Some people expressed scepticism on seeing the cover of a recent issue of INTERNATIONAL with the legend: "The Permanent Revolution Reaches the U.K." Well no one doubts now the revolutionary nature of the struggle in Northern Ireland; but will it be permanent? By permanent we mean that it is a problem which has no solution under any forseeable circumstances in capitalist terms,
At time of writing there is a lull in the struggle and Labour's biggest smoothy, Callaghan, is doing the rounds trying to calm everyone down, However the air is heavy with social tension and a spark could start a prairie fire.
The policy of the Wilson Government is very plain - it wants to appear to be doing something and yet wants to avoid upsetting the very status quo which led to the crisis in the first place. Above all, it is frightened of a Protestant "counter-revolution", Hence its shuffling on the question of the B specials, Once again an immutable law of politics has been vindicated: social democracy, which is so firm against the left, will always capitulate in face of a firm right Wing.
TORY "RESPONSIBILITY"
Until now the Tory Party has behaved with "responsibility", no doubt heeding the warnings of serious bourgeois journals like the ECONOMIST of the consequences of trying to take advantage of the situation for electoral reasons, It has been left to wild-man Enoch Powell to raise an anti-Irish bogey - so far with little effect. However, the left should be on its guard on this front, particularly if Irish political tendencies take to terrorist methods of struggle,
In Ireland an element of dual power exists in Bogside, with the local defence committees administering justice and many functions of local government. This reached the point where, on one occasion the British army was obliged to provide material for a barricade to replace a new bus which the bus company wanted back,
However, no one should be fooled by the friendly atmosphere the British army is trying to create[.] if those barricades can't be got down by a combination of trickery and threats the British will be used to take them down by force, quite intolerable for a bourgeois state to [have] within its boundaries a little island of world power,
CABINET HYPOCRISY
The hypocrisy of Wilson and Callaghan is demonstrated by the fact that they took no action whatsoever to deal with discrimination against the Catholic minority, the political gerrymandering, and the police state repression until forced to do so by pressure of events, Now they appeal for calm, denounce the use of violence and ask the Catholics to dismantle their barricades[.] They have refrained from denouncing the [illegible] violence of the Stormont regime against political prisoners, and the more insidious violence of enforced unemployment,
Wilson, that doughty defender of democracy against the threat of communism, knows full well that for years the Unionists manipulated the electoral boundaries in Derry, giving themselves a majority in a town with a two-thirds Catholic population[;] that in Fermanagh, where over half the population is Catholic the Unionists hold 38 seats out of 50; that discrimination is practiced against Catholics in "employment appointments and housing (the ECONOMIST of 23/8/69); and that a set of oppressive laws exist in Northern Ireland comparable to those of South Africa, Yet he has done nothing until now,
PERMANENT UNEMPLOYMENT
Not least in making sure that the struggle will have a permanent nature is the economic situation[.] Northern Ireland Government officers have estimated that unemployment will rise to 10% in the province this winter, reaching and exceeding that in towns like Derry, Newry and Enniskillen,
Northern Ireland already has an unemployment rate of 7.3% (compared with the too high 2.5% in the rest of the United Kingdom). But this figure obscures a basic tendency: unemployment is much higher in the Catholic areas of Northern Ireland than the average. In July, 1969, there were eleven towns in Northern Ireland with an unemployment rate of more than 10% (more than four times the national average), Every one of these towns had Catholic populations in the 1961 census of around 50% or more, two of them, Strabane and Newry having over a 75% Catholic population, In July unemployment in the Catholic towns of Kilkeel Enniskillen, Strabane and Derry was 20%, 18%, 16% and 13% respectively, All this compares with the Belfast rate of around 33% (in Belfast the Catholic population is about 25%, the same as in Lancashire),
Attempts to deal with these terrible figures have been confined to attracting investment (mostly British but some foreign) by offering all kinds of inducements. This has not even held the position: each year Northern Ireland's farms, heavy engineering and shipyards shed 5,000 workers and another 4,000 young people come on to the labour market, Against this total of 9,000 jobs required, construction and service industries create 4,000 jobs, thus leaving a gap of 5,000. Over the last ten years the combined efforts of Stormont and Westminster have created an average of 5,300 jobs per year in manufacturing, Unemployment would have been even higher had it not been for large-scale migration,
The policy of tax concessions (mostly to British big business), while it has led to soaring profits, has done little to assist the people of Northern Ireland, Firstly, the investment is capital intensive, thus raising few jobs for a given amount of investment, Secondly, it has been concentrated in only a few industries (notably man-made fibres) thus leaving the small-scale economy excessively reliant on a small number of products,
In fact, Northern Ireland has many features of an internal colony in the United Kingdom: low wages and high productivity (the growth rate in the six counties has been twice that of the United Kingdom as a whole over the last ten years); a virtual single-product economy; migrating labour (thus countering the effects of full employment); etc.
