against the stream

Writings on the struggle for workers unity and socialism

Month: April 2023

25th Anniversary of Good Friday Agreement: No Peace and No Prosperity

April 11, 2023 /

First published on Internationalist Standpoint Website, April 11th 2023

The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) was signed on April 10th, 1998. Its 25th anniversary has been marked by the visits of US President Joe Biden and Bill and Hilary Clinton to Ireland, and a series of commemorative events. The GFA is trumpeted as a triumph of diplomacy and statecraft, and the Northern Ireland “peace process” is held up as an example for conflict resolution all over the world.

The reality is different. The governmental institutions created by the GFA have functioned for little more than 50% of the years since. The sectarian political parties (which represent the interests of one community only), still praised for their role in bringing 30 years of death and destruction to an end, confront each other daily in an endless cycle. For the working-class communities there is no real peace, and the promised prosperity never came. Military strategist Clausewitz once said that “war is politics by other means”. In Ireland the peace process amounts to a continuation of “the Troubles” by other means.    

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Rioting in Protestant areas of Belfast in opposition to Protocol, Spring 2021

“Windsor Framework” Will not Solve Fundamental Problems

April 4, 2023 /

First published Internationalist Standpoint Website, April 4th, 2023

On February 27th the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) Government published a draft agreement designed to solve the impasse which led to the collapse of devolved government in Northern Ireland in February 2022. The Framework has now been passed by an overwhelming majority the UK Parliament and has been endorsed by all EU member states.

The Framework has the support of the nationalist parties (Sinn Fein and Social Democratic and Labour Party) which win the majority of votes in the Catholic community in Northern Ireland. The British Labour Party declared it would support the Framework before it was even published. The Irish government is fully behind the deal. US President Biden and ex-President Clinton are to visit Northern Ireland next week to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement in April and their visit is clearly designed to bolster support for the Framework and ensure a return of the local devolved Assembly.

The spotlight is now on the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the main unionist party, which is favour of Northern Ireland remaining in UK and win votes in the Protestant community. The DUP voted against the Framework in Parliament. Party leader Jeffrey Donaldson has outlined five “areas of concerns” that it wants to see addressed, suggesting that further talks and concessions from the EU could resolve the issues. Other key figures in the party have taken a harder position and reject the Framework entirely, arguing that it is even worse than the original Protocol. There is no immediate prospect of the local Assembly returning. Understanding the context of this latest crisis in the long-running “peace process” is essential if the worker’s movement is to point a way forward.   

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