Welcome to Beyond NI
For years now it appears that Northern Irish politics has reached an indisputable impasse. Nationalism and Unionism, two opposing ideologies, have come to the end of their negotiation, resulting in the collapse of a government and years without an executive. Even after the issue had resolved itself over numerous elections, we again see another stopping block in any progress with the posturing over quarantine guidelines. It is the opinion of both myself and my co-founder that these are symptoms of the greater issue which unionism and nationalism face in governmental politics. That both ideologies do not only prevent the progress of each other's goals, but often will impede the progress of their own goals and ideals in the process. Policy decisions which have little to do with the sectarian divide have been delayed directly because of it (e.g. providing children with state funded lunches). In many arenas, the arguments of nationalism and unionism are not only stale, but are completely degrading the whole political process which was established during the good friday agreement. We feel that this must change.
For us, the solution lies in a re-framing of Northern Irish politics. We want to inform the Northern Irish public, in an easily digestible manner, how to view the existing political parties with right and left wing political ideologies. However, we do not wish to see unionism or nationalism become extinct, we only want to open new pathways for dialogue which are not blocked as the current paths seem to be. We believe that a discussion based on left and right wing ideas would allow for decisions to be made without being hindered by the restrictive boundaries of unionism and nationalism. We even believe that by looking at politics in this lens, we may be able to better understand those on the other side of the divide and may see that there are policies and ideas which most parties actually agree upon but are not enacted due to their current prejudices.
To achieve this goal of re-framing Northern Irish politics, we have established a database of party ideas (using party manifestos) to create an RvL score (Right vs Left). Using this score which we view as an interpretation of their ideology, we have placed Northern Ireland’s political parties on a scale of Left to Right. While this alone is interesting material, we have also been working on an action rating for political parties. This will rate how a party has voted in Stormont over the past 10 years. Using this score we can have a more accurate representation of not only what a party thinks they are but, also, what they actually are in practice.
n the coming weeks we will be releasing fully realised write ups on the ideological (manifesto based) positions of each elected political party in Northern Ireland. Rating each party on an in depth scale of left wing to right wing. Following that, we want to do the same for every MLA currently in the assembly. These write-ups will contain vital information, nuancing the RvL rating of each party and inform us about each MLA with additional data and info that should give readers a rounded view of the subject at hand. Along with this, we plan to analyse current events on the right to left scale so that we can see if local politicians are keeping to their ideals.
However, our vision goes beyond that. We also want to present the finances of parties and individuals for readers perusal in the same place where they can also view electoral performance and further information on top of that. Our goal is to also organise interviews where we dissect the thoughts and ideas of politicians in Northern Ireland and host writers who can provide expert takes on subjects important to Northern Irish politics.