Peter Robinson (politician)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Peter Robinson, June 2008 |
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 5 June 2008 |
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| Deputy | Martin McGuinness |
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| Preceded by | Ian Paisley |
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Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 31 May 2008 |
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| Preceded by | Ian Paisley |
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| In office 8 May 2007 – 5 June 2008 |
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| Preceded by | Sean Farren |
| Succeeded by | Nigel Dodds |
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| In office 29 November 1999 – 27 July 2000 |
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| Preceded by | Newly created position |
| Succeeded by | Gregory Campbell |
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| In office 24 October 2001 – 11 October 2002 |
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| Preceded by | Gregory Campbell |
| Succeeded by | Conor Murphy |
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Member of Parliament
for Belfast East |
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 3 May 1979 |
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| Preceded by | William Craig |
| Majority | 5877 (19%) |
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 25 June 1998 |
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| Born | 29 December 1948 Belfast, Northern Ireland |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Democratic Unionist Party |
| Spouse | Iris Collins |
| Children | Jonathan, Gareth and Rebekah |
| Alma mater | Belfast Metropolitan College |
| Occupation | Politician |
| Profession | Estate agent |
| Religion | Protestant |
| Website | www.peterrobinson.org |
Peter David Robinson (born 29 December 1948) is a Northern Ireland politician and is the current First Minister of Northern Ireland, since 5 June 2008, and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), since 31 May 2008.
He was previously Minister of Finance and Personnel[1].
Robinson has been involved in politics in Northern Ireland for much of his adult life. He was elected in 1979 as Member of Parliament (MP) for the Belfast constituency of Belfast East. Following the re-establishment of devolution in Northern Ireland, Robinson was elected in 1998 as Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for the Belfast constituency of Belfast East.
He won the DUP leadership election unopposed on 17 April 2008.[2]; and subsequently became First Minister on 5 June 2008 following the resignation of First Minister Ian Paisley on 31 May 2008.[3]
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[edit] Background
Peter Robinson was born in Belfast, the son of David McCrea Robinson and his wife Sheila Robinson. He was educated at Annadale Grammar School (now Wellington College Belfast), a single-sex grammar school in Belfast. Robinson studied at Castlereagh College (now Castlereagh Campus of Belfast Metropolitan College), a further education college in Belfast. Between leaving college and beginning his political career he was an estate agent.
[edit] Political career
[edit] Member of the DUP
Robinson was General Secretary of the DUP between 1975 and 1979. He first stood in the election to the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention on 1 May 1975 in Belfast, East. Although he started in fifth place, he failed to get elected being overtaken by his running mate Eileen Paisley.[4]
Robinson was elected as a councillor for Castlereagh Borough Council for the Castlereagh C area in the local government elections on 18 May 1977.[5]. He resigned from the council on 2 July 2007[6].
Robinson was selected as DUP candidate for Belfast East during the 1979 general election, a seat which previously had a big Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) majority.[4] He won the seat with a 19.9%[4] swing to the DUP and a majority of 64[4], with Alliance Party leader Oliver Napier 928[4] votes behind, unseating the MP former Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party leader and UUP candidate William Craig on 3 May 1979 .
[edit] Member of Parliament and Minister
Robinson does not sit on any committees in the United Kingdom Parliament, although served on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee from 1997 to 13 July 2005[7]. Along with UUP and DUP MPs Robinson resigned his seat in protest at the Anglo Irish Agreement on 17 December 1985 and was re-elected in the subsequent by-election.
He was re-elected to the House of Commons in 1983, 1986, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2001 and 2005. In the general election on 7 June 2001, Robinson’s wife, Iris, joined him in Parliament as MP for Strangford. The Robinsons are the first husband and wife ever to represent Northern Ireland in Parliament.
Robinson is the longest serving Member of Parliament for any Belfast constituency since the Act of Union in 1800.
[edit] Leadership of the Democratic Unionist Party
Robinson's electoral success was marked when he was elected Deputy Leader of the DUP in 1980. He was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly for Belfast East on 20 October 1982 where he served as Chairman of the Environment Committee until it was dissolved in 1986.[4]
Robinson resigned briefly as DUP Deputy Leader in 1987 when the Task Force Report, written jointly with Ulster Unionists, Harold McCusker MP and Frank Millar and calling for a strategic unionist rethink in the wake of the Anglo-Irish Agreement was rejected by thier respective leaders, Ian Paisley and James Molyneaux.
He was elected to the Northern Ireland Forum on 30 May 1996 and served in it until it completed its work in 1998.[8] On 25 June 1998, he was elected MLA for Belfast East in the Northern Ireland Assembly election.[9] He was subsequently re-elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2003 and again in 2007.
