Geoffrey Bell, Troublesome Business, Pluto Press, 1982, £4.50
Troublesome Business is a truly eye-opening book. For the first time we are able to trace the development of the Labour Party's words and actions concerning Ireland.
Many will be familiar with the policy and deeds of the Party, and particularly its leaders, since the troops went in in 1969. We remember that Labour sent them in 'to defend the Catholics': that in 1977 the Labour [illegible] with the Unionists: Labour's Don Concannon visited the dying Bobby Sands in 1981 to stress that the Party was behind the Tories as far as refusing the five demands of the hunger strikers was concerned.
In Troublesome Business Geoffrey Bell gives us a real insight into what went before. He describes how from the outset the question of Ireland in the Labour Party was 'troublesome'. At the first Labour Party conference forty of the fifty candidates supported some sort of Home Rule. But the extent of this rule was limited and the conception confused while Labour was still in opposition.
By the time they held some power, during the First World War coalition government, Labour MPs were prepared to sit in the Cabinet which executed James Connolly for defending the cause of Irish self-determination. The Irish question emerges early as the hot potato of Labour Party history. As far as the leadership is concerned the issue is best left alone and its own positions left half-formulated. From time to time either the Irish or the Labour Party rank and file force a decision.
In 1920 Labour Party conference gave unconditional support to Irish self-determination. Rather than challenge Lloyd George's negotiated partition treaty of the same year, however, Labour leaders voted for and praised it; JR Clynes described it as a 'triumph of national patriotism'. They clearly felt the issue could now be dropped.
Geoffrey Bell demonstrates how the rank and file of the Labour Party have been consistently ahead of the leadership on Ireland. Again in 1920 Labour's Daily Herald reported on a delegation to Ireland. A delegate writes 'They have realised that the only alternative to coercion lies not in the timorous and uneffective proposals for "instalments of Home Rule" but in full and fearless application of the principle of self-determination.'
[illegible] has characterised the Labour Party since birth. He allows us to conclude that the question of Labour Party democracy is vitally linked to its ideological shortcomings. The lack of analytical passages in the book is at times frustrating.
Troublesome Business is a description of Labour's neglect and betrayal of the Irish working class. This is clear. But it begs the question [illegible] it was there, and why is there still such neglect and betrayal?
But the book remains an important study for those seeking to understand better Labour's prevarications on Ireland. It is striking for instance how aspects of the forthcoming elections to an Irish Assembly in the North are reminiscent of the Sunningdale Agreement of 1974 under Ted Heath. What Bell shows us [illegible] were similar to a set of proposals put forward by Harold [illegible].
An understanding of history is the key to the present. The Labour Party's history on the Irish issue is no exception. Troublesome Business thus fills a yawning gap in Irish historical literature.