As a result of the recent struggles, the economy will be hit in two different ways. Firstly, the entire situation is one in which investors will be very reluctant to build new factories, plants, etc. This will not have an immediate effect on unemployment because there is a two-year time lag between investment and jobs being realised, On the other hand, lower investment potential will mean a lessening of construction and the creation of service facilities - this will hit employment most straight away.
An immediate and damaging effect of the "troubles" will be to drastically reduce tourism, Over the last period this has netted Northern Ireland's invisible earnings some £28.5 million per annum, This reduction in tourism will both reduce seasonal employment and generally worsen the economic position,
The British Government, itself in a very difficult economic situation and under an obligation to keep Government expenditure down, will find it hard to put in money to create a basis for the giving of reforms to mitigate the social crisis, Already it will have bills amounting to over £10 million promised to Stormont to enable the latter to speedily pay compensation for fire damage (again mostly to British big business), In addition it has the not inconsiderable cost of recent military operations (not forgetting the upkeep of the army of occupation),
Westminster is already pouring money into Northern Ireland at the rate of approximately £150 million per year. This includes "balancing items" to level up industrial and social benefits of nearly £40 millions, £25 millions is received in direct agricultural subsidies, and then there is the so-called "assumed deficit" for Northern Ireland's nominal share of external affairs and defence, Wilson is paying nearly £100 per person per year to keep the Ulster Unionists in power; in return he gets 10 or so hard line Tory MPs in Westminster,
We thus see that the economic situation is one which shows no chance of removing high unemployment, low wages, and all the other things which have underpinned the recent struggles. What of the political situation?
UNEASY POLITICAL TRUCE
One outstanding feature of the political situation is that every existing political organisation is discredited, Furthermore, there have been no claimants on the scene, as yet, likely to quickly win the loyalty of the disillusioned, Even Paisley has been stoned by his own supporters and nobody on the Catholic side has established anything like hegemony, Saying this in no way decries the heroism of the civil rights leaders like Bernadette Devlin,
A revolutionary leadership has yet to be built and no working class organisation has won any honours in the recent situation, There seems to be no immediate political solution of any kind on the horizon. On the contrary, the uneasy truce could be broken at any time,
If the crisis is likely to be permanent, if there is no revolutionary leadership and no workers solution to the crisis likely in the coming period then working out a correct political approach is of the highest importance, Whilst we have the task of assisting the Irish people in their day problems, In this sense there are two problems which just have to be tackled: the ending of British imperialism's exploitation of Ireland and the creation of a revolutionary leadership in Ireland capable of leading a social revolution, The first of these tasks is a historic one handed down to us by the sins of omission of generation after generation of the English working class; the second amounts to giving revolutionary Marxists in Ireland every assistance we can and working among the million and a half Irish people in Britain to spread revolutionary ideas.
