Colum ‘the north‘ Eastwood has long been a critic of British Tories’ “English nationalism” – that narrow-minded and selfish English ‘ourselves alone’ “take back control of our future” Boris Johnson-style rhetoric:
There’s an equally narrow-minded and selfish Irish ‘ourselves alone’ “take back control of your future” Colum Eastwood rhetoric:
Is there much to choose between a narrow-minded, selfish English nationalist and a narrow-minded, selfish Irish nationalist?
Between an English Tory and an Irish Tory?
Let’s have a look…
Colum constantly refers to himself and to his party as ‘Irish nationalist’.
Colum wants to make Northern Ireland work, but he wants to work it into a United Ireland, unity of territory first and foremost, unity of people perhaps never?
The former Labour ingredient of the Social Democratic party has been entirely erased – Colum could not bring himself to mention two of the party’s Labourite founders, Gerry Fitt (Dock Labour Party/Irish Labour Party) or Paddy Devlin (Irish Labour Party/Northern Ireland Labour Party) during a commemorative speech:
Fascinatingly, in a recent speech to mark the 50th anniversary of the civil rights agitation of 1967, current SDLP leader Colum Eastwood reeled off a list of names including John Hume, Austin Currie, and Ivan Cooper of those associated with civil rights (Irish Times, 5 October 2017) and managed to leave out my grandfather, despite his being the only SDLP founding member on the original executive of NICRA. On the other hand, Paddy [Devlin] would not have appreciated being endorsed by an SDLP leader who maintains the party’s socially conservative views on abortion and Catholic control of schooling.
Colum has an eye for an attractive political party – any passing party with curves – he has had pacts with the Ulster Unionists under Mike Nesbitt [came to nothing], with Sinn Féin [disenfranchised North Belfast and made the IRA’s Army Council strategists very happy] and ultimately the right-wing conservative Fianna Fáil party in the Republic of Ireland [divorced the SDLP from the Party of European Socialists/British and Irish Labour parties].
Colum regularly starts things he doesn’t bother to finish…
The short love affair between Colum, Mike Nesbitt and the Ulster Unionist Party – when Colum attended a tryst at the UUP conference in October 2016 and gave a speech – proved sterile and produced no children.
It was begun, but never finished – a character trait of Colum Eastwood.
Colum’s next pact – with Sinn Féin in North Belfast – occurred simultaneously with his campaign against Sinn Féin in Derry/Londonderry and four years after the SDLP denounced any such pacts.
Colum’s arguments against Sinn Féin in Derry/Londonderry were simple and obvious:
- Sinn Féin’s lazy abstentionism robs voters of action and influence [in Westminster]
- Democratically elected politicians need to represent voters by engaging [in Westminster]
- Voters deserve better [in Westminster]
- The SDLP would turn up if voters themselves turned up and voted – and so they did in Derry/Londonderry.
The same Colum Eastwood who gave the citizens of Derry/Londonderry an option to kick off the dead weight of Sinn Féin abstentionism and outdated IRA strategists’ influence was the same Colum Eastwood who denied that option to citizens of North Belfast, where his despised Sinn Féin abstentionists were granted all voters practically as disenfranchised hostages.
Colum’s initial claim that the election in Northern Ireland “was all about Brexit” was quickly shown to be absurd as the local crisis in health services and nurses’ pay parity became possibly bigger issues than Brexit – exactly the local bread and butter issues that Colum had been heard to claim to champion.
Colum’s February 2019 pact with the conservative Fianna Fáil party in the Republic of Ireland effectively ended the SDLP’s 50 year association with European socialist parties and with the British and Irish Labour parties.
A regular complaint against Colum is his discourtesy to others.
Brendan Howlin, then the Labour Party leader in the Republic of Ireland, complained that Colum didn’t bother to inform him of the Fianna Fáil merger/pact/partnership whatever it is/was:
Not alone did Brendan Howlin complain about Colum’s discourtesy, three SDLP Chairpersons also complained about it and resigned their posts, namely the Chairs of SDLP Youth, Women and LGBT+:
Claire Hanna had a short-lived hissy fit about the Fianna Fáil merger/pact/partnership – she resigned as Brexit spokesperson – but really, Claire, you knew it was surely going to be another of Colum’s unfinished projects – I mean, what’s become of it?
Claire’s short-lived opposition to Colum’s sectarian pact policies disappeared upon her acquisition of the South Belfast Westminster seat following from the Sinn Féin nasty pact.
Another complainant about Colum’s discourtesy was Catholic Bishop Donal McKeown of Derry whose pride was hurt by Colum’s failure to tell him about another SDLP U-turn , this time over Catholic education:
Mind you, the last man to make a complaint about discourtesy and about not being informed is Bishop McKeown – this is the catholic bishop who decided to grant funeral honours equivalent to a ‘Head of State’ to mass murderer IRA leader Martin McGuinness – and the bishop didn’t poll any of McGuinness’ many Derry/Londonderry victims, least of all those 10 miles from the bishop’s arrogance, in Claudy, where McGuinness ordered the Claudy Bombings’ atrocity.
Why should the SDLP pay any heed to a bishop who has exerted himself to aggrandize Sinn Féin over the for-years-loyal-to-the-catholic-church SDLP?
For heaven’s sake, hasn’t the SDLP always seen itself as the political wing of the catholic church?
All good things must come to an end, and Colum Eastwood is that end.
