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Showing posts with label Partition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Partition. Show all posts
Tommy McKearney ☭ The continuing stalemate in northern Irish politics is not simply due to the Brexit protocol or tendentious rumours of joint Dublin–London authority: the underlying cause of chronic political deadlock is the result of unionist anxiety.

11-December-2022

There is a growing realisation throughout the region that the future of the Six-County state as a distinct political entity is in question. Consequently, practically every issue, regardless of how seemingly minor, is viewed through the constitutional lens. Fearful of conceding an inch, the DUP is unable and unwilling to participate in the normal give-and-take of parliamentary politics; hence the impasse.

Evidence of a heightened recognition of the North’s fragility is even to be found in the words and actions of one of the most prominent unionist families, the Paisleys. Rev. Kyle Paisley, son of the late Ian, recently addressed the Seanad’s public consultation committee. During his presentation he said that talk of a united Ireland is not as easily dismissed as it once was.

While that observation was significant, his brother Ian Junior made a still more telling contribution to the subject. Last month the fun-loving MP for North Antrim introduced, with the support of his party leader, a Referendums (Supermajority) Bill in the House of Commons. If enacted, this would ensure that significantly more than a 51 per cent majority would be required to change the North’s constitutional position. The fact that such a measure would be considered necessary by the DUP is surely a sign of diminishing confidence in the durability of Northern Ireland.

That partition and the union are at risk of running out of road is hardly surprising. Since its foundation, the northern Six Counties has ever been a dysfunctional political entity. Northern Irish unionism, though often refusing to recognise this reality, is in retreat. Over recent decades its one-time position of absolute power and authority has been steadily eroded—to such an extent that it is now facing the unwelcome spectacle of having a Sinn Féin politician positioned to claim the role of Northern Ireland’s first minister.

If that wasn’t enough, the recent census has delivered an ominous signal to supporters of the union. Although it is important not to fall into the trap of sectarian head-counting, demographics has always played an important part in unionist calculations. The changing population make-up will not of itself bring about an end to partition; however, the new composition has fragmented the old monolith and dissolved the certainty that had once locked the North into a political Ice Age.

Meanwhile the northern political entity is ruled over by a dysfunctional United Kingdom. The British state is now struggling to come to terms with the destructive failure of neoliberalism. Hardly a day goes by without another gloomy report on the state of its economy and wider social infrastructure. Last month the right-wing Daily Telegraph published an article claiming that “the NHS is failing Britain ...” Shortly thereafter an OECD report drew attention to the fact that the British economy is lagging substantially behind other G7 and G20 countries.

Elsewhere, the Financial Times was informing its readers that current wage stagnation is the worst since 1820. Yes, 1820—one year after Peterloo. Moreover, Martin Wolf, the paper’s associate editor and chief economics commentator, has predicted huge reductions in living standards for the British people. Interestingly, albeit ominous perhaps for some, he ended the same article by arguing for a close and stable trading relationship with the EU¹—an outcome that would surely appeal to many in a struggling economy further shaken by the ill-judged intervention of Truss and Kwarteng.

Yet such an outcome would be incompatible with an acrimonious, unilateral shredding of the protocol—a reasonable analysis that can only add to unionist anxieties.

Taken together, the changing make-up of the population and a faltering British state have undermined unionist certainty. No longer able to rely on crude majoritarianism, it is now also losing the once-powerful “superior UK quality of life” argument.

As for the old Home Rule and Rome Rule chestnut—for all its faults, the Republic is not now in thrall to the Vatican, thereby diminishing the old stratagem of the Orange card

This new reality has also thrown up another worrying phenomenon for pro-union diehards: that of constitutional agnosticism—in other words, the Alliance Party types, people who for the most part broadly favour the English connection but are prepared to be pragmatic and open to persuasion on the issue of partition.

Faced with this different dispensation, mainstream political unionism has proved itself incapable of adjustment. Unable to come to terms with the new order, it has retreated, adopting a form of siege strategy. The hope is that by creating a continuous crisis they can panic supporters into remaining within the fold, and this while hoping to simultaneously dissuade the Southern establishment from intervening in any meaningful way.

Under the current implementation of the Belfast Agreement, this strategy is capable of prolonging the deadlock. Its weakness, however, lies in the fact that it is purely negative and therefore vulnerable to an active challenge. There are several scenarios for how intervention might happen, but the most potent could come from London.

Whether Her Majesty’s Government would act in such a way is open to debate. At first there would be a widespread and understandable preference to let sleeping dogs lie. Then there would be opposition from hard-line, ultra-reactionary elements within the Conservative Party ideologically supportive of unionism.

