Irish Labour considers its role in the North

Jeremy Corbyn MP was invited to speak at the Irish Labour Party's Tom Johnson Summer School at the weekend, to talk on the subject "21st Century Socialism: What does it look like and how can we get it?" he was joined on the platform by Irish Labour TD and former Workers Party TD Eamon Gilmore. Corbyn's presence on the platform to discuss the way forward for the left is a welcome step by the leadership of the Irish Labour Party given his role as the leading Parliamentarian opposing the US imperialist interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, but also his long-standing solidarity with Cuba and more recently with Venezuela.

However he was not asked to speak on the British occupation of the north of Ireland, given his differing views from the current Irish Labour Party project and it is interesting to note the platform on the "way forward for the left in the north of Ireland". The Chair of the Northern Ireland Labour Forum, Mark Langhammer, who was also co-opted on to the Irish Labour Party NEC in 2005, was the main speaker while another was the SWP member and candidate in the recent north's Assembly elections, Sean Mitchell.
Unfortunately the north's largest left party, Sinn Fein was not invited to send a representative and perhaps more surprisingly, neither was Irish Labour's sister party, the SDLP. The inclusion of the SWP gave the event some useful left cover but failed to engage with the mass force of the left in the north.

Langhammer's role is interesting. He is Chair of the Northern Ireland Labour Forum and is quoted on the Irish Labour Party's website as stating "We will be bringing a resolution to Labour's Wexford Conference. The resolution will task the party with registering with the Electoral Commission as a political party in Northern Ireland" in order to contest - in the short term - local elections.

Langhammer played a leading role in drawing up the Irish Labour Party's 2006 statement on the north of Ireland that included "that In accordance with our view that our society is not and never will be exclusively British or Irish, we take the view that Northern Ireland should be part of both the UK and Ireland and that political structures should be established accordingly...In any future referendum on the border issue, as envisaged by the Belfast Agreement, in addition to the highly divisive and mutually exclusive British or Irish options, we will actively seek to have a third 'part of both' option included."

As part of this project, the statement also says that "The NI Labour Forum is also seeking a formal structural relationship with the British Labour Party, in the spirit of the proposal below." The inability of Irish Labour to challenge the role of British colonialism in the north of Ireland risks any candidates they see falling between the cracks and failing to make any advances for the left in Ireland. Their refusal to engage with other major left forces, whilst tokenistically using hard-left cover, is the surest sign of the failing of their policy.

Tom Griffin reports on Islington North Labour Party's meeting on the Irish peace process

Photo by Theo Russell.

Tom Griffin reports on the meeting 'What Next for the Irish Peace Process' organised by Islington North Labour Party on the 27th June in the latest edition of the Irish World.

It’s a relatively rare occurrence to find speakers from all the main parties in Northern Ireland represented at a public meeting in London. All credit therefore to Islington North Labour Party for achieving just that last Wednesday, with a meeting on the peace process where the line-up included the DUP’s Sammy Wilson, Sinn Fein’s Martina Anderson, Rodney McCune of the Ulster Unionists and Paul Callaghan of the SDLP.

The theme for the evening, was where next for the peace process? On that point there was underlying similarity in the message offered by the two largest parties.

Both the DUP and Sinn Fein presented a controlled optimism, emphasising that significant pitfalls still lie ahead.In his speech, the DUP’s Sammy Wilson emphasised the changes he believed his party had secured from the Good Friday Agreement.“The one thing we always said was that if we got a deal which we believed was workable, we would stick by it,” The East Antrim MP told the meeting. “I think that so far the behaviour of our party and in particular our party leader, has indicated that that promise has been kept.”“We will expect ongoing delivery by the other major partner in the administration, namely Sinn Fein. There will be rocky roads ahead because the kind of consensus Government which we are expected to live with, I doubt that any party would contemplate in Westminster.”“We are dealing with politicians who for thirty years have never had a chance to rule, so there are big challenges ahead. Nevertheless, I believe that we’re up to it and that so far we have seen sincerity on everyone’s part.”

