Fightback

The isolation of electoral politics in the north of Ireland from that in Britain meant that the general election campaign and result were of a very different nature to the campaign elsewhere. The sectarian divide once again raised its ugly head as the dominant factor in politics in the north.  Yet the result also highlighted discontent within the working class; Peter Robinson’s defeat in East Belfast demonstrated not just disgust at the actions of Peter and Iris Robinson but also with the expenses scandal and the degeneration of parliamentary politics.

The decline of the UUP vote echoed a strong anti-Tory sentiment from both sides of the sectarian divide which was only hardened by Cameron’s declaration that the north was to be a prime target for public sector cuts. This is even more alarming for the working class than in Britain, given the fact that over 70% of the north’s economy is reliant on public sector spending. Pro-Tory candidates lost three seats, whist Sylvia Hermon who resigned from the UUP stating she was “not a Tory” and stood as an independent gained an increase of 13% of the vote. Whilst she is hardly a pro-working class candidate her result demonstrates the mood of resentment towards the Tories. In Britain this sentiment led to the strengthening of the Labour vote in its traditional urban industrial heartlands.

A short report on this year’s Easter commemorations of the 1916 rising.

The Easter rising is the most important event in the revolutionary history of Ireland, an anti-imperialist insurrection that predated the February revolution in Russia by several months. This Easter was of especial importance because of the political situation in the north. The impasse in Stormont is causing the Provisional Republican Movement to stagnate and splinter as it comes under pressure from below, while the Irish Republican Socialist Movement is going through a process of re-orientation towards the working class movement in the hope of building a socialist alternative. This is an important development, since it raises the issue of working class political representation in the north. For too long petit bourgeois republicanism and unionism have held sway north of the border.