Against this do-nothing policy will be pragmatic calculations of Britain’s self-interest. Can Britain afford a trade war with the European Union simply to appease the DUP? Would overturning the protocol create problems with the Biden government? How might negating international agreements be viewed by Britain’s allies in the Republic? Moreover, does continuous long-term stagnation in the North threaten political stability, or even peace?

On balance, it would appear that Britain wants to end the deadlock. The North’s secretary of state, Chris Heaton-Harris, has warned that he will implement savage budget cuts in the absence of a sitting Assembly. Coupled with a threat to introduce water charges, the intention may be to pressure Jeffrey Donaldson and colleagues. Add to this a recent leak from Westminster embarrassingly pointing out that the former DUP leader Edwin Poots sought to dilute the protocol in order to favour the North’s farming community.²

That much is public knowledge. What we don’t know is whether bribery or, alternatively, arm-twisting is happening behind the scenes. The St Andrews Agreement, for example, made it clear that were there to be no progress by a certain date the British and Irish governments would work together to implement a “plan B” over the heads of the Northern politicians.

Whether such a scenario is in the offing is impossible to tell. What we can say, though, is that how ever and when ever the present stalemate ends, it will lead to a further weakening of the union.

It is important that the left recognise this and begin to act accordingly, and act now. It is clear that conservative Ireland is already laying its plans for a post-partition Ireland. And we, the working class, certainly don’t need another century of Freestatery.

References:

1. Martin Wolf, “No jam today and none tomorrow,” Financial Times, 18 November 2022.

2. Peter Foster and Jude Webber, “Top unionist tried to dilute NI protocol bill,” Financial Times, 26 November 2022.

Tommy McKearney is a left wing and trade union activist. 
Follow on Twitter @Tommymckearney 

Partition Running Out Of Road

Tommy McKearney ☭ The recent exhaustive celebrations of Michael Collins’s life were selective and tendentious. 

September-2022

There was very little mention of his campaign against Dublin Castle’s G men and British intelligence but heavy emphasis on his role in negotiating the Treaty and founding the Free State.

In reality, the centenary events were partitionan attempt by the Southern establishment to cement the present neoliberal status quo. It was almost as if the fallen general was reaching out posthumously to endorse a hundred years of right-wing governance by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

All the while, a century of so-called Irish independence was being heralded by the Dublin government as if British interference in Irish affairs had ended with the establishment of the Free State. Nowhere was there any reference to when Collins had lamented that too few in Irish political circles understood how the British state really operated in Ireland. While the same critique might well have eventually applied to the Big Fella himself, his observation was and remains accurate and relevant.

This is an important factor when analysing the present situation, and not only in the Six Counties but throughout the country. Because no matter how much talk there is of independence or, nowadays, of a new relationship between the two countries, English imperialism still exerts a huge influence on this side of the Irish Sea—a fact that still makes breaking the connection essential if we are to build a fair and progressive society in this country.

Regardless of what structures happen to be in place here, the British ruling class continues to look upon Ireland as somewhere to be kept within its immediate region of influence, if not as an actual colony. This was the underlying rationale behind the imposed Treaty. This too was the thinking underpinning Britain’s response to the most recent Northern conflict, when it employed bloody counter-insurgency measures to deal with what at first had been identified as a democratic deficit.

And so it remains, as evidenced by the recent Tory leadership debate, both candidates eager to override an international treaty in relation to the Six Counties and casually dismiss investigation of British state criminality in Ireland.

Britain’s exercise of sovereignty over the Six Counties gives it a direct say in affairs in the northern part of Ireland. By extension, this also affords an opportunity to have an influence on matters south of the border. On the one hand this occurs through official channels, such as the North–South ministerial arrangement and the British–Irish Intergovernmental Conference, both established under the Belfast Agreement.

There is nevertheless a less visible but equally strong element at work. That is, the Southern establishment’s deeply rooted fear of the type of transformational change that might emerge in a post-partition environment. This means in practice that Britain has disguised leverage over political decision-making in Dublin. All that is required is to merely intimate that London may consider making constitutional change north of the border.

Indeed, desperation to maintain partition has accelerated a de facto merger between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, a pact that has been further sealed by the Varadkar-Martin double act at the Bealnablagh centenary commemoration. Ironically, this consolidation of ultra-conservative forces has been responsible for the rapid expansion of anti-partitionist Sinn Féin.

Undoubtedly, official Britain is keeping a watchful eye on these developments. London always has a keen interest in what is happening in a country a few miles off its western shores—not that Ireland is any military or financial threat to British interests. Moreover, the old Empire’s decline as a global superpower has actually reduced the risk of Ireland being used as a springboard for invasion.

