Ireland the Way Forward

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Two months after it was tst set up the Northern sland Convention is still in resiness. The Convention, trever, has little more dance of a peaceful conlasion than any of British toblem'.

The partitioned Ireland which as formed after the First World was never an ideal solution Britain. With the first perialist war, the Russian revolion, and the Easter Rising dealing rage blows to the old methods imperialist control, the flexible glish ruling class responded with i first essay in neo-colonialism.

The compromise of Home Rule accepted wholeheartedly by Sinn Fein politicians Michael lins and Arthur Griffiths. The argeois politicians of the North ouraged by the Tory Party only demanded that they be cluded from Home Rule and -ew the Protestant workers behind tir campaign to maintain the itarian structure of Ulster -pital.

The social revolution that puld have been necessary to overme unionist resistance in the ith East was feared both by = bourgeois nationalist politicians the South and by the British fing class.

UNFINISHED

The result has been an finished national revolution lich has left the South economlly. dependent, the nationalist pulation of the North prisoned within the repressive ange statelet, and the Protestant akers trapped in a reactionary mace with their own Unionist ployers and local gentry. The ence of a revolutionary workers' ty capable of leading the Jonal struggle to its conclusion \ to partial results directed Sirely against the working class.

The bourgeois leaders of the jonalist movement in the South promised with imperialism, cial Labour leaders abandoned ; national question and RepublicJam became the ideology of those inkers who resisted imperialist pression.

But without a working class Mership capable of developing a mement against both imperialist daination and its own exploiters = are imperialism's allies the dional revolution could not be ried through.

The problems shelved by parti• have not gone away. They Ist out with renewed force in • North East in the late 1960's rough the Civil Rights movement. 'decline from the time it was set • the disintegration of the rthern state accelerated after the bond World War.

In the last 30 years 47,500 ds disappeared in agriculture and = two traditional industries, linen • shipbuilding, which were the instay of Ulster capital declined stically. Faced with intensified apetition and now sharpening is on the world market the ter capitalists were driven out business.

INVESTMENT

Only the intervention of the creating directly and rectly 75,000 jobs over the twar period, prevented a total lapse of employment. As local pital drained away to the more dative London market and with ¡gration in the 1950's at an trage of 9,000 a year, the ermont government with British pouragement moved to create the it of infra-structure necessary to ract outside investment.

Ulster capitalists had been dacentrated in small and medium ed labour-intensive firms geared the UK market. It was here that : Orange alliance had gained its ragth through its control of the ¡cation of jobs. This structure of monage which extended from discrimination in employment to housing and local government tied the Protestant workers to their own employers.

As the economic base of Ulster capital declined, the British government moved to reform the sectarian structures which made Ulster unattractive to foreign capital. Britain's attempts at reform met the resistance of the Unionist alliance it had itself encouraged to maintain the division of the working class.

The strength of Unionism had not declined in proportion to the fall of local Ulster capital. Under the new title of 'Paisleyism' it frustrated every attempt to date of the British government to reform the Northern Ireland statelet. Thus the three Unionist leaders, O'Neill, Chichester-Clarke, and Faulkner who tried to initiate the reforms that monopoly capital needed and the Catholic population demanded Loyalist leaders West and Paisley found themselves toppled, one after another, by what had been their mass base.

Thus all Britain's plans failed, squeezed as they were between the loyalists' reactionary determination to maintain Protestant ascendancy and the struggle of the oppressed minority in the North, headed by the IRA, for national self-determination.

Britain's latest attempt to produce a stable regime for capital in Ireland is the Convention. The first moves that the loyalist majority made in the opening sessions guaranteed that the finished report to be offered to the British government will be more or less the United Ulster Unionist Council's election manifesto demand for a restored Stormont.

This they did by the simple device of stinge premain to minority reports. The nature of the Convention is clear. It can be no more than a preparation for a return to Unionist control.

The SDLP who remain in the Convention, by their presence, enable the British government to portray the Convention as attempt to reconcile the 'two communities'.

The Unionists, confident that the Convention will do their bidding, have felt strong enough to express the hope that a spirit of reconciliation will inform the Convention's proceedings and ensure its success. The SDLP clutches at these straws to disguise its capitulation before the schemes of British imperialism.

The successful boycott campaign mounted by the Provisional IRA against the Convention elections indicates that the nationalist population despite five years of military occupation are not ready to accept this latest British solution.

The rhetoric of the British government about uniting the two communities' is a thinly veiled disguise for restoring a regime based on the unionist forces which will continue the savage repression of the Catholic workers and maintain the Protestant workers chained to an alliance with Unionist capital.

The loyalist politicians' new willingness to condemn Protestant sectarian murders is not an indication of a change of heart, but their response to a changed situation.

As a minority in the powersharing Executive, Craig, Paisley and West organised punch-ups and walkouts as part of a strategy to rally Protestant. support against that particular British solution, thereby setting the scene for the strike by the Ulster Workers' Council that brought down the Executive. In the Convention things are very different. A majority that confidently waits for Britain to transfer power to its hands must conduct itself in a different fashion.

Ian Paisley, the leader of the Unionists in the Convention, rode to power on the back of Protestant sectarian violence. Out of his Ulster Protestant Volunteers emerged the UVF and the Shankhill Defence Association which devoted itself to the Christian task of terrorising and burning Catholics out of their homes in Protestant areas and re allocating' the abandoned houses.

The successful petit-bourgeois revolt within Unionism has brought Paisley and similar leaders from resistance to the "Civil Rights' initiated by Britain to the position heading the only force the British government can entrust with imperialist interests.