In Colum’s untilled mind it’s perfectly reasonable to declare the SDLP both Pro-Life and Pro-Abortion:
Colum claimed that since the people of Northern Ireland overwhelmingly opposed Brexit, the British government HAD NO RIGHT to foist Brexit upon Northern Ireland:
It’s important that this Assembly asserts its authority on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland. We have always said people here did not give consent for Brexit and it’s important that this Assembly withholds consent for Brexit. We know this British Government will ignore us.
InCumbria Jan 2020
But in spite of the overwhelming opposition [79%?] of people in Northern Ireland to the imposition of abortion, Colum suddenly believed the British government HAD EVERY RIGHT to impose abortion upon Northern Ireland.
Colum is the kind of guy who meets himself coming back.
Colum has more faces than the Guildhall clock:
- Pro-Ulster Unionist
- Pro-Sinn Féin
- Pro-Fianna Fáil
- Pro-Fine Gael [Austin Currie/Mark Durkan]
- Pro-Life
- Pro-Abortion
- Pro-Making Northern Ireland Work
- Pro-Making a Border Poll and a United Ireland today
- Pro-University for Derry/Londonderry
What’s that? Pro-University???
Not many would argue that a university education is a pre-requisite for modern life – many people have succeeded without one – but few would argue that their choice of cancer specialist, heart surgeon or anesthesiologist would include persons who dropped out of their medical degrees.
Certain vocations demand excellence beyond completion of studies.
That Colum Eastwood dropped out of his Liverpool University degree in Latin American Studies in 2003 after less than two years – didn’t bother to complete an undemanding course of study – hints at a lazy intellect, at a character that spurns opportunity and leaves simple things undone.
Colum is falsely recorded on websites as an ‘alumnus’ of Liverpool University – he was a dropout, a man who rejected the nourishment of learning.
Colum’s protestations on behalf of a real university for Derry/Londonderry have all the credibility of a eunuch’s demand for a brothel…
Colum’s challenge to Dr. Alasdair McDonnell for the leadership of the SDLP was as graceful as Marcus Junius Brutus’ dagger in the back of Julius Caesar.
Colum declared to the BBC’s Stephen Walker that Alasdair could not guide the SDLP from Westminster – “I don’t think an Irish Nationalist party can be led from London”:
This claim, redolent of racist undertones, has strangely not prevented Colum Eastwood leading the SDLP from London and Westminster for the past 2 years – Colum takes his own gross hypocrisy in his stride, as do his ambitious colleagues.
Did [Fine Gael’s] Mark Durkan not inform Colum that John Hume led the SDLP successfully for 18 years while a Westminster MP?
Colum won’t be toppled from the leadership unawares – he’ll be well versed in the signs and shenanigans that predate the coup when it comes.
Who asked Colum Eastwood to make promises he never had any intention of keeping? Why is he such an empty braggart?
Why bother promising to serve his Unionist constituents to the best of his ability when he never had any intention of serving them and couldn’t find the breadth of vision to represent THEIR interests in the Northern Ireland Centenary Forum?
Colum knows how to whip up the green sentiment in the rude Celtic hill tribes – carry an Official IRA and INLA paramilitary coffin for the cameras, but say it was all about respect and friendship…
Claire Hanna is about as loyal to Colum Eastwood as he was to Alasdair McDonnell:
There was never in the SDLP an “Irish Nationalist” like Colum Eastwood – while decrying all things Westminster and UK, Liverpool University dropout Colum has enriched himself at the British parliamentary troughs.
In the 8 years that Colum derived a salary from the British Stormont Assembly – and including the 3 years that the Assembly was shut down – Colum was enriched to the tune of almost £370,000 in salary, along with £562,000 in expenses – not including his pension benefits to come.
In the 2 years that Colum has been leading the SDLP as a Member of the Westminster Parliament – a position he criticized in Alasdair McDonnell – he has drawn down approximately £170,000 plus expenses – not including his pension benefits to come.
Total salary from Her Britannic Majesty Queen Elizabeth to date amounts to somewhere in the region of £570,000.
While Colum Eastwood lists no Members’ Interests whatsoever, he must surely benefit even a teeny-weeny bit from the fact that his wife – formerly a barmaid and wedding band singer – has purchased two prominent pubs in Derry/Londonderry since he was elected to Stormont, not forgetting the creation of the micro-brewery.
Rachael Eastwood is a Director of Wee Baa Ltd, [2012] (whose filing address is the Grand Central Bar on Strand Road, Derry/Londonderry) and RooRoo Ltd [2016] (whose filing address is the Guildhall Taphouse Pub, Custom House Street, Derry/Londonderry).
The filing address for the micro-brewery, Dopey Dick Brewing Ltd, [2019] is the home she and Colum Eastwood share.
The Eastwood family’s business interests are brewing up a storm.
As Colum Eastwood booted the last vestiges of relationship with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in the veritable groin, he offered a spectacular prediction about Brexit:
Colum Eastwood – the man who sometimes wants to “make ‘the north’ work” – has succumbed to BorderPollitis whose symptoms in him – a type of political delirium tremens with associated priapism – have led him to predict The End of the World As We Know It:
The problem about uncovering 17,000 swing voters in Derry/Londonderry [as one Bogsider said to me: “I hated voting him in to vote her out!”] is that they can just as easily swing both ways…
The final word to Albert Einstein:
“Nationalism is an infantile thing. It is the measles of mankind.”
Who would buy a much abused Border Poll from Colum Eastwood, the man whose character is to leave many projects unfinished?
The Irish Peace Process 