Category: UK
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Stormont’s neglect of the most vulnerable in Northern Ireland has led its children to violence
OPINION Reports of children as young as 12 being coerced to riot by gangs has been the most harrowing aspect of the recent upsurge of violence in Northern Ireland. The sinister and parasitical thugs who groom young people for criminal activity must be roundly condemned, but our political leaders share part of the blame for […]
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Hopelessness, segregation and divisive politics have driven Northern Ireland’s peace generation to violence
OPINION As the centenary of the partition of Ireland approaches, the streets of Northern Ireland are facing the ‘worst rioting in years’. Many of those leading the violence, some of whom have now been arrested, have been strikingly young. A significant number were born after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA). What has brought this […]
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On the 23rd anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, peace has never been more fragile in Northern Ireland
OPINION Today marks the 23rd anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, that brought desperately-needed peace to my parents’ and grandparents’ generation. The centenary of the partition of Ireland is also just round the corner. Over the past week, loyalist violence and disturbances have erupted on the streets of Belfast, Derry and other cities in Northern […]
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Men, do better
OPINION CN: This article contains discussion of sexual violence and murder A week ago, few people knew who Sarah Everard was. Now, in the most tragic of circumstances, we all do. Sarah Everard disappeared on 3rd March whilst walking home from a friend’s house in Clapham at around 9:30 pm. She has not been seen […]
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Why integrated education should be non-negotiable in Northern Ireland
OPINION How to bring together a community divided by civil war is a long, arduous and difficult process with no clear blueprint or one-size-fits-all remedy. However, there are certain policies a government can take that would be conducive to reconciling one section of its society with another. One such measure that seems blindingly obvious to me […]
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The eyes of history are watching: Politika News talks with the movement fighting for the Genocide Amendment ahead of the next parliamentary vote
VIDEO As Parliament prepares to vote on the latest version of the genocide amendment to the Trade Bill, one youth-led movement will be watching developments very closely. The genocide awareness group, Yet Again, has spent months campaigning for the amendment to be passed alongside Holocaust survivors and Uighur survivors of the concentration camps in China’s […]
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State of the Union: a post-Brexit Northern Ireland looks south of the border for answers
OPINION The first week of the United Kingdom’s independent, “taking back control” status has been predictably underwhelming to say the least. Overshadowed by the devastating developments of the coronavirus pandemic, the early hiccups have been (understandably) largely passed over by the media in comparison with the more pressing health crisis. However, in Northern Ireland this new […]
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The Murder of Mary Ashford: an interview with women’s history writer, Naomi Clifford
INTERVIEW The Murder of Mary Ashford: The Crime that Changed English Legal History explores the true story of servant, Mary Ashford, from Erdington, who was raped and murdered by Abraham Thornton, whom she had met at a local party. The case stands out in the way it galvanised a group of influential middle-class men, under […]
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Abolishing the family and obtaining gestational justice: an interview with Sophie Lewis
INTERVIEW Sophie Lewis is a feminist theorist, scholar, and author of Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family, which argues for the abolition of the nuclear family as we know it, and against the long-accepted status quo of pregnancy, which sees 300,000 women die a year during childbirth (World Health Organisation). “What other workplace or industry […]
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‘This government is creating an environment for war and collapse’: an interview with Extinction Rebellion’s Liam Norton
INTERVIEW It was exactly a month ago when Extinction Rebellion (XR) grabbed media attention after two of their members, NHS nurse, Ann White, and war veteran, Donald Bell, laid down a protest wreath at the foot of the Cenotaph memorial with a slogan demanding action against what the UN has recognised as a climate crisis. […]
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