London’s strategic priorities vis-à-vis this country have therefore changed over recent decades. No longer required as a vital military “asset,” or indeed as important a source of cheap agricultural produce as before, the emphasis is now on ensuring that Ireland does not set a “bad example” for the English working class, that a new Irish Republic would not, in the words of James Connolly, become “a word to conjure with—a rallying point for the disaffected, a haven for the oppressed, a point of departure for the socialist, enthusiastic in the cause of human freedom.”¹

Over the past four decades Britain’s welfare state has been subjected to a relentless neoliberal assault. The once-proud National Health Service is faltering in all sectors.² Council housing is a thing of the past. Less-well-off third-level students are having to take out government loans that often require a lifetime to repay. An astonishing 13 per cent of the population are living in absolute poverty, according to a report by the House of Commons library.³ More recently, the threat of inflation is exacerbating the hardship experienced by working-class communities in Britain.

The blame for this grave situation lies primarily with the Thatcherite Conservative Party and its wealthy backers. At the moment Liz Truss, the favourite to become leader of the Conservative Party and therefore prime minister, is proposing to cut taxes on the rich and smash the unions. Her merciless political code is shared by Rishi Sunak, her challenger for 10 Downing Street.

Unfortunately, the leader of Britain’s Labour Party, Keir Starmer, is offering little alternative to the free-marketeers as he remains wedded to right-of-centre Blairite economic policies.

Significantly, though, opposition to this cosy neoliberal consensus is now emerging from within Britain’s organised labour movement. Indeed the most prominent spokesperson from within the trade union movement is Mick Lynch of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, son of Irish parents and, incidentally, an avowed admirer of James Connolly.

In the light of the present “condition of the working class in England” it is hardly surprising that Britain’s privileged ruling caste would view a move towards socialism in Ireland as inimical to its self-interest. Unlike China or Cuba, we are a close neighbour, with a substantial and regular exchange of tourists and visitors, not to mention the historically large Irish diaspora living in Britain (one of whom is the aforementioned Mick Lynch).

Imagine how difficult it would be for Britain’s neoliberal establishment to justify or even explain why a newly socialist Ireland could provide a comprehensive health service, public housing and an end to poverty while they preside over a deprived society. Better from their point of view to use all available leverage to reinforce the position of their right-wing bedfellows in the Republic.

A presence in the Six Counties affords many opportunities, direct and indirect, to do so. The Orange card was played before to foil the “freedom to achieve freedom” by providing “stepping-stones” to the Republic. A modern version would be used again but this time to prevent socialism.

Challenging the carnival of reaction, north and south, must now mean leaving the Big Fella to rest in peace. Focus instead on working to achieve Connolly’s vision of a workers’ republic, with the working class in control of everything from the Plough to the stars.

References :James Connolly, Socialism and Nationalism (1897).
See “Britain is ‘sleepwalking’ into the death of the NHS,” Morning Star, 19 August 2022.
House of Commons Library, “Poverty in the UK: Statistics,” 13 April 2022 (https://bit.ly/3pAFFUo).


Tommy McKearney is a left wing and trade union activist. 
Follow on Twitter @Tommymckearney 

Varadkar-Martin Alliance Desperate To Maintain Partition

Fra Hughes ✒ Modern Irish history has simply been one of subjugation, repression, and tyranny at the hands of the invaders.

First Published In
Al Mayadeen English.
30-October-2021

In 1921 under threat of immediate and terrible war, Ireland was partitioned against the wishes of the majority of the people on the island.


Britain might have been forced out of 26 counties but they were keeping a foothold on Irish soil by proxy, through their colonial settlers in the six counties in the North East of Ireland.

When Irish men and women won the war for independence and Britain sued for peace, the price of limited autonomous self-rule for Southern Ireland within the British Empire was at the expense of their Northern brothers and sisters who were to be condemned to at least a century of separation and division: to include 50 years of Unionist pro-British misrule, at the hands of a settler-colonial Parliament, whose clarion call was a Unionist Parliament for a Unionist people.

A sectarian one-party state was created where pro-British unionists, many of whom were Protestant by their religion, continued the settler-colonial project, as an alien ascendancy, while the indigenous natives, the Irish nationalists - mainly Catholic by their religion - continued to be treated as second class citizens and potential dissidents to the new arrangements of partition on the island of Ireland.

Ireland was England's and Britain's first colonial conquest. Between the 12th century and the 20th century, England and Britain ruled Ireland through a brutal colonial military occupation.

From land theft to famine, they stole, murdered, and starved the Irish people into submission.

A victory they never fully enjoyed.

The indigenous Irish, in nearly every generation, rose up in defiance, in rebellion, and in arms against a usurping foreign invader.