Robinson was Minister for Regional Development, which has overall responsibility for the Department for Regional Development (DRD), between 29 November 1999 to 27 July 2000 and 24 October 2001 to 11 October 2002. He was responsible for the introduction of free fares on public transport for the elderly and helped formulate the 25 year Regional Development Strategy for Northern Ireland and devised the 10 year Regional Transport Strategy.
Robinson was Minister of Finance and Personnel from 8 May 2007 to June 2008.[1]
On 4 March 2008, Ian Paisley announced that he would step down as Leader of the DUP and First Minister in May 2008.[10] On 14 April 2008, Robinson was nominated unanimously by the DUP MLAs as leader designate with Nigel Dodds as deputy leader designate of the DUP and on 17 April 2008 they were both ratified by the DUP's 120-member executive committee.[11].[12] He formally became leader on 31 May 2008.
[edit] First Minister
As Leader of the DUP, Robinson was ratified by the Northern Ireland Assembly as First Minister with Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness as deputy First Minister (diarchy) on 5 June 2008.[3]
[edit] Policies and views
[edit] Description of views
Robinson espouses a populist, statist form of Unionism.[citation needed] He is strongly in favour of capital punishment and opposed to European integration in the European Union and the Council of Europe.[citation needed] Nonetheless, he is in favour of state intervention and socialist measures which are popular with his largely working class constituents.[citation needed]
While Deputy Leader of the DUP behind Ian Paisley he had a unique character and has an independent style.[citation needed] He is regarded as the leader of the urban, secular, working class wing of the DUP (as opposed to Paisley's rural, Christian fundamentalist base), and the architect of the DUP's development in recent years of a slick electoral and media machine.[citation needed] He is also seen as a leader of the realpolitik tendency within the DUP which acknowledges that it must at some point come to an accommodation with Sinn Féin.[citation needed]
[edit] Voted as MP (examples)
According to TheyWorkForYou Robinson has voted on key issues since 2001 like this:
- Has never voted on a transparent Parliament.
- Voted moderately for introducing a smoking ban.
- Voted moderately against introducing ID cards.
- Voted strongly against introducing foundation hospitals.
- Voted strongly against introducing student top-up fees.
- Voted a mixture of for and against Labour's anti-terrorism laws.
- Voted very strongly for the Iraq war.
- Voted moderately for an investigation into the Iraq war.
- Voted very strongly for replacing Trident.
- Voted strongly against the hunting ban.
- Voted moderately against equal LGBT rights.[13]
[edit] Controversies
[edit] Invasion of Clontibret
On 7 August 1986, in protest at the Anglo-Irish Agreement, Robinson led a group of 500 loyalists into the town of Clontibret in County Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland. The loyalists entered the Garda station in the town and physically assaulted two Gardaí, before holding a quasi-military parade in the town square. Robinson was later arrested. He pleaded guilty to unlawful assembly and was fined IR£17500 in a Drogheda court to escape a prison sentence. As a result, Robinson briefly resigned from the DUP deputy leadership [14]. There was also violence both before and after a court appearance in Dundalk, including Ian Paisley being attacked with stones and petrol bombs after Jim Wells and other Robinson supporters waved flags and sang Loyalist songs.[15]. At his trial the judge described him as "a senior extremist politician."[16] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article1036155.ece?token=null&offset=12&page=2 Profile: Peter Robinson: Poised to take reins from the Big Man]</ref>
[edit] Ulster Resistance
In November 1986, he spoke at the Ulster Hall demonstration which launched Ulster Resistance, an organisation which subsequently collaborated with the Ulster Defence Association and Ulster Volunteer Force to import arms from South Africa, resulting in Robinson leaving the organisation.[17][18] Robinson was photographed wearing the loyalist paramilitary military uniform at an Ulster Resistance demonstration.
At a rally in Enniskillen, Peter Robinson announced; "'Thousands have already joined the movement and the task of shaping them into an effective force is continuing. The Resistance has indicated that drilling and training has already started. The officers of the nine divisions have taken up their duties'.[19]
[edit] Christian views
On 30 October 2008 in his first extensive interview as First Minister interview for Hearts and Minds for BBC Northern Ireland, Peter Robinson publicly endorsed the controversial view, also shared by his wife Iris Robinson, that homosexuality was against Christian theology by expressing that “It wasn’t Iris Robinson who determined that homosexuality was an abomination, it was The Almighty. This is the Scriptures and it is a strange world indeed where somebody on the one hand talks about equality, but won’t allow Christians to have the equality, the right to speak, the right to express their views.” [20]. The comments angered LGBT Christian groups throughout the UK made worse by the fact that the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister is tasked with ensuring equality for gay people in Northern Ireland.
