Does Coalition break the Good Friday Agreement?
2005
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Following on from Thursday’s General Election, Theresa May has been forced to strike a deal with the DUP, but does this arrangement break the Good Friday Agreement?
“… the power of the sovereign government with jurisdiction there shall be exercised with rigorous impartiality on behalf of all the people in the diversity of their identities and traditions and shall be founded on the principles of full respect for, and equality of, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, of freedom from discrimination for all citizens, and of parity of esteem and of just and equal treatment for the identity, ethos and aspirations of both communities”.
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This is taken from the Good Friday Agreement created on April 10th, 1998 as part of the Northern Ireland Peace Process, creating clear political outlines between England, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Now, following the Tories loss of a majority in the recent general election, Prime Minister Theresa May has forced to do a deal with the Northern Irish DUP to help her form a majority government, which is calling into question the impartiality clause of the Good Friday Agreement.
To potentially make matters worse, when the Good Friday Agreement was first created there was only one party that opposed it. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
Given that the DUP are a highly right wing party, with policies including anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, and disbelief in evolution and climate change, it have been these problems that have seen the most media attention. If however the DUP’s political opponents Sinn Fein chose to do so, they could easily take the Conservative alliance with the DUP as a breach of the Good Friday agreement and in the worst case see a return once again to the Trouble’s that plagued Northern Ireland twenty years ago.
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Mrs. May ran a lot of her objection trying to denounce Jeremy Corbyn as a sympathiser of Irish Extremists, and wanting to create a Coalition of Chaos. It appears, for Mrs. May at least, her worst fears have been realised but with her at the helm.
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