It is in this context that we have to examine some of the discussions which are taking place in the British labour movement,
SELF DETERMINATION FOR IRELAND
There are a number of objections to this slogan and some say that this cannot be advanced without being qualified by the call for a workers republic. Others argue that Ireland has self determination in the sense that there is bourgeois democracy in both parts of Ireland,
It first has to be made crystal clear in what context the slogan is used. It would be ridiculous for Marxists to insist that this is the main slogan to be advanced by the Irish movement, It is clear that the Irish movement must be won for the idea that the only solution for the problems of the Irish people and, moreover, the only way to unite the Catholic and Protestant workers is a socialist one, Concretely, the slogan of a united Ireland in the form of a workers republic, with the perspective of becoming part of the workers federation of Britain which, in turn would be part of the United Socialist States of Europe, is appropriate. To achieve such a solution power would have to be won by struggling against the bourgeoisie and its allies north and south, To facilitate this Irish revolutionaries would have to work out a transitional programme which would enable them to win the hegemony of the Irish workers and small farmers,
British Marxists in working out and defending a Marxist analysis of the situation in Ireland can [help push] the programme forward,
BRITISH IMPERIALIST OPPRESSION
But this is by no means the whole story. We have today a continuation of the national oppression of Ireland by British imperialism, This takes two forms: one, the artificial division of the country, with one part being occupied, directly or indirectly, by British imperialism; the second, is the neo-colonialist type exploitation of the economy of Southern Ireland (which is facilitated by the border: incredible as it may seem there is relatively little trade between the two parts of Ireland; only 4.1% of the south's imports come from the north, and only 13% of the south's exports go to the north).
The second point is not generally understood in Britain, Despite formal political independence in the grip of British monopolies on the industry, [illegible] the first world war. Britain takes no less than 70% of the south's exports and provides 50% of its imports, This kind of relationship in the capitalist world always boils down to the stronger power being able to impose harsh terms of trade[.] It is estimated that it costs the Republic's Government over £50 millions in subsidies to farmers because of the British Government's cheap food policies,
Under these conditions the only Marxist position is that of unconditional support for the self-determination of the Irish people, This means campaigning against all oppression and interference in Irish affairs, It cannot be conditioned by saying that we stand for self-determination IF the Irish people opt for socialism, We can express opinions, offer advice, support Irish socialists but in Britain, in the British labour movement and against the capitalist state machine we must advance the slogan of self-determination without strings.
RELIGIOUS CONFUSION
It is often argued that self-determination must also be extended to Protestants of Northern Ireland too and as they clearly want to be part of the United Kingdom we should support them in this[.] First, a few facts: the relationship of numbers between Catholics and Protestants is not reflected by the electoral system in Northern Ireland, In the 1961 census, Catholics made up 35% and the combined total for the Presbyterians and Anglicans was only a bare majority, 53%. It seems almost certain (there being no separate figures for the Presbyterians and Anglicans) that the Presbyterians are in fact a minority, Catholics definitely are in a majority in the counties of Derry, Tyrone and Fermanagh; they must be something near [half] in Armagh and Down,
But to argue along religious grounds is to confuse the issue: we are in favour of national self-determination but membership of a religion does not constitute a nationality, The slogan of self-determination does not mean supporting the right of separation of every religious group (specially those under reactionary influence),
It is argued that self-determination means the ending of the border and the domination of the Protestants by the Catholics. Thus instead of having a Catholic minority discriminated against we would have a Protestant minority similarly treated. The Protestants of the North certainly fear this very outcome, Our experience of the behaviour of the Catholic heirarchy in other countries shows that this is not an idle fear,
But these arguments miss some important facts: (1) Catholics are being discriminated against, shot down in cold blood, and suffering [illegible] repression here and now - this cannot be [compared] with the possible exploitation of Protestants in the future; (2) a united Ireland would be a different kettle of fish from the present set-up in the south; in fact, the present regime is [un]likely to survive such an eventuality as the parties of the South have been able to keep a radical posture on the grounds of their national struggle against the English. The infusion of a militant working class from the north, together with the existing level of struggle and the absence of the national question to confuse things would clear the decks for a clarification along class lines of the political situation, In this state of affairs the Protestants of the north could ally themselves with a working class fight[ing movement...] [illegible]
(5) The removal of the border and the abstracting out of the national and religious question would lay the basis for a much greater degree of unity of the working class especially, and in the first instance mainly, in the industrial field,
LIVING STANDARDS REDUCED
A further argument against self-determination - that this would mean a reduction in the standard of living of the workers of Northern Ireland - both Catholic and Protestant - is factually correct but politically wrong.
