Category: From the Archives (Page 1 of 2)

From the Archives: NIPSA union conference majority support ‘political fund’ (2010)

April 8, 2024 / Ciaran Mulholland

A future of sectarianism and poverty: Working class needs its own party

First published by Socialist Party 27th July 2010

Working class people in Northern Ireland face a future of sectarian conflict, unemployment and poverty. The North has now been in recession since November 2007, almost three years. The anaemic economic upturn in Britain has entirely passed us by.

Officially, unemployment in Northern Ireland rose to 56,100 in June, an increase of 600 on the previous month, and of 6,700 on a year ago. The rate of “economic inactivity” (the real measure of unemployment) is higher than in England, Scotland or Wales. The projected £1.5 billion of public expenditure cuts planned for the next four years will put thousands more on the dole. It is predicted that 14,000 more jobs will go in the next two years, meaning that unemployment will treble over the five years between 2007 and 2012. The unemployment rate for 18–24 year olds is already 17.4%.

None of the Assembly parties represent the interests of working class people. At times, these parties voice their opposition to public spending cuts — but this is nothing more than a cheap confidence trick. The sectarian parties consistently unite in the Assembly by supporting a programme of draconian cuts. This is one area they all agree on — that the working class must pay for the economic crisis.

Workers on strike, communities campaigning against the cuts, people opposed to water charges, public sector workers facing a Tsunami of attacks, anyone who rejects sectarianism — none of these people have a major political party that truly represents their interests.

From the Archives: Riots Expose Reality of Sectarianism (2010)

March 30, 2024 / Ciaran Mulholland

Social decay causes alienation and conditions for conflict

First published July 27th 2010 by Socialist Party

Fierce rioting erupted in Ardoyne after an Orange Order parade on 12 July and continued for three days. The period before, over and after this year’s Twelfth was also marked by rioting in other areas and a number of gun and bomb attacks. There was trouble across Belfast — including the New Lodge, Broadway, the Markets, Short Strand, Ormeau Road-and in Derry, Armagh, and Lurgan.

Three PSNI officers were shot in the New Lodge and shots were also fired at the PSNI in Ardoyne and in the Bogside area of Derry. A landmine exploded in South Armagh and there were a number of blast bomb attacks. In total, 88 PSNI members were injured. The PSNI used potentially lethal baton rounds on a number of occasions but fortunately no-one was killed. The police claimed that the trouble in Derry was the worst in a decade.

For a few days, the atmosphere in Northern Ireland was thrown back to a darker, more violent past. In the days after the Twelfth, mainstream politicians and the media conducted a post-mortem on the events in very strident and inaccurate terms. Rioting on this scale is not part of the script of the “peace process” and has to be explained away. It is important that socialists do not exaggerate recent events but soberly estimate where we are at this time.

From the Archives: Sick of Sectarian Politics (2003)

March 24, 2024 / Ciaran Mulholland

First published in Socialist Voice, paper of the Socialist Party, June 2003

A RECENT opinion poll demonstrates that a significant minority of voters in Northern Ireland are sick of the sectarian parties and are looking for an alternative. Up to seventeen per cent declared their intention to vote for smaller parties outside the sectarian circus.

Many trade union and community activists have been stunned by the anti-working-class policies of the Assembly and the Executive. Many young people reject sectarianism, and because of their experiences of opposing the war in Iraq and globalisation are beginning to question the entire system.

From the Archives: Dirty Tricks & Collusion. Will the truth come out? (April 10th 2004)

March 16, 2024 / Ciaran Mulholland

THE PUBLICATION of the Cory Report into the deaths of Pat Finucane, Rosemary Nelson, Billy Wright and Robert Hamill, and of the Dail report into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, has provided further evidence of the nefarious role played by the British State in the conflict in Northern Ireland.

British Government policy during the last 30 years has been by and large one of pragmatism. Over the first two decades of the Troubles, it relied on a policy of repression, overwhelmingly directed against Catholic areas, allied with repeated attempts to create political solutions based on the “constitutional” parties. All attempts at a political solution failed.

Police raid on Sinn Fein office at Stormont in search for evidence of intelligence gathering in October 2002 caused a collapse of the Executive which lasted for five years.

From the Archives: What Lies Behind the Assembly’s Collapse? (October 2002)

March 16, 2024 / Ciaran Mulholland

First published by Socialist Party 11th October, 2002

AS WE go to press, it seems almost certain that Northern Ireland’s Executive and Assembly will collapse this week. New Labour’s Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid will probably suspend the institutions in the hope that they can one day be resuscitated

Switch of Jeffrey Donaldson and Arlene Foster from Ulster Unionist Party to Democratic Unionist Party in 2004 was a key moment in process which lead to eclipse of latter as unionism's largest party, a position it had held since 1921.

From the Archives (2004): Can the Sectarian Stalemate Be Broken?

March 10, 2024 / Ciaran Mulholland

First published Socialist Voice, Newspaper of Socialist Party Ireland, Jan 5th 2004

ON 5 JANUARY Jeffrey Donaldson, Norah Beare and Arlene Foster announced that they were joining the DUP. Their move underlined the results of the recent elections. The DUP are now the largest unionist party and Sinn Fein the largest nationalist party

Despite this some commentators are arguing that the forthcoming review of the Agreement will achieve a deal and re-establish an Executive. Some even argue that the outcome of the election will result in greater long term stability as a deal reached between the extremes will be more likely to stick.

