Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness is “a fit and proper” candidate for the presidency since he is already fit and proper to hold the role of Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister, former British secretary of state for Northern Ireland Shaun Woodward has said.
The Labour MP said Mr McGuinness had increasingly demonstrated an ability to command support from beyond one community in Northern Ireland. The entry of Mr McGuinness into the election “‘demonstrates the success of the peace process”, Mr Woodward said. He was speaking at an event at the British Labour Party’s Liverpool conference.
Questioned by The Irish Times about Mr McGuinness's decision to contest the election, Mr Woodward said he personally would prefer to see Labour's candidate Michael D Higgins succeeding President Mary McAleese.
But he said he could not understand how people in the Republic made a distinction between North and South: “If any individual is up for being first minister or deputy first minister from whatever political party he or she may be drawn, if they are good enough for the North then, frankly, they ought to be good enough for the South.
“If you are a fit and proper person for the North, it seems to me to be a very strange set of rules that have been put on the table to say, ‘You’re fine to be a fit and proper person to be first minister or deputy first minister, but you couldn’t be a fit and proper person in the South.’
“I would simply say to people before they reach those judgments, as always in politics, ‘think first before you speak’,” he said.
Full transcript of former Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Shaun Woodward’s remarks yesterday in Liverpool:
Let’s begin with the caveat that I am a former British secretary of state, I am a British politician, not an Irish politician. It is not for me to have a view as to who people should vote for in Ireland. I would love there to be a Labour candidate that succeeded.
That’s just a personal view, but at the end of the day this is a choice for the people of Ireland, not for somebody sitting in Britain to say that would be a good idea, and that would be a bad idea.
But what I can do as a fellow-member of the race and somebody who was secretary of state for Northern Ireland is I think say something about, one, how far it demonstrates the success of the peace process and the political process that we could see the deputy first minister Martin McGuinness now being a candidate in these elections and it simply says to me: ‘Look how far the whole thing has come and look how far we have moved on and look at how we are living in the new era’.
That is an incredibly important testimony to just what a success the peace process has been and from what I hear, read and understand – though as I say it is not for me to have a view, or extrapolate to say that it is a recommendation – but, nonetheless, it says to me that the deputy first minister Martin McGuinness has incredibly demonstrated an ability to command support from beyond one community in Northern Ireland and to a much wider community.
We have seen that in many opinion polls that have been out there in relation to the politics of Northern Ireland. I could only imagine that that could be sending to the South, but that is for others, not me.
You ask a very provocative question about fit and proper. Let me say one thing about that. I cannot understand how you make a distinction here between South and North. Simply to comment not on the individual, but any individual, if any individual is up for being first minister or deputy first minister from whatever political party he, or she may be drawn, if they are good enough for the North then, frankly, they are ought to be good enough for the South.
If you are a fit-and-proper person for the North, it seems to me to be a very strange set of rules that have been put on the table to say; “You’re fine to be a fit-and-proper person to be first minister, or deputy first minister, but you couldn’t be a fit-and-proper person in the South”.
I would simply say to people before they reach those judgements, as always in politics, think first before you speak. Because actually what on earth are you saying about a candidate in the North if you are applying a set of judgements that put those sort of questions up about the South.
It isn’t for me as a British politician to say who should win this contest. Whoever it is, and for all the candidates, I think we wish them well, but I just say to you again how far things have come that we can see politicians from the North putting themselves forward.
As a hopeful final thought on this, it is about the future. All of the whole peace process was about believing that there was a future for Northern Ireland that was different from the past. It seems to me that that is the promise that we deal with in these elections.
It is about the future and about being released from the grip of the past. As I say, you can be a fit-and-proper person in the North. I just hope that it is the same criteria that would apply to the South.
