Twenty years since the Stormont Agreement was signed its legacy is a dysfunctional and undemocratic sectarian statelet. We are proud of the fact that we were the only Irish Republican political movement to actively campaign against the Stormont Agreement in 1998 putting forward the traditional Irish Republican principles of All-Ireland democracy and the historic right of the Irish people to national independence as set out in the 1916 Proclamation.

In 1998 Republican Sinn Féin pointed out that Stromont Agreement merely institutionalised sectarianism and that consequently the existing sectarian divisions would only be exacerbated. The two dominant political blocs, the Provisionals and the DUP are two sides of the same sectarian coin. Corruption and nepotism is the currency of this outpost of colonialism.

Since 1921 there have been five Anglo-Irish agreements all of which have failed to provide a settlement of the conflict in Ireland. The reason that all of these  have failed is because all are based on the partionist set-up, imposed upon the Irish people in 1920/21 by the British Government with the threat of “immediate and terrible war”. The root cause of the conflict in Ireland is partition and the continued British military and political occupation. A New Ireland can never emerge from the Stormont Agreement because it copper fastens the partition of the historic Irish nation.

 We in Sinn Féin Poblachtach believe that  the  Éire Nua programme for a New Ireland  holds the key to unlocking the impasse, with its provisions for real participatory democracy, empowering people from local and community level right up to regional, provincial and national level. Such a model gives all sections of the Irish people a real stake in the Irish Nation and in determining its future. That is the real alternative to the failed Stormont regime. As the two sectarian power blocs attempt once more to cobble this squalid institution back together again we proudly present Éire Nua as a credible alternative, one that appeals to the highest instincts of the Irish people, and one that transcends the sectarian divisions that have been “carefully fostered by an alien power.” Éire Nua can make a reality of the aspiration of Theobald Wolfe Tone to substitute the common name of Irish man and woman for the denominations of “Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter.”

Ends/Críoch