In the years including and following the Irish famine, 1845-1850, two million Irish citizens died or emigrated. Fleeing a man-made catastrophe, Ireland's very own “Holocaust”, and Nakba, created by the British, who removed food, grain, cattle, butter, and many more consumable items, by the ton under military escort to be consumed in Britain and exported to Europe.

They filed past the dying and the dead on the roads, while they bled Ireland dry of its food resources, to simply create exceptional profits for the absentee English landlords, the robber barons, and the crown.

Modern Irish history has simply been one of subjugation, repression, and tyranny at the hands of the invaders.

Helped by France and Spain at different epochs in our history, Ireland finally freed herself in the national war of Independence through her own revolution, by her own efforts, by the strength of her sons and her daughters.

No colonial imperialist power be it Britain in Ireland, France in Algiers, America in Mexico, Spain in Latin America and the Caribbean, has ever withdrawn peacefully and unilaterally from those colonial occupations.

In all struggles for freedom from imperialism, occupation wars of national liberation have been fought. Some achieve full success like Algiers or Bolivia while others like Korea, India, and Ireland have all suffered the sin of Partition just like Palestine.

The Irish could not attain full freedom in 1921 and two Parliaments and two countries were brought into being. The Irish Free State and the state of Northern Ireland were both created under the sights of British guns.

While Irish men turned guns on each other in the Irish civil war which was the immediate result of partition and the creation of the Irish Free State, British and Unionists' guns were brought to bear on the Irish nationalists and republicans now kidnapped into the new bastardized illegitimate state of Northern Ireland.

When the guns fell silent in the Irish Free State those who had agreed to partition had won and those who had fought against partition had lost.

The Catholic Irish population in the north of Ireland had been signed sealed and delivered into a sectarian, one-party state, whose discriminatory laws, police, judiciary, and ruling class held them in abeyance, at arm’s length, a subjugated, second class citizenry, held in the economic bonds of poverty and trapped in the political wilderness.

After 50 years the cries of enough, the cries of equality, and the cries of injustice rang out, as yet another generation of Irish nationalists and Republicans forswore ending discrimination, and the one-party state.

The peaceful calls for reform were met with brutal repression. The state attacked the peaceful protests. Whole streets in Belfast were ethnically cleansed of their Irish Catholic inhabitants. Families were forced to flee as the Unionist Protestant police alongside sure their Unionist Protestant followers, assaulted, attacked, and in some cases murdered their catholic Irish neighbors.

Violence from the state resulted in resistance from the people, and a new war on the island of Ireland was born.

Internment without trial, administrative detention ensued, a national war of liberation unfolded, and between 1969 and 1998 violence was again a feature in Irish politics. The batons had been drawn; the gun was back in play.

I mention this solely in the context of the recent interchurch service to mark 100 years, the centenary of the establishment of the state of Northern Ireland, which took place on October 21, 2021, in Armagh pro-Cathedral.

Attended by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, representatives of the government of Ireland, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the four main Christian religions, some minor celebrities, and Pro-Union mainstream media types, who by celebrating 100 years of partition are celebrating the continued foreign occupation of Ireland by a sectarian alien cabal of politicos, corporations and the ruling class.

I look forward to the end of Northern Ireland as a distinct political unit, on the island of Ireland, when the indigenous people are given the opportunity to reunite the country hopefully by referendum within the next decade.

Irish are seeking a final end to British interference in the internal affairs of Ireland; a chance for the colonial settlers to finally embrace their Irish neighbors as equals and a chance for a lasting peace with justice for all of us on Erin's green shamrock shore.

When I think or speak of the history of Ireland, I always see the parallels with Palestine, another land militarily occupied by the British. Partitioned, beaten, colonized, oppressed, and to this day suffering under an alien military occupation. The British did the same in India, with partition and separation of Pakistan and Kashmir.

Imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, and corporatism are the ideologies that continue to destroy our world, enslave its peoples, and terrorize our children.

𒍨The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al Mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.

Fra Hughes is a columnist with Al Mayadeen.

Partition ➖ 100 Years Of Sectarianism In Ireland

Political commentator Dr John Coulter uses his Fearless Flying Column today to reflect on the past century of Northern Ireland’s existence and how the commemorations should prepare the ground for the next 100 years.

Only in Ireland could we see commemorating the past dictating the present and directing the future.

With discussions well underway as to how the centenary of Northern Ireland should be commemorated in - hopefully - a post-Covid 19 society, republicans already are off the mark with their ‘failed state’ propaganda.

But they will have their own centenary ‘boogie man’ to confront in 2022 - the centenary of the Irish Civil War in which republican butchered republican in a manner which made the hated Black and Tans look like a Sunday school picnic.

Republican comrades who fought hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder only a matter of years earlier in the War of Independence, turned on each other like a taunted rattlesnake.

