It has emerged that the former SNP leader in Westminster, Ian Blackford, has requested an investigation into the DUP’s conference clown, Sammy Wilson, who asked questions about northern Cyprus without declaring an interest.
Blackford is a member of Westminster’s Committee on Standards in Public Life.
Wilson isn’t the only unionist who has come under scrutiny. Former UUP chair Lord Rogan has also been asking questions about the same part of Cyprus, though it’s yet to be decided whether he will be investigated.
A flurry of questions in Westminster came in the last two years after a group called Freedom and Fairness for Northern Cyprus, which campaigns for international recognition of northern Cyprus as an independent state, organised trips there for over a dozen British politicians.
Six of them subsequently asked questions of ministers. They all declared their freebie but only one of them declared an interest before asking their questions.
Interestingly, most referred in those questions to the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus”, an entity only Turkey recognises.
Lord Rogan asked on January 16 “when the government intends to review the travel advice to UK nationals visiting the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus”.
The British government’s response was that only Turkey recognises a legal entity in the north of the island and that only the government of the Republic of Cyprus has the authority to allow international flights to the north. “As such, it is not possible to fly directly between the UK and the north of Cyprus.”
Ian Blackford says: “Let’s not forget these are parliamentarians going to a territory that lacks legitimacy and is subject to UN resolutions.”
Despite that, Sammy Wilson supports independence for northern Cyprus. In the 10 years before January 2023 there were only 15 questions to ministers on northern Cyprus. Since then, until the election in July, there have been 26. Wilson asked eight of those.
He asked in March 2023 if the UK government would assess what trade and other benefits might accrue by recognising “the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.”
The British government replied that “every country other than Turkey recognizes the Republic of Cyprus as the sovereign authority over the entire island. Several UN Security Council Resolutions and other multilateral agreements also limit links between the UK and the north of Cyprus.”
What is it with unionists and the north of Cyprus? There may have been a flurry of questions in the last couple of years, but unionists of every stripe have beaten a path there for decades.
John Taylor, now Lord Kilclooney, has had a house there since 1972, even before the Turkish invasion that led to partition of the island.
Former UUP MP Ken Magennis also had a house in the north. What’s the attraction, apart from the sun and prices?
Simple. Unionists identify with Turkish Cypriots. They’re a minority on the island.
The Ottoman empire that ran the island for centuries handed it over in 1878 to the British. When the Greek Cypriot EOKA fought for self-determination and unity with Greece in the 1950s, the British recruited Turkish Cypriots into the local security forces to help deny self-determination.
Then, as always, the British cut and ran, retaining only two military bases, the Turkish Cypriots left to their fate.
When a sort of power-sharing collapsed and union with Greece (Enosis) loomed in 1974 amid sectarian violence, the Turkish army parachuted in and took over the north of the island, driving out the Greek Cypriots.
Local Turks stole their land and businesses. Thousands of Greek Cypriots fled to Greece, to England, some to Egypt and Lebanon.
Now here’s the thing. All the unionists who support the Turkish Cypriots in the north want them, all 400,000 of them, to have an independent state even though it’s completely unviable, being totally dependent on Turkey.
So what’s wrong with that, ask their unionist supporters. After all, isn’t their wee enclave in the north of this island totally dependent on Britain?
Unionists would love Britain to defend them as rigorously as Turkey, when they invaded to defend their ethnic brethren in 1974 from encroachment by Greece.
Instead, unionists see treachery and betrayal by Britain and the certain knowledge that Britain will happily hand them over to a Dublin government at the earliest opportunity.
In fact the faster the number of unionists falls, the more likely it is that Britain will accelerate its departure.
That’s why they encourage the British government to disregard international rules and recognise the ‘Turkish Republic of North Cyprus’. It would be a precedent for ignoring the Good Friday Agreement.
False analogies abound in unionist fantasies. Cloud cuckoo land.