Sinn Fein’s Martina Anderson agreed that the Stormont executive will face rough patches: “As Sammy said, there’s a lot of things not tested. There’s a view that things have moved on, it’s sorted now in the North and people don’t have to worry about it. Nothing could be further from the truth.”The Foyle Assembly member emphasised the continuing inequalities in the North, and suggested that the relationship with the South would be key to turning the situation around.“We live in a basket case economy, and that’s not Sinn Fein saying this, it’s PriceWaterHouseCooper, a consultancy firm who came in to take a look at our economy, “ she told the meeting. “We need to try and hook up with the amazing developments that have happened in the 26 counties. We need greater all-Ireland co-operation.”

The SDLP’s Paul Callaghan continued the economic theme. “I agree with the concept of importing the best bits of the Republic economic success into the North, but it has to be met with action,” he said. “The Republic has a National Development Plan which the northern administration really has to hook into. We want to see a united Ireland based on just enterprise that funds quality services, and that can be done through the National Development Plan and our integration into that.”

It was also the UUP speaker McCune who repeatedly stressed the importance of the British Labour Party organising in the north of Ireland. However a largely nationalist audience opposed the proposal for the clear role of unionism driving it forward, primarily because of their support for Labour's long-standing policy for Irish reunification but as one speaker highlighted, the lack of any voter base for the British Labour Party in the Six Counties.

The same speaker highlighted that Islington North Labour Party had indeed already discussed organising in the north and had decided not only to firmly reject it but to raise its opposition at Labour's annual conference.

Sinn Fein and the DUP to speak in London

Tom Griffin reports in this weeks Irish World that Sinn Fein and the DUP will both speak at a public meeting in north London tomorrow.

Islington North Labour Party is hosting the meeting, entitled 'What Next for the Irish Peace Process?' with Jeremy Corbyn MP speaking alongside Sinn Fein's Martina Anderson MLA and the DUP's Sammy Wilson MLA.

The meeting is open to all and takes place from 7.30pm in the Red Rose Club at 129 Seven Sisters Road.

Johnson backs partition and the union

Deputy Leadership candidate Alan Johnson today launched an assault on Labour's traditional policy of Irish unity by consent, by saying 'We had a ridiculous situation in the party where people in Northern Ireland could not even join Labour. However, I think an unstoppable momentum is building up which will see party members here, in the not too distant future, being able to contest elections.'

Under legal pressure from GMB activist Andy McGivern who has been threatening to challenge the party on race discrimination grounds, the Labour Party has now allowed individuals to join in the north of Ireland, as well as a 'Forum' which will be able to send delegates to the annual conference.

Johnson's latest statement suggests high level support amongst Blairites to also stand in Irish elections.

Having played a progressive role in establishing the Good Friday Agreement, any intervention into elections would be a disastrous policy and roll back trust in the Labour Party amongst Irish republicans.

There is an argument within the Labour Party that it would be able to overcome 'communal divisions' or 'religious divisions' and campaign on bread and butter working class issues. However anyone who takes up this argument is looking through a traditional blinkered and thoroughly colonial mentality. Any mainland British party who seeks to organise in the north of Ireland - or any part of Ireland - is clearly a unionist party, seeking to maintain the political link between the north of Ireland and Britain. Any moves in this direction and we risk our working relationship and trust from Irish republicans.

This also ignores the fact that there are already parties campaigning on working class issues. Sinn Fein and the SDLP are both democratic socialist parties, clearly with different agendas. The fact that it is the parties of the nationalist community that are putting forward progressive policy, and not those of the unionist community (which has a mass working class base) is clearly a result of Irish unionism's political leadership maintaining close links to the British establishment.

A Labour Party in the north of Ireland however does not have good prospects for electoral success. A party's stance on the union and on partition is still a key issue, and as a result attempts to organise as a Labour Party have failed. The most recent attempt, Malachi Curran's candidature for the Northern Ireland Assembly in South Down, standing as Labour Party (Northern Ireland) might generously be termed 'unsuccessful'.