A bid to force Northern Ireland’s Education Minister Paul Givan from office following controversy over his recent visit to Israel has failed.
During a bad-tempered debate in the Assembly, DUP minister Mr Givan called a no-confidence motion against him a “calculated attempt to drive a unionist minister from office”.
However, Sinn Fein claimed the minister intended to cause “rancour and division” with his trip to Israel and called him a “genocide denier”.
Parties supporting the motion said Mr Givan should not have used departmental resources to share images of his visit to a school in Jerusalem.
The motion was brought by People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll and supported by Sinn Fein, the Alliance Party and the SDLP.
It was opposed by the DUP, the Ulster Unionist Party and TUV.
The no-confidence motion was supported by 47 out of 80 MLAs who voted, but fell because it did not gather support from a majority of both nationalist and unionist representatives, as required by the rules of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
During the debate, Mr Givan told the Assembly that he welcomed the opportunity to “expose the toxic mix of antisemitism and hypocrisy at the heart of this motion”.
He added: “This debate has exposed the ugly face of pan-nationalism and its fellow travellers.
“When votes are cast I am confident that the attempt to drive me from office will have failed but in the process some deeper truths will have been revealed.
“These truths will not be lost on the unionist community.
“We have seen the informal creation of a new coalition of Sinn Fein, the SDLP, the Alliance, under the leadership and direction of Gerry Carroll.
“We have witnessed a calculated attempt to drive a unionist minister from office, not for misconduct but simply for daring to dissent from the prevailing anti-Israel orthodoxy of Irish nationalism.”
Mr Givan said those supporting the motion were seeking a “political lynching”.
He said: “This is not principled politics, it is an attempt at ideological purging.
“We have had a glimpse into a new Ireland, not a land flowing with milk and honey but a land where unionists serve only at the pleasure and on terms dictated by nationalists and republicans, aided and abetted by the Alliance Party.
“It is a vision not of equality but of subjugation.
“This motion has not just targeted me but has sent a chilling message to the unionist community that our convictions, our values and our right to engage with the wider world are to be policed and punished.”
Sinn Fein MLA Declan Kearney said the participation of the Education Minister in his “Israeli state-sponsored propaganda stunt was an obscene act, one which has caused deep offence”.
He added: “It has also been roundly condemned by teachers’ unions, students and all right-thinking people across these islands, but Minister Givan knew exactly what he was doing.
“His participation was premeditated. He knew that the use of his departmental social media would provoke widespread outrage – that too was premeditated.
“In doing so, he chose to ignore Israel’s sadistic depravity and genocide against the Palestinian people.
“If there was ever the slightest doubt before, there is no doubting now – he is a genocide denier.
“An amoral, inhuman, incredulous and grotesque position for anyone to adopt, but especially someone in public office.”
Alliance Party deputy leader Eoin Tennyson said public confidence in Mr Givan had been “shattered”.
He told the Northern Ireland Assembly: “Confidence ultimately goes to the heart of this issue, and the manner in which the minister has responded to this fiasco has not helped in this respect.
“It is clear that the confidence of teaching unions, the wider public and a majority of wider parties in this chamber has been shattered by the minister’s behaviour.
“He could at any point have recognised and apologised for the hurt caused, committed to an independent review of his and his department’s actions or referred himself to the standards process.
“Instead he lashed out and doubled down.”
Ulster Unionist Party MLA and deputy leader Robbie Butler branded the no-confidence motion as “performative, divisive and deeply hypocritical”.
“Those bringing this motion should be honest with the people of Northern Ireland – it is politicking, pure and simple, and it will achieve little but further entrench the views and attitudes across our society,” he said.
SDLP leader of the opposition Matthew O’Toole said his party supported the no-confidence motion not because of Mr Givan’s views on the Israeli conflict, views he described as “reprehensible and abhorrent”, but because the minister, he claimed, had broken Stormont rules.
Mr O’Toole said the Education Minister had breached rules around Civil Service impartiality and a legal requirement for him to have at least one official present at any official meeting he conducts as a minister.
“Had Mr Givan simply embarked upon a tour as a private MLA, as a DUP representative as he first claimed he did, we probably would not have been here today,” Mr O’Toole told the Assembly.
Mr Carroll, who brought the motion, called the Israel visit a “propaganda junket”.
TUV MLA Timothy Gaston condemned the motion, describing it as “Punch and Judy politics”.