In preparing for power the loyalist politicians must distarce themselves from their own petit-bourgeois base. Thus the twenty plus candidates for the Convention that the para-military groups thought they had earned, were refused to them; and loyalist leaders are now prepared to condemn violent excesses. I'his 1s, however, not in the cause of reconciliation, but of preserving imperialist rule.

As Britain prepares for a restoration of Unionist control, a correct policy for the Irish working class is vital. The struggle for national independence cannot be carried forward except by a Marxist leadership which combines the struggle against British imperialism with the struggle against capitalism.

The _ weakness of the Republican movement, for all its valiant struggle against British imperialism, is that it falls short of offering any programme to the Irish working class. While we support their anti-imperialist stance, we must fight for political clarity in their struggle.

We must be clear that in no way is the Republican movement a socialist organisation and that it turns away from the necessary fight for a base in the organised working class.

Thus Irish workers face a dilemma in which the Irish Labour Party struggles only on a reformist programme having long ago abandoned the fight for a united Ireland, while the Republican movement turns its back on class questions.

In this epoch such a nationalist movement cannot national question.

In the North, however, as well as the South, the economic crisis of British and Irish capitalism and the rapid growth of recession is opening up new avenues of In the South this poses the break of the Labour Party from the reactionary coalition, and the fight for policies to defend jobs, wages and the living standards of small farmers.

In the North it presents opportunities seriously to pose a united struggle of Catholic and Protestant workers, in which advanced Protestant workers can be won to the struggle for a united independent The cutbacks in government spending and its support for nationalised industry, the slashing of health and education services being prepared by the Labour government's spending limits, together with the drop in demand for shipbuilding and aircraft threatens the jobs of workers in Northern Ireland - both Protestant and Catholic.

At the same time the £6 statutory limit on pay increases imposed by the Labour government is an attack on the living standards of all workers in Northern Ireland who are subject to the same massive inflation as British workers.

This opens the opportunity for advanced layers of Republicans (many of whom are increasingly aware of the inadequacy of pure nationalism) and organised sections of Catholic workers to take the initiative and publicly propose a united struggle with Protestant workers in defence of all jobs and living standards.

While in no way relaxing vigilance, and while stating clearly that any provocations or armed attacks on Catholic workers will be met by the full armed strength of the Republican forces, the fullest support must be given to every struggle of workers - whether Protestant or Catholic - in defence of jobs or against the pay laws, whether this takes the form of occupations, • strikes or other industrial action.

Such support would provide a living proof in struggle that the main enemy of Protestant workers is not Catholic workers, and that the main threat to their jobs and living standards is the capitalist system defended by Craig and Paisley.

By selectively defending those who begin to break from loyalism by fighting the employers over jobs and wages, and condemning those who act as the puppets of the Orange order, some advanced layers of Protestants can be won on the basis of principle towards the struggle for socialism.

Central to such unity must be the demand for work-sharing on full pay. It must be fought for through committees which attempt to unite the mass unemployed with those at work. It connects immed¡ately to the fight for workers? control of production and the demand for the nationalisation of industry under workers' management, with a full programme of useful public works.

In mobilising as a class defending its interests against the employers, the Protestant workers would soon encounter the armed intervention of the British imperialist army which would be used against occupations. The campaign to remove imperialist troops from Ireland and for self-determination would gain immensely in strength.

As such committees, from the inevitable small beginnings, started to gain in strength, the terrorist tactics of the outright fascist wing of Loyalists would be turned against them in an attempt to prevent the independent action of workers as a class. It would therefore be necessary for joint forces of workers' militia drawn both from Catholic and Protestant workers to protect the class and its leaders from Through all these struggles the immense power of the demand for the complete independence and unification of Ireland would be more forcibly established, since at every point the enemies of the working class would be exposed as the Loyalists, their fascist gunmen, and the British army.

Yet the destruction of the reactionary statelet in the North cannot be carried through without the mobilisation of workers in the South for the removal of the coalition government, and to replace it with a workers' and farmers' government, which must give full material and political support to all anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggles of workers in the North.

There can be no economic solution to the problems of North or South without the expropriation of the large capitalists, landowners and banks.

Further, the state-isation of credit to facilitate the development of industry and cheap credit for agriculture, together with the imposition of a state monopoly of foreign trade, are the only way to prevent Ireland's continued domination by foreign capitalists.

Within such a united Ireland it must be made clear that religious minorities would be guaranteed equal rights and opportunities, while for the first time in their history Irish workers would be free to determine theit way forward in the fight for socialism.

The Labour government in Britain, which sent the troops into Ireland in 1969, today attempts to disguise its role by pleading that it is concerned to overcome "sectarian' divisions and reconcile the 'two communities' '. In fact, just as it attacks the working class in Britain, it is protecting imperialist interests in Ireland.

LEFTS'

The 'left' Labour MPS who express their belief in self-determination for the Irish, but refuse to call for the immediate and complete withdrawal of British imperialism, aid the preparations of British capitalism to establish a new Loyalist regime.

Stan Orme, so-called left who holds a Minister's responsibility for Ireland, is the clearest example. This job means an acceptance of British imperialist domination of the Irish working class. Orme must be forced to resign at once and to fight alongside Irish and British workers for the withdrawal of troops.

A fight must be taken up in the trade unions to support the right of the Irish people to self-determination and for the immediate withdrawal of British imperialism from Ireland. Only in this way can the struggles of British and Irish workers be united.

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¡perialism's previous att- mapts to solve its "Irish