Then again, perhaps one of the central planks of the Northern Ireland centenary commemorations is that it has survived politically for 100 years in spite of the ferocity of that republican onslaught - hence the headline ‘100 not out’.

Makes you wonder what the centenary of the existence of the 26 Counties can throw up - a bloody Irish civil war, fascist Blueshirts, draft dodging the fight against Hitler in World War Two, the IRA helping the Nazis, republican terrorists using border counties as a springboard to attack parts of the UK, poking its nose into the internal affairs of another sovereign state, needing millions of euros for a bailout, taking weeks to form a stable coalition government; and so the list goes on!

So let’s just park the view that Southern Ireland represent a land of milk and honey for the Northern pro-Union community!

Northern Ireland, like Israel in the Middle East, is continuing to survive in spite of wars and terror campaigns.

Ironically, to some degree, the Northern Ireland centenary commemoration seems to have been overshadowed by the need for talk about Irish unity because of Brexit and the Covid 19 pandemic.

In short, by the time Brexit is finally sorted out and the pandemic brought under control could Northern Ireland find itself in a situation where it is in a political united Ireland in all but name - in effect, a British sponsored united Ireland, because there’s no way Leinster House would have the cash to pay for all the benefits of West Belfast alone plus the North’s very efficient National Health Service.

Liberals within the pro-Union community are peddling the myth that the Union - to survive - needs to be sold like some tasty Presbyterian tray bakes to the non-Unionist and soft nationalist community in Northern Ireland.

This tactic is based on the past three election results which show that Unionism is now the minority ideology in Northern Ireland and Unionists are losing the numbers game to the so-called Pan Nationalist Front of the SDLP, Sinn Fein and Alliance.

Practically, the pro-Union community must unleash its sales pitch that folk will be financially better off in the UK than outside it.

Sinn Fein will no doubt spin the position that given its electoral support in Northern Ireland, combined with its existing support in the Dail, in any future all-Ireland election, Sinn Fein will emerge as the largest party and be able to form a nationalist government in Dublin in the same way as the Scottish National Party (SNP) runs the Scottish Parliament.

But at least in Northern Ireland at the moment I can see a doctor or dentist without having to pay 50 euros for the appointment. Is it possible that Sinn Fein could persuade the British Government to foot the bill for Dublin running the north for say the quarter of a century after partition ended?

The danger for Dublin in any unity scenario is that the Westminster Government walks away from Northern Ireland with the simple memo - ‘you pay for the six counties now, Taoiseach!’

In this case, I certainly would not like to be a nationalist politician canvassing for votes in North or West Belfast when angry voters confront me with the chant - who’ll pay my benefits now? Then again, if there ever is a united Ireland, what’s the point in having an ‘ourselves alone’ Sinn Fein party?

The economic argument which the pro-Union community must push with all their might is that Northern Ireland can become a viable financial asset to the UK economy rather than a colonial-style drain on London’s finances.

The big challenge is - how does NI plc generate cash. Could it become a tax haven for the globe’s mega rich? However, what the pro-Union community has to take very careful note off is that it has been under a Tory Government at Westminster that Unionist control in Northern Ireland has been most eroded.

When the original Unionist controlled Stormont Parliament was first scrapped in 1972 it was Tory PM Ted Heath who was in charge.

When the Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed in 1985 giving the Republic its first major say in the running of Northern Ireland since partition, it was Tory PM Maggie Thatcher who was in charge.

When the Downing Street Declaration was signed which effectively signalled the end of the RUC it was Tory PM John Major who was in charge.

When Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU (even though the overall UK result was Leave) it was Tory PM Dave Cameron who initiated the referendum.

In trying to get a Brexit deal which would honour the Northern Ireland wishes over the referendum result, it was Tory PM Theresa May who was in charge. That idea certainly crashed and burned.

And with Brexit expected to be fully implemented by the end of 2020 with the threat of a border down the Irish Sea, who is in charge at 10 Downing Street - Tory PM Boris Johnston.

By all means, the pro-Union community must sell the economic benefits of NI plc as a major part of the state’s centenary celebrations because if the Scots gain independence as a result of an expected second referendum, Northern Ireland will be next for the political dumping bin by the English Government at Westminster.

Indeed, if I was an English Tory MP from the Shires, and given the financial meltdown caused by Covid 19, I would be whispering in Boris’ ears - cut the Scots and Northern Irish adrift politically; we’ve milked Scotland of its oil, and NI is too costly to maintain after the Troubles. Let’s keep that Scottish and Irish cash to rebuild middle England!

