Could you please elaborate on what you feel is important to you in terms of policies?
I’m from a very hardline Loyalist area which is still frequently on the national news for rioting. And we have three types of voters here:
1. The educated voter who reads political manifestos and votes for a party which has policies which are important to them.
2. The super prod whose voting is solely based on “keeping ‘em ‘uns out” and doesn’t seem to care about health care or social housing. Because who needs that? Much more important to vote for the Dinosaur Unionist Party and prevent gay rights, abortion and an Irish language act. And of course to create dodgy schemes such as RHI which cost the country millions. Usually this voter will complain about healthcare and housing too but blame SF despite DUP being a constant throughout.
3. The hardline religious bunch that probably attend the Metropolitan tabernacle and see abortion as a bigger threat and issue to them than a hospital waiting list which has been out of control for a decade.
Why are you loyal to a union who literally don’t care about NI? The British government, and especially the Tory’s, don’t care about NI and see us as a problem. If Irish unification became a possibility they would gladly get rid of the “NI problem” which costs them a lot of money and hassle.
Im just glad that the DUP will soon no longer exist, they aren’t going to recover from this and the hardline TUV who are the DUP on steroids will never gain enough support either.
SF are just as big a problem but at least their manifesto is from the 21st century and focuses on issues which people find important.
A UUP/Alliance/SDLP government would be ideal. DUP problem is now gone due to their self destruct, just got to hope SF also lose support over the next few years and then finally we may have a sensible government who focus on issues which affect the majority of the population rather than this playground shite the last decade.
I actually don't know where to start on this one, but I'll give you my perspective on how I feel. I'm not looking to debate it, my thoughts are mine and any amounts of lecturing by anyone (not directing this at you or anyone in particular) is going to change them.
First off I'm in the North Down Constituency. My first preference will be Alex Easton. I've seen first hand the work he does and my partner has benefited from his work several times. He is an independent albeit former DUP. But not all DUP are bad people, it's just got too many in power that are disconnected from today's grass roots and stuck in the past.
I believe stormont is broke, no one is accountable, no opposition and any given day the FM or DFM can pull the institutions down. This has now happened twice in this current mandate 3 years by SF and now by the DUP. This needs to change.
I think your 3 types of voter do exist but I also think there's plenty that aren't any of that and your description of a DUP voter is wrong, yes there may be some but it's unfair to tarnish them all with the same brush. I will use me as an example, again these are my views people can agree or disagree, I'm not interested in debating them as I haven't all day to do that. Although you can put me in one of them types from your perspective.
I do read manifestos, however I also read the old ones and see what they actually delivered, quite often it's not much and it's rehashed in the new manifesto.
I also take into account my ideology, which is a Unionist. The only time I voted non unionist is when I lived in West Belfast, I'd lend my vote to SDLP as they are a more moderate nationalist party and better than SF.
I'm not part of any church, albeit christened in the Church of Ireland, haven't went to church outside of weddings and funerals since I was a kid. So I've no church influence. I believe abortion shouldn't be freely available and used as a contraceptive. I believe the only times an abortion is acceptable is when, the mother is in danger, the baby won't survive or have severe issues that won't give them a quality of life. In the event of a rape or incest. I don't think inconvenience is an acceptable reason. If you don't want the baby put it up for adoption, there's thousands of willing good couples who can't have kids would jump at the opportunity.
LGBT rights, no issues with it. Certainly wouldn't put in a partition of concern in for anything regarding this. Whatever the will of the people is, I'm happy to go along with. It's not a personal big concern of mine.
ILA, couldn't care less about this, my only concern is the costs. If it's kept to a reasonable amount then I've no issues. If it starts costing millions upon millions every year then it needs looked at. I also think this is true of all tradition lead government acts.
The main issues for me is health, roads, education, economy and the protocol.
I don't think it's an either or, you can prioritize health and the protocol situation. The issue I have here is I don't believe unionism right now is effective and can't see them delivering on the protocol situation.
Your take on SF is interesting, the way I see them is, they jump on the popular issues and people eat it up. They don't deliver much though.
RHI, they pulled down the institutions because of it, but in hindsight it was a smokescreen.
They said they'll only come back if Arlene stood aside, if gay rights where agreed and ILA was agreed.
Well as soon as they had the ILA in the back pocket all was well again. The LGBT community shoved to the side, Arlene still first minister and nothing changed. The ILA still hasn't been enacted.
SF talk a good game, promise the world and deliver nothing. Just look at West Belfast, SF run for 30 plus years and it's still got high crime rates, housing issues, poverty, health issues and kids running the place at night. SF will still get in.
DUP are no better.
On the middle ground, the only way this works is when more nationalists start voting this way. The unionist voters have already started moving this way eg north down, east Belfast etc we haven't seen alliance really threatened a predominantly nationalist area yet at the polls. If we see one get in, in West Belfast for instance that'll be the first signs the middle ground might actually be a possibility in the future