It is believed that his wife's homophobic comments are currently being investigated by Police Service of Northern Ireland serious crime officers for contravening Article 9 of the Public Order (NI) Order 1987 by using threatening, abusive or insulting words which have the likelihood to stir up hatred and arouse fear. [21]
[edit] AK-47 photo
In 2009 a 1984 photo of Robinson holding an AK-47 on a fact finding mission to Israel surfaced in the blogosphere. It caused controversy because it was believed to have been taken in Northern Ireland.[22] Robinson provided proof that the photo was taken in Israel. The photo continues to appear on republican blogs and continues to be wrongly linked with Robinson's association with Ulster Resistance and specifically the Invasion of Clontibret.[23]
[edit] Satire
Robinson's character on the BBC's Folks on the Hill television programme is portrayed as aggressive and constantly trying to get away from the Ian Paisley-Martin McGuinness so-called "Chuckle Brothers" image when he works with Martin McGuinness.[24] However it does not appear that he will escape a shared nickname as "Brothers Grimm" is catching on.[25]
[edit] Personal life
Peter married Iris Robinson (née. Collins) on 26 July 1970 and they have three children, Jonathan, Gareth and Rebekah. His wife has joined him as a Councillor, a MLA and a MP. They are the first husband and wife ever to represent Northern Ireland constituencies in Parliament. On 28 May 2009 the Planning Service of Northern Ireland granted Robinson planning permission for six houses to be built in his rear garden on the Gransha Road[26] in Belfast[27].
[edit] Religion
Robinson is a Pentecostal Christian and is a member of the Metropolitan Tabernacle Belfast, an Elim Pentecostal megachurch in Belfast.[citation needed]
[edit] Interests
- supports Chelsea Football Club.
- keeps and cultures Koi fish, ornamental domesticated varieties of the common carp.
[edit] See also
- Democratic Unionist Party
- First Minister and deputy First Minister
- Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister
- Department of Finance and Personnel
- List of Northern Ireland members of the Privy Council
[edit] References
- ^ a b Northern Ireland Executive
- ^ Belfast Telegraph
- ^ a b "Robinson is new NI first minister", BBC News, 5 June 2008. Accessed 2008-06-05.
- ^ a b c d e f ARK
- ^ ARK
- ^ "Robinson resigns from Castlereagh", BBC News, 2 July 2007. Accessed 2008-06-05.
- ^ UK Parliament
- ^ ARK
- ^ ARK
- ^ BBC News
- ^ BBC News
- ^ BBC News
- ^ TheyWorkForYou
- ^ CAIN
- ^ CAIN
- ^ Northern Ireland: A Chronology of the Troubles, 1968-99 by Paul Bew, page 202
- ^ Profile: Peter Robinson: Poised to take reins from the Big Man
- ^ Crimes of Loyalty: A History of the UDA by Ian S. Wood (ISBN 0-7486-2427-9), page 133
- ^ Religion and Violence: The Case of Paisley and Ulster Evangelicals
- ^ Belfast Telegraph
- ^ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-investigate-mps-antigay-remarks-1050237.html
- ^ Over the Bridge blog [1]
- ^ Irish Nationalism blog [2]
- ^ Folks on the Hill
- ^ Belfast Telegraph
- ^ http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=&ie=UTF8&ll=54.583296,-5.806483&spn=0.002077,0.009656&z=17&layer=c&cbll=54.583296,-5.806483&panoid=WK2o8Oh_f930frR4R315yA&cbp=11,246.28,,0,6.4
- ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8071948.stm
[edit] External links
[edit] Offices held
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by William Craig |
Member of Parliament for Belfast East 1979 – present |
Incumbent |
| Northern Ireland Assembly | ||
| Preceded by Newly created position |
MLA for Belfast East 1998 – present |
Incumbent |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by ? |
Party Secretary of the Democratic Unionist Party 1975–1979 |
Succeeded by William Beattie |
| Preceded by William Beattie |
Deputy Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party 1980–2008 |
Succeeded by Nigel Dodds |
| Preceded by Ian Paisley |
Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party 2008 – present |
Incumbent |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by Newly created office |
Minister for Regional Development 1999–2000 |
Succeeded by Gregory Campbell |
| Preceded by Gregory Campbell |
Minister for Regional Development 2001–2002 |
Succeeded by Office Suspended 2002–07 (Conor Murphy, 2007–present) |
| Preceded by Office suspended |
Minister of Finance and Personnel 2007–2008 |
Succeeded by Nigel Dodds |
| Preceded by Ian Paisley |
First Minister of Northern Ireland 2008 – present |
Incumbent |
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