Their logic largely rests on the argument that the leading members of Sinn Fein and the DUP are competent and ambitious administrators who are keen to once again get their hands on the levers of power. For this reason the DUP will abandon their position of refusing to talk to and share power with Sinn Fein. Whilst there is some truth in this it is a minor factor and will not determine the course of events in the next period.

Of vital importance is the fact that three more elections are due in the next 18 months-the European poll in June of this year and the local and Westminster elections next year. Both Sinn Fein and the DUP will see these contests as opportunities to emphasise their dominance over their rivals.

From the Archives: The 2007 Classroom Assistants Strike

February 3, 2024 / Ciaran Mulholland

First published 12th November 2007 by Socialist Voice, paper of the Socialist Party in Ireland

In an article headlined “Three thousand classroom assistants poised to take more strike action. A militant struggle against ‘power-sharing’ government attacks” the 2007 classroom assistants strike was described and analysed. This historic strike was not over when this article was published and would take some more weeks to run its course. Further articles from the archives will be published in the coming weeks alongside new commentary.

The article is being republished on the day that the power-sharing Executive returns after a two year absence caused by a DUP boycott. The Executive parties have all made noises about settling the current pay disputes, but all thinking workers know that none are friends of the trade unions. The classroom assistants took action when an Executive was in place, and their lived experience tells us all we need to know about the role of political parties which accept the rules of the capitalist system. Workers can and will win disputes. Their chances will be multiplied if they learn the lessons of past disputes and if they elect leaders who are willing to fight.

Three thousand classroom assistants in Northern Ireland are locked in a battle with the Education Boards, the Assembly [local power-sharing government], the Executive [government cabinet] and the Education Minister, Catriona Ruane. They have already taken ten days of strike action since 26 September, and further action, at the time of writing, looks inevitable.

From the Archives: The Brexit Crisis and the Role of the Workers’ Movement (April 2019)

February 3, 2024 / Ciaran Mulholland

First published April 1st 2019 by in Socialist Voice, paper of the Socialist Party in Ireland and The Socialist, paper of the Socialist Party of England and Wales

Sinn Fein organised protests against hardening of the border after Brexit

The implementation of new trading arrangements after the Brexit vote in 2016 has proven to be a complex and contentious issue and has paralysed power sharing government in Northern Ireland for two years. Throughout the last five years of negotiations socialists have argued for a solution which recognise the concerns of all communities and minimises any sense of border between the north of Ireland and the South, and in the Irish Sea. Now an agreement has been reached, and the Executive has returned, and we will analyse this in detail in the coming days.

The article republished below dates from April 2019 and illustrates the approach which we advocated for the workers movement. A series of articles since then have maintained and developed a similar approach. The issue of post-Brexit arrangements illustrates like no other the need for an independent political stance by the workers movement. Without one the movement risks falling into one sectarian camp or the other, either deliberately, or by default.

The prolonged countdown to the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union has thrown the Conservative government into a profound crisis. The chaos is such that an anonymous European source has compared the UK to a “failed state” (Financial Times, March 21st 2019) and the EU was able to impose its own terms when May came cap in hand seeking an extension of the original withdrawal date of March 29th.

At the time of writing, British Prime Minister, Teresa May, has tried, three times, to win a parliamentary majority for her draft withdrawal agreement, and has three times failed. The withdrawal agreement has been rejected on each previous occasion by a wide margin. The third defeat plunged the government into a mood of despair, and May even hinted at a general election if no way forward can be found. As things stand the UK will leave the EU without a deal on April 12th unless the draft withdrawal agreement is accepted by Parliament in the coming days, a long extension of months or even years is granted, or Article 50 is revoked and Brexit is “cancelled”. If the withdrawal agreement is passed May 22^nd will be the new withdrawal date.

From the Archives: Turmoil Over Flag Dispute Continues (January 2013)

August 10, 2023 / Ciaran Mulholland

First published by Socialist Party, January 2013

Turmoil over the issue of the flying of the union flag has now continued across Northern Ireland for six weeks. The protests, blocking of roads and frequent rioting began on December 3^rd when Belfast City Council voted to fly the flag over City Hall on seventeen “designated days” only rather than 365 days a year. Since then there have been protests almost every day-including a small protest on Christmas Day itself. On some nights as many as 80 roads have been blocked. Nearly one hundred police officers have been injured in the rioting. The police have used water cannon and fired potentially lethal plastic bullets and over one hundred protesters have been arrested. On January 11^th protesters launched a wave of road blocks dubbed “Operation Standstill” which effectively brought Belfast to a halt for two hours with nearly all buses off the road. On January 12th the fiercest rioting yet left 29 police injured.

Martin McGuinness on IRA parade in early years of the Troubles

From the Archives: Martin McGuinness Obituary-From the Gun to Government

December 11, 2022 / Ciaran Mulholland

First published March 26^th 2017 by Socialist Party

The death of Martin McGuinness has been marked by a genuine outpouring of grief in Catholic areas. His funeral became a celebration of a life of struggle and the tens of thousands who attended clearly agree with Gerry Adams that he was a “freedom fighter”, not a “terrorist”.