If Scotland does vote to remain in the UK and the influence of the SNP wanes again to the point where a nationalist government is replaced with a coalition government in Edinburgh, and Southern Ireland finds itself economically as well as geographically isolated post Brexit in 2021, then Leinster House will have to look seriously at some sort of union with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

Then again, if Scotland does go independent and London cuts Northern Ireland adrift, then the Celtic Nation of Islands must be the alternative political entity within the European Union.

In such a situation, there is one sabre the pro-Union community in Northern Ireland can rattle. The UK has always harboured one major security fear - that a united Ireland would become the UK’s Cuba, just as Castro’s Cuba was a political thorn in the side of the mighty United States.

Russia is rebuilding its empire once again. In the 19th century it was the Tsarists; in the 20th century the communists; in this century its Russian nationalism.

Imagine the look on a Tory PM’s face when he receives an MI6 intelligence briefing document that the little expensive statelet called Northern Ireland that the English Government has finally got rid off has secured the future of the Harland and Wolff shipyard by servicing Russian warships and submarines, and Bombardier has just won a contract to build the next generation of Russian jet fighters! 


 Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter

 Listen to Dr John Coulter’s religious show, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning   around 9.30 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM, or listen online   at www.thisissunshine.com

And It’s 100 Not Out!

Alex Homits on partition, the Good Friday Agreement and Irish republicanism.

Introduction

The decision of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union shone a spotlight onto its continued occupation of six counties of Ireland. This occupation is mired in contradictions.

They begin as far back as 1913 when Irish people who identified with loyalty to the British crown -- with the support of the British crown, formed the ‘Ulster Covenant’ . This Covenant pledged over a quarter of a million people to armed resistance to any introduction of devolved government in the form of ‘ Home Rule ’. Home Rule was postponed by the outbreak of inter-imperialist rivalries of the British Empire and the German Empire, but it was offered on the premise that the Irish fight in the imperial war machine of Britain. The Irish Parliamentary Party, the official representative body in Westminster for Irish Nationalists, championed recruitment and delivered almost 100,000 Irish people for fodder. The elements committed to Revolution and Insurrection remained in Ireland. The first proper outbreak and attempt to overthrow the British Empire commenced in 1916 -- today we remember the Easter Rising as a ‘blood sacrifice’ that the leadership knew they were going to. This would be an accurate description if it were true, but the truth is that nationalist elements with little to no interest in social change such as Eoin MacNeil undermined their comrades in Dublin and ultimately guaranteed their execution and failure of the rising. The 1916 Rising birthed the electoral victory of the party that at this time sought to collectively represent the interests of all of Ireland: Sinn Féin.

Sinn Féin candidates stood on a platform of declaring an Independent Irish Republic. This mandate delivered 73 seats out of the 105 that Ireland had for the House of Commons. Otherwise, a clear majority. This majority then set about convening and declaring an independent parliament that would decide and exercise sovereignty over Ireland. With this extraordinary set of events -- came the whip, boot and rifle of the Empire. Ireland, despite returning a majority of representatives under Britain’s own ‘democratic’ model of parliamentarianism, was not afforded the right to determine its own destiny.

War, Partition, Dependency 

A War for Independence began in January 1919. In North-East Ulster, the Unionist community was frenzied into anti-Catholic and anti-Nationalist action by it’s leaders. While this is not the origin of cross-community sectarianism in Ireland, it is a pivotal moment in Irish history. The Government of Ireland act of 1920 partitioned the country, giving majority control to one community in the southern parliament and northern majority in the northern parliament. The Anglo-Irish Treaty which was brought back by Michael Collins and the delegation is an enhanced and slightly tweaked version of the Government of Ireland Act.

The 1921 election was held on the basis of a partitioned political unit, copper fastening the incoming partition of the country and minor breadcrumbs The southern statelet was given Dominion status, swore an oath of allegiance to the crown and maintained all of the pompous and arrogant traditions of the British Empire while North-East Ulster was maintained within the British Empire with some devolved powers.

Partition ushered in a ‘carnival of reaction’ as James Connolly predicted. The northern state openly and brazenly discriminated against a sizable Catholic minority. Tommy McKearney describes it as an “orange fascist state” in his book From Provisional IRA to Parliament. This is an accurate enough description that captures the extraordinaryy policing powers, the immense discrimination and inequality that persisted in the six counties.

In the South, the Unionist political forces in the Irish Unionist Alliance merged into the political party that came to represent the staunch pro-treaty forces of Sinn Féin. This political entity was called Cumann na nGaedhal. This entity maintained the economic exploitation of the Irish working class, looked after the gentry and effectively replicated the rule of Britain in Ireland. Ireland remained economically dependent through it’s financial institutions and it’s currency on Britain. How the economy functioned, who held wealth and who dominated political life did not change. Northern Protestants and Presbyterians also looked on in horror down South at the intricate role of the Roman Catholic Church in influencing the decisions being made in the South.

