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Sectarian Parties Win Local elections in Northern Ireland: Struggle for an Independent Voice for the Working-Class Continues

June 3, 2023 / Ciaran Mulholland

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.

Local elections in Northern Ireland: Left Activists Stand for Workers Unity and Socialism

May 11, 2023 / Ciaran Mulholland

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 18^thwhen 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”.

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

April 11, 2023 / Ciaran Mulholland

First published on Internationalist Standpoint Website, April 11th 2023

The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) was signed on April 10^th, 1998. Its 25^th 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.

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

“Windsor Framework” Will not Solve Fundamental Problems

April 4, 2023 / Ciaran Mulholland

First published Internationalist Standpoint Website, April 4th, 2023

On February 27^th 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 25^th 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.

Obituary: Death of courageous anti-sectarian fighter, trade union activist and Socialist Party member David Bell

March 22, 2023 / Ciaran Mulholland

First published October 12th 2019 by Socialist Party

Long standing member of the Socialist Party in Belfast David (Davy) Bell has died at the age of 69. Davy joined Militant, the forerunner of the Socialist Party in 1978 and across more than four decades dedicated himself to selfless activity on behalf of the working class.

Davy came from a Protestant background and grew up in the Cregagh estate in East Belfast. He liked to say that he once “skinned” George Best, who was also from Cregagh, when playing football as a teenager! He worked for British Telecom and was an activist in the Communication Workers Union (CWU), attending national conferences of the union, and working with is comrades Bernard Roome and Judy Griffiths and many other genuine lefts to overcome the dead weight of the dominant bureaucratic layer. In his union role he represented literally hundreds of workers over many years. His patient approach to trade union work gave him hard-earned respect and standing and he was well known in his own area as a “union man” who would help out with a benefit claim and countless other tasks.

“No Going Back”: Workers Movement respond after attempt to kill police officer in Northern Ireland

February 26, 2023 / Ciaran Mulholland

First published February 26^th 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”.

Lessons of the Strike Wave: Working class Solidarity on the picket line and at the ballot box.

January 2, 2023 / Ciaran Mulholland

First published on Militant Left website, January 2^nd, 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.

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”.

Health Service in Crisis: Campaigners Need a Political Voice

November 27, 2022 / Ciaran Mulholland

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.

Political Crisis in Northern Ireland: Workers Movement must take Independent Stance

October 27, 2022 / Ciaran Mulholland

First published Internationalist Standpoint, October 27^th 2022

In the weeks before his resignation as Prime Minister Boris Johnson brought forward legislation designed to overturn aspects of the “Northern Ireland Protocol”-the clause in the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement which allows for Northern Ireland to remain tied into the EU single market and customs union with the rest of the UK outside. Leading EU politicians reacted with anger, declaring that the legislation is “a breach of international law” and threatens the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (the agreement which brought to an end the most intense years of violence known as “The Troubles”).

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