[illegible] covering about half the population of the south, actually spent more last year on education (£51 million against £49 million), In the social services the gap is even greater: £82.5 million for [illegible] £14 6s in the south [illegible] This should be compared with Britain's average of about £25). The south's level of unemployment pay is only about two-thirds of the north.
These arguments cannot be avoided: this is why for Irish Marxists it is absolutely essential to put forward a comprehensive transitional programme - which would demand the raising of the south's living standards to at least those of the north as immediate corollary of the ending of the border - needless to say, such a drastic redistribution of wealth is impossible without the workers and small farmers of all Ireland laying hands on the riches of the country. Hence the ending of the border would be directly linked with a social revolution [illegible] turning both bourgeois classes. [illegible] laying the conditions for a move towards the workers republic we all want.
WITHDRAW BRITISH TROOPS
[This] slogan flows directly from the position of [illegible] being used.
The civil rights movement of Ireland is opposed to this slogan and is anxious that the British solidarity movement does not advance it, It argues that the arrival of British troops prevented a pogrom and for it to demand their recall would be suicidal,
This dilemma cannot be dodged by shouting about "revisionism" and "sell-outs", These are real problems involving - as has been demonstrated - both the bourgeoisie and its [illegible] backers, people's lives,
The slogan demanding the withdrawal of British troops is an educational one designed to clarify the actual political relationship of forces, In the Vietnam campaign we advance the slogan of victory to the NLF, solidarity with the Vietnamese people and self-determination for the people of Vietnam, to explain the nature of the struggle, The demand for the withdrawal of British troops, coupled with a demand for the ending of Westminster support for the Stormont regime, carries out a similar function,
Having said all this it must be emphasised that an important part of a transitional programme for Ireland will be an absolute guarantee against any form of discrimination on the grounds of race, religion, etc,
If the left were strong enough to enforce the [illegible] demonstrated, A movement capable of enforcing the withdrawal of British troops would be able to take real steps to assist the self-defence of the oppressed Catholic minority of Northern Ireland, [illegible] "protecting" that minority Inevitably as the national struggle develops those troops will be used against the Irish people, But even leaving this aside the presence of British troops is aimed to perpetuate the very state of affairs which leads to the danger of a pogrom in the first place, At very best, the presence of the British troops [illegible] later in 1970, 1971, 1972 further slaughter. [illegible] justice as fighting for self-determination [illegible]
Obviously, there are big difficulties in making this the main slogan of demonstrations taking place at a time when the civil rights [movement...] [illegible] But for revolutionaries it is essential to include the demand in all their statements on the situation. This is the only way that they can struggle for a correct line on the question; they have, moreover, the job of helping to clarify the problems in Ireland itself, For the civil rights movement to confine itself to demands for the disarming of the B specials (by whom?), etc., is to doom it to a reformist trap,
In the Republic, the demand must be for arms to enable the minority in the north (and those who wish to assist them) to defend itself. The Irish people in Britain can make the same demand of the Eire Government. The left in this country, whilst it cannot make this demand itself, should assist the Irish militants to make and implement it.
In the last analysis all these differences are around one issue: do we stand for a revolutionary struggle and solution in Ireland or are we trying to calm things down by working out solutions for the present bourgeois governments to implement?
Revolutionary struggle by the people of Ireland themselves, aided by a solidarity struggle among the British people based upon the working class is the only way to complete the liberation of Ireland and set it on the road towards a workers republic,