Northern Ireland Greens merge with Green Party of Ireland

The Green Party in Northern Ireland anounced its merger with the Green Party in the Republic of Ireland, (called Comhaontas Glas in Gaelic) today at a press conference held in Belfast, where a Memorandum of Understanding was signed to promote cooperative relations among the Greens in Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic, Scotland and England & Wales parties. Northern Ireland Greens will now achieve recognition as a Regional Council of Comhaontas Glas, with voting rights on its National Executive Committee.

According to Trevor Sargent, Irish Green Party Leader and one of six Green members of the Dáil (the lower house of Irish parliament), "Today's development means that people throughout the island of Ireland will now have the opportunity to vote for an inclusive and progressive political party with a great record of representation and achievement in local and town councils across the UK and Ireland, in the Scottish Assembly, in the Irish Parliament and in the European Parliament."

Northern Irish Green Leader Dr. John Barry added, "The Motion is a significant political signal that we aim to be a genuinely inclusive and progressive party, embodying and celebrating all identities and accommodating political aspirations in the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement." Barry and colleagues claim that in this way, this North-South and East-West organization makes them the only party in Northern Ireland to not only support the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, but also to live it through their organizational arrangements.

I visited Northern Ireland in December 2004 and met with Barry and other local Greens, and was reminded of the difficulty of establishing a viable Green identity in a place where ethnic and/or religious divide are paramount. Despite this, the Northern Irish Greens have been slowly growing, including winning three city council seats in 2005. Now they are shooting for seats in the Northern Irish Assembly - in north Down, south Down and south Belfast. Here is their election platform, called "Greens Into Government."

How will they do? It may seem like a long shot today for them to elect members to the Assembly. But I am reminded of a similar situation of the Scottish Greens in the early 1990s, when they were struggling for a Green identity amidst the desire for Scottish regional autonomy from England and the central government in London.

Then Scotland got proportional representation and in May 1999, Robin Harper became the first Scottish Green to be elected to the Scottish Parliament. Four years later in 2003, he was joined by six other Greens to give the Scottish Greens seven parliamentary seats.

Who knows? Maybe we'll see the same thing in Northern Ireland - maybe even with the next election.