POLITICS NI PARTIES policies and history

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Across
  1. 2. A young --- Foster saw her father shot in the head, and the IRA also tried to blow up a school bus she was on.
  2. 5. SF’s insistence on an Irish --- Act was originally agreed to by the DUP … until they found that their support base wouldn’t support it and risked them losing support; under the 2020 deal that returned power-sharing they agreed to an Irish --- Commissioner.
  3. 7. The movie The Journey (with dreadful casting for big Ian!) looks at the unlikely friendship between SF’s Martin McGuinness and Paisley – they became known as the --- brothers as they were often seen joking together!
  4. 9. As no single party won an overall majority in the 2010 and 2017 elections we had a --- parliament, which traditionally creates opportunities for smaller parties to extract concessions in return for their votes.
  5. 11. The DUP have only had --- leaders in their history!
  6. 14. The US president Bill --- was a key factor in the success of the GFA talks. The powerful Irish-American lobby ensured that the USA gave NI millions in development funding afterwards.
  7. 16. Dr Ian Paisley denounced the pope as the --- when he was invited to speak to the European Parliament in 1988 – leading to the Rev Ian being ejected for his loud protest.
  8. 17. The branch of unionism that supports more hard-line means to maintain the union of GB+NI, though it is also a convenient way for snobbish critics to describe working class unionists.
  9. 18. Wife of Nigel ---, who famously lost his seat in 2019 in a marginal seat, Diana --- was a DUP MEP up the scrapping of UK MEPs in Jan 2020.
  10. 20. The DUP have been linked with loyalist terror groups and gun-running, though their ties are not as direct as SF’s with the IRA. In 1986 DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson launched the Ulster ---, a paramilitary group (together with Paisley), to oppose the Anglo-Irish Agreement signed between Eire and the UK in 1985. The group are linked to major arms deals by the UVF and UDA.
  11. 21. Only 7% of NI schoolchildren attend an --- school (which teach children of any faith or none); boosting this figure was a key 2019 Alliance policy.
  12. 24. Unlike the Tory-DUP 2017-19 deal, the Lib Dems joined the government in a Con-Lib --- in 2010-15, with Nick Clegg famously failing to win PR as a price, just a referendum on a version that many who wanted ‘proper’ PR voted against in a referendum.
  13. 26. Unlike SF, the SDLP is not ---; it takes up its Westminster seats.
  14. 28. The Rev Ian Paisley spent 6 weeks in --- for leading a demo in Armagh stopping a civil rights march in 1968. Such actions are widely seen as leading cause of The Troubles (the UK government’s term which conveniently downgraded the scale and nature of the military conflict).
  15. 31. In contrast to the DUP (and TUV!), SF were in favour of --- marriage, while the UUP allowed members a ‘conscience vote’ (they were sort of neutral by 2018) – but it was actually the SDLP who 1st proposed this in Stormont. Critics pointed out that several Alliance members failed to show for a vote for a policy they officially supported.
  16. 32. The Alliance designate as neither unionist nor nationalist in Stormont, but rather as ---.
  17. 33. The only party in the Stormont executive to campaign for leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum.
  18. 34. The SDLP and Sinn Fein both want a --- Ireland, but they disagree sharply on how best to make this happen!
  19. 35. The DUP was formed in 197---.
Down
  1. 1. The party that in their 2019 election manifesto supported a 2nd Brexit referendum; increased spending on health and education; PR to replace FPTP; voting age reduced to 16; zero net UK emissions by 2030.
  2. 3. After failing to get the regulator of ITV (and separately the BBC) to ban documentaries which revealed some of the crimes of the British Army and RUC, and included interview clips with Republicans, Mrs Thatcher pushed through the 1988 Broadcasting Act which banned the voice of supporters of terror, seen as particularly targeting SF leader Gerry Adams, an elected MP! Her successor, John Major, quietly scrapped the act, after the BBC employed with non-NI actors to dub Adams, making Thatcher’s stated goal of refusing SF/IRA the “oxygen of ---”.
  3. 4. In contrast to the epically boring David (now Lord Needham), Naomi --- is seen as key factor in the resurgence of the Alliance Party, finally winning a Westminster seat, and coming close in others. Their success is 1 of the factors that pressured SF/DUP to make a new deal, thus avoiding new elections they would likely lose a lot of votes in.
  4. 6. The DUP deal with the Tories meant they would back the Tories on any spending bills or votes of confidence after they lost their majority in the 2017 election.
  5. 8. PM Theresa May lost her overall majority after the surge of support for Corbyn’s Labour in 2017, and made a deal with the DUP to ensure her party could survive a vote of no ---.
  6. 10. In the European Parliament all parties must belong to a group to enable business to be productive; SF’s Martina Anderson had joined the European United ---–Nordic Green ---. All 3 NI MEPs were women. There are of course zero now!
  7. 12. The SDLP are in the Part of European --- grouping in the European Parliament.
  8. 13. ----six% of Northern Ireland voted against leaving the EU in 2016.
  9. 15. The SDLP bounced back in 2019; once the dominant nationalist party (ironically until they negotiated the Good Friday Deal, which slowly resulted in the hard-line parties replacing both them and the UUP as the dominant parties) they won --- Commons seats.
  10. 19. Back in 2004 the UUP lost several high-profile members, including the sitting MP Jeffrey ---, and a certain MLA, Arlene Foster! They all defected to the DUP.
  11. 21. From 1971 the London government, despite condemnation from many European and Western allies, began jailing ‘suspected Republicans’, locking them up in the Long Kesh prison camp (with the notorious H-Blocks later added) without evidence or the right to trial, a simple breach of international law. After protests, some loyalists were added – when it ended in 1975 1874/1981 inmates locked up under --- were Catholic/nationalist (95%).
  12. 22. Paisley launched his own church, the --- Presbyterian Church (also known as the Paisley Church), in 1951 aged just 25 after being banned from speaking at a church hall. It is a fundamentalist religion, with many members believing in creationism, and has links to the Fundamentalist Baptist Association of Southern States in the USA.
  13. 23. The DUP have been caught in multiple corruption scandals. Rev Ian Paisley’s successor, Peter Robinson, stood down after a property development scandal. Paisley’s son has been in multiple scandals, but in 2018 became the 1st MP to face a recall vote under the 2015 Recall of MPs Act for failing to declare hospitality from the government of --- (2 words) and was suspended from the Commons.
  14. 25. A point of difference between the DUP and SF is the former’s general support for ---, the slashing of government spending, especially on welfare, introduced by the Con-Lib government in 2010, supposedly to reduce government debt (which actually rose).
  15. 27. The 2008 film Hunger was about Bobby --- (also seen in 1996’s Some Mother’s Son, a more watchable movie!), the best known IRA hunger striker who would die from his hunger strike a month after being elected as a Sinn Fein MP in a 1981 by-election. He was protesting the Thatcher government’s refusal to treat him and fellow Republicans as political prisoners.
  16. 29. Former DUP minister Jim Wells called the issue of gay marriage a "--- line" for power-sharing talks, adding that "Peter will not marry Paul in Northern Ireland".
  17. 30. Arguably Paisley’s favourite word before he ended up working to save the GFA. His chants of never…never…never during a mass rally against the Anglo-Irish Agreement, backed by the slogan of Ulster Says ---, are an iconic example of his powerful oratorical (speaking) skills.