For all intents and purposes, Ireland was successfully partitioned and each majority interest given rule over a specific geographic area, otherwise, North and South. All socially progressive forces, from the women's’ organisations, to the trade union movement or to the Communist Party fell into the background as partition deepened and attitudes hardened.

Civil War 

Inevitably, conflict erupted in the North. The demand for some modicum of equal treatment transformed into street protests and the formation of NICRA, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. Inevitably and like many times before, the response of British Empire was fire, blood and death. In 1972, peaceful protesters were gunned down by British paratroopers. The response of the Irish community, in Ireland and abroad was one of complete shock and outrage. The response also came militarily, as the IRA at first responded, then split over it’s response, and then responded again. Civil war erupted. Internment (imprisonment), arrest, pogroms and torture, backed once more by the British State were normal methods of dealing with the ‘terrorists’. As the saying goes, collusion is no illusion.

An attempt at an agreement in 1973 to create a power-sharing cross-community executive was boycotted by the political representatives of Unionism and a loyalist general strike in 1974. This permanently scuttered the prospective agreement. A referendum on unification or continued membership of the United Kingdom in 1973 was boycotted by the non-loyalist community and delivered an obvious result.

It took another 25 years for an agreement, titled the Good Friday Agreement to take shape and be ratified, thus disengaging the largest participant in this conflict, the Provisional IRA and paving their transformation into a constitutionalist and parliamentary orientated political entity.

Peace, But Actually War

The agreement released prisoners belonging to specific paramilitary organisations that were linked to the political parties leading the negotiations. It did not take away any of the militaristic or police state powers that led to their imprisonment, nor it did fundamentally alter the manner in which the police services operated and who composed and led them.

The Good Friday agreement provided for a devolved government that would be focused on power sharing, a Northern Ireland Assembly that would in turn fill out a Northern Ireland Executive. This is referred to as ‘Strand One’ in the Good Friday Agreement. The powers that Stormont exercises are essentially the powers that a Home Rule entity would have exercised in 1919. The statelet remains an integral part of the United Kingdom and administers British rule in Ireland.

Brexit and Ireland

The complications that British departure from the European union brought to Ireland are straightforward. It should be reiterated that the central contradiction for unification is the historical invasion of Ireland and contemporary occupation of six counties. Nevertheless, the fact that both Ireland and the United Kingdom were in the European Union ensured that all rules regarding the freedom of movement within the EU were uniform. The Free Trade Agreement unites the European economies into one economic trading bloc internationally. Internally it gets rid of custom tariffs and other pesky obstacles to moving money about between large financial institutions.

The question of whether another border would emerge in Ireland dominated political discourse. Would the British State re-introduce secondary and tertiary borders in the form of customs points, checkpoints and tariffs? Nobody on the island of Ireland wanted that primarily because the majority of those living in the 6 counties voted to remain in the European Union. Multiple contradictions opened up and the question of unity and sovereignty arose with it.

It’s generally agreed that there is no desire for a harder partition of Ireland, but it’s impossible to predict right now. Sinn Féin of today, which is absolutely a different entity from the Sinn Féin of 1918, has brought the question of a border poll by stating that a hard border is not in the interests of the people. An obvious enough and an agreeable statement but not easily reconcilable in a pyramid of competing interests ultimately tied to the whim of the British Empire.

The GFA: Another Government of Ireland Act, Another Anglo-Irish Treaty

If Sinn Féin of today existed in the yesteryear of 1918, their political position would be closely associated with the Irish Parliamentary Party, who believed constitutional means and collaboration were the best means to achieve limited self-government. The Republican movement in the 1916-1922 movement was significantly more balanced between those seeking total non-negotiable separation and those interested in cutting various deals and agreements.

The treaties that Britain has imposed, through armed force and threat of war, have always maintained a strong British role in Irish affairs. The partition of Ireland and the creation of a ‘free state’ might have created a new political entity in the world, but it did not change social or economic relations. It in fact developed entirely as James Connolly predicted, flags changed and the English landlord and commercial institutions continued to rule Ireland.

The Good Friday Agreement, negotiated during the civil war and agreed upon as a political and legal document, created a framework for the communities in the Six counties to live peacefully side by side. The agreement is a fascinating document because as identified by former Justice Richard Humphreys in Beyond the Border:

As a matter of international legal obligation, the Agreement institutions are permanent. They do not depend on any one party being ‘open to considering’ them, nor are they ‘transitional’ arrangements. Stormont is a permanent feature of the landscape under the Agreement, whether within a United Kingdom or a United Ireland.

