Political Parties
Political parties in Northern Ireland can be divided into three distinct categories:
- unionist parties, such as the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the Ulster Unionist Party, and other smaller parties such as the Progressive Unionist Party and Traditional Unionist Voice
- republican/nationalist parties like Sinn Féin and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP)
- cross-community parties such as the Alliance Party and the Green Party.
There are some parties who could fit comfortably in more than one of these groups, or about whom it could be argued which group they would fall into, such as the Conservative Party who, while pro-union, stated an intention before the 2007 election to designate as "other" should they gain any seats in the Assembly (which they did not).
Read more about this topic: Demography And Politics Of Northern Ireland
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or parties:
“Of all my prosecutors ... not one is my peer, but each and all are my political sovereigns; and had your honor submitted my case to the jury, as was clearly your duty, then I should have had just cause of protest, for not one of those men was my peer; but, native or foreign born, white or black, rich or poor, educated or ignorant, sober or drunk, each and every man of them was my political superior; hence, in no sense, my peer.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“All parties attempt to represent important things that have developed outside themselves as unimportant, and where they fail in this they assail those things all the more bitterly the more admirable they are.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)