The Northern Ireland power sharing Executive has been restored today after a two-year period of stalemate. It was boycotted by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from February 2022 in a protest against the post-Brexit arrangements for trade between Northern Ireland, Europe and Great Britain.
Much has been written and said about the DUP and its boycott over the last two years. Vitriol has been heaped on the party by leading figures from the nationalist parties North and South. Many prominent British political figures and European Union bureaucrats joined in the fray.
The DUP were told repeatedly that the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, the Northern Ireland Protocol, and the Windsor Framework were the best that was available, and that renegotiation was possible. This turned out to be untrue. The capitalist powers will often renegotiate what was previously agreed, and will jettison what was once sacrosanct when it suits. The ruling class will always act in its own interests.
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 22nd will be the new withdrawal date.
First published by on Internationalist Standpoint Website, December 18th 2023
Striking nurses on picket line during recent strike wave
Speculation is building in Northern Ireland that devolved government will be reestablished in the coming days. The five largest political parties have been engaged in talks with the British government over the last week. A sum of £2.5 billion is reportedly on the table as part of any deal though all the parties have rejected this initial offer as too low. The money on offer is not the real deal breaker, however. The devolved Executive will only be restored if there is a resolution to the impasse which brought it down nearly two years ago.
First published June 3rd, 2023 on Internationalist Standpoint website
Parties based on sectarian division were the clear winners of the elections to Northern Ireland’s eleven district councils on May 18th. Sinn Fein are now the largest single party: it increased its share of the vote to 31% (up 8% on the last council election in 2019) and won 144 seats (up 39). The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), until last year the biggest party in both the councils and in the regional Assembly, held steady on 122 seats with 23% of the vote.
First published May 11th 2023 on Internationalist Standpoint Website
Voters in Northern Ireland go to the polls for the fourth time in four years on May 18th when 462 councillors will be elected to 11 local councils. Like all elections this will be dominated by political parties which seek votes in one community only, claiming to represent the “interests” of Protestants or Catholics. The four largest parties are engaged in this form of divisive politics-often described as a “sectarian headcount”.
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.
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.
First published February 26th 2023 on Internationalist Standpoint website
A senior member of the Police Service of Northern Ireland was shot and seriously injured in Omagh County Tyrone on February 22nd. He was attacked by two gunmen as he was leaving a sports complex where he was training an under-15 football team. He is now in hospital and has been described as suffering “life changing injuries”.
First published on Militant Left website, January 2nd, 2023
As 2023 opens hundreds of thousands of public and private sector workers are taking strike action, standing together on cold picket lines. There are so many disputes that it has become difficult to keep up to date.
First published on Militant Left Website, November 27th 2022
Our health service is in a state of crisis. One after another emergency departments have had to close their doors to patients in recent weeks and months. Northern Ireland has the longest waiting lists in the National Health Service. It is not easy to make comparisons between European countries, but it is possible that we have the longest waiting lists in Europe.
