of the Executive mean that moderate voters loose faith in the purpose of government and are less likely to vote.
When decommissioning was achieved and the DUP and Sinn Féin apparently reconciled, some people thought that people would move to more moderate politics, but the weakness of the moderate parties (who refuse to leave the government and set themselves up as a separate alternative) and the ineffectiveness of the government mean that there's little oxygen for the moderates.
So the perpetual peace process trundles on, forever on life support...
Friday, 29 May 2009
Election Mail (Northern Ireland Style)
I've finally got some election literature (not that the writing exactly warrants that description) for Northern Ireland. So far I have something from all of the major (and some not-quite-so-major) parties, except for the UUP/Conservatives' Jim Nicholson. Here's a quick overview for anyone who wants a taste of NI political leafleting (you know who you are):
DUP/No Group (Diane Dodds):
Medium-sized booklet promising "Strong Leadership in Challenging Times". The chief concern is on preventing Sinn Féin from topping the poll and the state of Unionism in general. It is almost entirely composed of one-line long bullet points (European issues are mentioned in 2-3 out of 22 of them on the inside pages). EU-wise the DUP is for the "best deal from Brussels for business, farmers and fishermen" - it doesn't elaborate, but my impression from their campaign so far is that they want less regulation and CFP reform.
Sinn Féin/GUE-NGL (Bairbre de Brún):
Tiny stretched postcard of a leaflet; tagline: "Putting Ireland First". Has "MEP" written beside Bairbre de Brún's name, which I thought wasn't allowed (but that might only apply to election posters). Contains a mere two paragraphs - one English, one in Irish. Talks about delivering for Ireland, supporting various communities (agriculture, business, etc) and mentions the potential of a green economy. No policies outlined or even general stances on policy areas mentioned.
Jim Allister/No Group (Traditional Unionist Voice):
Booklet with the most writing out of the bunch. Tagline: "Experience, Principle, Integrity". Main points are the need for a full time MEP (claiming that 70% of laws originate in the EU), outrage over Sinn Féin being in government (the NI regional government) with the DUP (his former party), and his principles on moral and constitutional issues. Highlights his number of speeches, oral questions and written questions versus the 2 other NI MEPs and the NI MEPs of the previous EP, and his ability in "Opposing Sinn Féin 24/7".
Talks about local government issues, but he does talk about European issues - EU funding (he wants more), farming (wants fewer Brazilian imports), CFP (against), regulation (proposes a "regulation holiday"), traditional family values (for), Euro (against) and the Lisbon Treaty (against). Has quotes from Farage and Hannan praising him.
The Alliance Party/ELDR (Ian Parsley - not connected to the more famous Ian):
Fold-out leaflet; tagline: "Replace the Politics of Fear with the Politics of Hope". Pro-European, but not much that stands out - wants to make Europe closer to its citizens, to make it work for citizens, and is pro-green investment - but no policies. May be what Julien Frisch has yearned for in terms of "European experience" - Parsley has lived in Germany, Spain and England, speaks fluent German and Spanish and he has set up his own business (though it doesn't mention if this business was outside NI).
SDLP/PES (Alban Maginness):
Small fold-out poster; tagline: "When we Win, You Win" - in English, Irish, Polish and Spanish. Highlights his online campaign, which in website terms is on all the usual suspects; though his blog makes a play on the old Guinness ad slogan, calling it: "Maginness is Good for EU". Describes himself as "passionately pro-European", and there are some bullet points, which is pretty much the same sort of stuff as in the other parties, except the anti-CFP and defensive CAP stance of NI in general is gentler in rhetoric. Emphasises the importance of the PES and belonging to one of the big EP groups - and has the PES logo beside the SDLP one (one of only two to have the Group logo on their literature - at least, out of this collection).
Green Party/Greens-EFA (Steven Agnew):
Another fold-out booklet; tagline: "For a New Green Deal". One of the few candidates I have actually met in person, but that was a year ago. Calls for a "Green Industrial Revolution" and claims that 5 million jobs could be created across Europe if there's proper investment in green technology (seems possible) - with 50, 000 of them in NI (which I don't personally find a particularly convincing number). Also highlights its links with its EP Group (one column devoted to it), though the group logo is small and on one of the inside pages.