This is not simply a question of a veto being given to one community -- it is a question of retaining all political and administrative functions of partition and nominally accepting unification. Even in the prospect of unification, even in the prospect of a triumphant social democratic and majoritarian victory in Dáil Eireann -- the Good Friday Agreement blockades all meaningful attempts at unification.

Conor Donohue perfectly summarizes this by stating that:

Should a United Ireland eventuate, this does not mean that the role of the United Kingdom in the North will cease. It will be continued in at least two ways, both of which will ensure that the interests of unionists are aptly protected. First, the Agreement creates cross-border bodies and forums, which allow the discussion of matters of mutual concern. As the Agreement will continue in force, these entities, too, will continue to exist … Secondly, the people of Northern Ireland will remain entitled to British citizenship. States have a right to invoke the responsibility of another state for wrongful acts done to one of their nationals. Theoretically, the United Kingdom could therefore invoke the responsibility of Ireland for any violations of the right to self-determination, or other fundamental rights, of unionists therein.


In short, the GFA ensures the role of Britain and continues the legacy of the gross violation of Ireland’s right to determine its own destiny. By manufacturing partition and creating two  gerrymandered statelets, it is almost guaranteed that one all Island approach cannot be legally or constitutionally taken -- even if you are politically active on both sides of the border.

Beyond British Empire and Partition

This creates a number of obstacles that have not been accounted for by any political entity in Ireland. The border poll has been supported by various campaigns, including the Connolly Youth Movement. Our motives for expressing support for the border poll vary wildly to the interests of other organisations. We see it as a minimal expression of imperialism and bourgeoisie democracy and it needs to be exercised -- mostly to demonstrate the futility of the exercise.

Above -- it’s clearly demonstrated that the Good Friday Agreement which is another Anglo-Irish Treaty in sheep's clothing, delivers nothing but further complications to the advancement of one all Island Republic. The role of the Republican movement is to identify that, much as it was identified by the anti-treaty forces in 1922 and 1923. Now that we have identified the contradictions, let’s identify potential methods of overcoming the trappings of Empire.

To further consolidate partition and refuse to challenge it, is to maintain the economic and political interests of the British Empire, the European Union and the American Chamber of Commerce. Ireland, divided, will remain pilfered -- an open market for the Cromwells of today to pillage as they see fit. A vision for the future has to confront the competing international financial interests and present a plutocratic, participative model of democracy that is linked to the social ownership of the economy on an all Island basis.

Many liberal, unionist and Imperial commentators repeatedly use the line that Unionism must be safeguarded in Ireland. This overlooks the immediate class contradictions within the Unionist community and tries to suggest that all unionists should fear the Republican movement. The fact of the matter is that, this is an argument that primarily benefits big house unionism i.e. the section of the unionist community that line their pockets by exploiting other humans, stealing the value they create as labourers and tenants.

The Workers Republic

The coming storm regarding the border has passed for now, but it will resurface as long as the country is partitioned and each time it does so -- will exist an opportunity to express and present viable and alternative means of unification. The priority for progressive forces should be to look far beyond the confines of the Good Friday Agreement and focus on the Ireland we are struggling for.

The process must begin by envisioning a new constitutional order for the entire island. This constitutional order must place social and economic rights above those of private property. It must guarantee housing, education, health, religious worship, employment and so on. We can draw on great inspiration from the Cuban Constitution and the Soviet Constitution. A new constitution that places the need of humanity and the environment by default challenges many of the contradictions that exist in Ireland today, including the clever treaties and agreements that maintain partition.

By placing social and economic rights at the centre of a new constitutional order, we will conclusively demonstrate to the working class of every community that our struggle is against the exploiters, as opposed to our fellow workers who choose to worship in a different church or fly a different flag. Rights of this constitutional order will stem from one, unitary Workers Republic.

This process of placing all law and regulation around human need has to be supplanted by rigorous and systemic organising across every community and district. This is not a fight between the Communist Party and the many forces of Imperialism -- but between every exploited inhabitant on the island of Ireland. Now is the time to consistently highlight the completely inadequate nature of the Good Friday Agreement for overcoming sectarianism and partition and present a viable, revolutionary and long-term alternative.

⏩Alex Homits is the General Secretary of the Connolly Youth Movement.

Beyond Borders ➤ Disunity in Unity

Finnian O Domhnaill discusses the impact of partition with particular reference to his native Donegal. Finnian O Domhnaill is political writer from Donegal, currently living in Derry. He is the creator of the political page No Bones About It. Here he writes about what partition has done to his county and what Irish Unity could bring to the whole northwest region of Ireland.

Tir Connaill - Free Us From Partition And Let The Land Around Us Awaken!!

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