peace In. moderate Willg ot the alists, and exclude the extremists ether. Sinn Fein were written out he whole deliberations around the Pm report, and were deliberately exed by name from the Anglo-Irish But there's also a real sense in which British are saying to the Irish and to o ole arouna une world that if the ›derate wing of the unionists cannot aborate with the SDLP to run Norm Ireland, or if the SDLP cannot aborate with the official unionists, en there is a fall-back position.
This is where this intergovernmental ference comes in. It's a fall back. It t the main position. It says that if ere is no agreement of the kind we suld like, then the Dublin government ill be involved through the conference. Sot that they're going to take a share in tesnic Noren nev u cer resoon sibility for it, but they will have no say n it. It's there im black and white in the ccord; We'll be very pleased to listen to he suggestions of the Dublin governnent, we would appreciate their point of view, but the last severeignty rests with the 2W-SEECHL So Margaret Thatcher is offering the Dublin government three options. First, we go on as now under direct rule. option two: you can have some kind of olved government in the North with moderate wings of the nationalist S660 SU community, lerate wings are going to be defined whether they agree with what Britain ats or not. Then there is a third, fall ok position: you can have an interVernmental conterence where we will en to what the Dublin government to say, but in the last analysis we're to do. That is where the British government stands, and that is why the accords are not going to collapse, because they are set up not to collapse. They are Set up to preserve the existing situation and the partition of Ireland has acted in Britain's interests.
IlaNow I want to deal with the argument, which always comes withdrawing the troops will lead to a bloodbath.
What Britain is afraid of is not that there will be a bloodbath at all. They're afraid of what an Irish government will do to avoid a bloodbath.
the British withdrew Ireland, and there was a united and independent Ireland for the first time in 800 years, you would have a government in Ireland which has an interest in integrating the people throughout that island. And since the British have been in Ireland they have had an interest in dividing the people. have a government of a united Ireland. it would have to think about how to integrate the whole population of Ireland into the running of that country.
The dilemma is very simple. the question of discrimination, as it exists today in the six government of a united Ireland seriousIy going to say to the Unionists: 'OK, you've had discrimination for the last so many hundred years and now we're going to take it away from you; so you British can just get out of that job and that house because we're giving them to a catholic.' Can you seriously imagine the government of a united Ireland saying that? Of course not.
But then the problem is: how do you make up for that discrimination? How do you end it? Do you simply take the the existing houses and the and share them round - in which case more protestants would be out of jobs and houses? No. That wouldn't be the situation at all. An Irish government, in order integrate Ine would have to create jobs, create housing, raise the aspiration of the loyalists behind that of their drum-beating on 12 July every year into what a new Ireland would be about.
In that situation, what is going to happen with the Irish economy? In the, North, money is being pumped in hand over fist by Britain. Where are the profits coming from in the North? You can't find them. up, that What kind of economy exists there? It is more indebted than Argentina, Mexico, or any of those countries. It is the HOST indebted Europe. So what is going to be the attitude of a united Ireland? Will they say• first thing is to pay the banks in the USA, in Britain, and the imperialist countries"? Or are they going to say 'we'll have to do something about houses and jobs in the six counties and in the 26 counties?
actually going As soon as you sumelilllg about questions.
Take look at their foreign policy. Are they gọWing to back the foreign policy of Britain counties. and the United States, which has ac.
quiesced in their long? I tend to think not.
Cuba on Britain's doorstep is not about some sort of threat which is going to stop the Americans giving money to the IRA. It's about something very much more real, something very much more integral lo tne government of Ireland. I think that's what they're frightened of, and I think that's why we in Britain have every interest in building a movement to get the existing jobs troops out of Ireland. In that respect I would recommend you to join the LCI, o read the magazine, and for every pe on here to consider coming to the l( population, after the accord, the clarification of British unions, are some of the centra questions in British politics as a whole So we don't just say join us, come with us. It's a question of the education and building of a socialist movement in this counui y cause.
repression much public in Dublin British rule, Look ane soule last fifteen years.
Western
COULE "To build our united Ireland the the hunger strikers, back our debts to I think the answer is that if they are create united they are going to have to do LITOSC crotorl.
Equally, they are going to have to oppression for so the 1945 government.
And so the whole scare about a the loyalist veto dilemma of the GLC November hysteria.
Adams and Morrisson.
Now The discussions that are going on platforms. THERE IS a striking parallel between the Easter Rising and what we have seen in the last fifteen years. In the attermath of the rising, there was in no sense an immediate wave of support for that revolutionary It was the wave of brutality and and executions that did to bring Dack lo tne general the true nature of and I think we've seen many similarities with the apparatus of brutality operated by successive Labour Conservative governments in the It was the apparatus of torture and internment, which Thatcher built on in her determination to see the death of which brought home to many Irish men and women the real nature of British rule It also brought it home to many people in the Labour Party, who believed that we were in Ireland to stop warring communities tearing each other apart. It is much more difficult to support such nonsense when vou see the nature of the régime that Britain has been propping up in Northern Ireland for the best part of this century.
The traditional Labour Party view is eroding. It's important, if you look at within the history of the British Labour Party and reland. to see how much over support there was for the unionists in It was a British government that introduced What has changed is that for the first time there have been developments of links between Sinn Fein and British socialists which would not have been possible ten or fifteen years ago. The very first move, when the majority of Labour group invited Morrisson and Adams to come to the GLC in 1982 created wave of We actually had debates in the House of Commons where Don Concannon got up and called for Londoners to violently resist the arrival of go to national and regional Labour Party conferences and there are Sinn Fein speakers on those Wing I don't want to create the impression that we have won, that it's not going to be easy to actually break the remalning support there is in tne parti leadership to that commitment of remaining in Ireland. I've no doubt that we are a long way away from seeing the Ken Livingstone leadership of the Labour Party accept the need to withdraw from Ireland.
of the problem is the predominance of unionist opinion within trade union thern Ireland that are affiliated to the TUC. When you sit down and look through the transcript of the more recent party conferences and read Alex Kitson's speeches, you see that there is a consistent altempl, ycal oy ycal, le hold back a growing tide of rejection of party policy by the rank and file of the constituencies, because they fear what a debate on a united Ireland would do Lrauc unions that are organised in the North of Ireland For one basic reason: unemployment is two and a half times greater for the catholic community than the protestant one. And if, in the catholic community there is a predominant tendency to be in a union based in the South, and in the protestant community a predominant tendency to be in trade unions that are part of the British Trades Union Congress, then you have a built-in lobby within virtually every British trade union for Britain to remain part of Ireland. And a lot of unions are determined that there should be no debate which they see as opening up the prospect of their union being torn apart on the issue of a united Ireland.
That is the major weakness which I believe we face in actually moving the labour movement into a position of befirmly committed to a united Ireland. It will tear into the centre of every trade union in Britain. It will force the sort of political debate which can schism a whole movement, which will be damaging and divisive - but it's inevitable, because at some point this has to happen.
Socialist Action 18 April 1986 government.