I have to say that none of the leaflets actually impacted on or changed how I'm planning to vote (at the moment, anyway), but that could be because I'm just interested in politics so I'd already knew the outline of the parties' stances. Does leafleting have much of an impact on your voting intentions?
DUP/No Group (Diane Dodds):
Medium-sized booklet promising "Strong Leadership in Challenging Times". The chief concern is on preventing Sinn Féin from topping the poll and the state of Unionism in general. It is almost entirely composed of one-line long bullet points (European issues are mentioned in 2-3 out of 22 of them on the inside pages). EU-wise the DUP is for the "best deal from Brussels for business, farmers and fishermen" - it doesn't elaborate, but my impression from their campaign so far is that they want less regulation and CFP reform.
Sinn Féin/GUE-NGL (Bairbre de Brún):
Tiny stretched postcard of a leaflet; tagline: "Putting Ireland First". Has "MEP" written beside Bairbre de Brún's name, which I thought wasn't allowed (but that might only apply to election posters). Contains a mere two paragraphs - one English, one in Irish. Talks about delivering for Ireland, supporting various communities (agriculture, business, etc) and mentions the potential of a green economy. No policies outlined or even general stances on policy areas mentioned.
Jim Allister/No Group (Traditional Unionist Voice):
Booklet with the most writing out of the bunch. Tagline: "Experience, Principle, Integrity". Main points are the need for a full time MEP (claiming that 70% of laws originate in the EU), outrage over Sinn Féin being in government (the NI regional government) with the DUP (his former party), and his principles on moral and constitutional issues. Highlights his number of speeches, oral questions and written questions versus the 2 other NI MEPs and the NI MEPs of the previous EP, and his ability in "Opposing Sinn Féin 24/7".
Talks about local government issues, but he does talk about European issues - EU funding (he wants more), farming (wants fewer Brazilian imports), CFP (against), regulation (proposes a "regulation holiday"), traditional family values (for), Euro (against) and the Lisbon Treaty (against). Has quotes from Farage and Hannan praising him.
The Alliance Party/ELDR (Ian Parsley - not connected to the more famous Ian):
Fold-out leaflet; tagline: "Replace the Politics of Fear with the Politics of Hope". Pro-European, but not much that stands out - wants to make Europe closer to its citizens, to make it work for citizens, and is pro-green investment - but no policies. May be what Julien Frisch has yearned for in terms of "European experience" - Parsley has lived in Germany, Spain and England, speaks fluent German and Spanish and he has set up his own business (though it doesn't mention if this business was outside NI).
SDLP/PES (Alban Maginness):
Small fold-out poster; tagline: "When we Win, You Win" - in English, Irish, Polish and Spanish. Highlights his online campaign, which in website terms is on all the usual suspects; though his blog makes a play on the old Guinness ad slogan, calling it: "Maginness is Good for EU". Describes himself as "passionately pro-European", and there are some bullet points, which is pretty much the same sort of stuff as in the other parties, except the anti-CFP and defensive CAP stance of NI in general is gentler in rhetoric. Emphasises the importance of the PES and belonging to one of the big EP groups - and has the PES logo beside the SDLP one (one of only two to have the Group logo on their literature - at least, out of this collection).
Green Party/Greens-EFA (Steven Agnew):
Another fold-out booklet; tagline: "For a New Green Deal". One of the few candidates I have actually met in person, but that was a year ago. Calls for a "Green Industrial Revolution" and claims that 5 million jobs could be created across Europe if there's proper investment in green technology (seems possible) - with 50, 000 of them in NI (which I don't personally find a particularly convincing number). Also highlights its links with its EP Group (one column devoted to it), though the group logo is small and on one of the inside pages.
I have to say that none of the leaflets actually impacted on or changed how I'm planning to vote (at the moment, anyway), but that could be because I'm just interested in politics so I'd already knew the outline of the parties' stances. Does leafleting have much of an impact on your voting intentions?
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