Framework document - four pillars of oppression

Faced with rabid outpourings of Unionist bigotry on the days following the publication of the framework document, British ministers repeated the same phrase over and over; “Please read the document closely.”

That was good advice. It was of absolutely no use against a Loyalist reaction that rejects everything but the status quo of Stormont as it once was, However a close read of the agreement makes it clear that the positive spin put on it by the republican leadership depends absolutely on no-one reading it closely.

The document maps out a strategic orientation for the London and Dublin governments. There are four pillars to the strategy. None of them will act as a “stepping - stone” or a “transiticnal phase” to a united Ireland. In fact each of them is designed as a barrier to any real democratic settlement.

Constitutional issues The first plank reeks of the decay of Irish nationalism. Just as the clause 4 debate in the British labour party shows that that leadership can no longer stomach even a hollow aspiration to socialism which they would never have enacted, so the eagerness with which ali the parties of the Dail unite torip out articles 2 and 3 show there is no longer room for the fake “republicanism” so long used by Irish capitalism to win support. In fact the demand for the right of self-determination which the articles were designed to placate are now condemned as irredentist and immoral. If this is what they are now they must always have been so and the whcie history of the Irish national struggle is being repudiated. In practice this “green” framework document has atits core arepudiation of Irish self-determination and a willingness by all the recognised political parties in the South to apologise for ever having seemed to demand a democratic setdement to the Irish question.

“_.the Irish government will introduce and support proposals for change in the Irish constitution to implement the commitments in the joint declaration. These changes... wili fully reflect the principle of consent in Northern Ireland and demonstrably be such that no territorial claim of right to jurisdiction over N.I. contrary to the will of its people is asserted.” {para 21] So the “bastard state”, the “artificial statelet’, the “failed political entity” is to gain formal recognition from Dublin. In any future protest by Northern nationalists Britain will be able to point out that the northern state is democratic.

This massive betrayal of national rights is to be “balanced” by British amendments to article 73 of the Government of Ireland act;

“the supreme authority of the Parliament shall remain ....undiminished over all matters and things in Northern Ireland”

Yet this is simply pious fraud. Dr. Trimble, Unionist legal expert, pointed out that this had been superseded by the Northern Ireland constitution act of 1973. Section one says;

**..Northern Ireland or any part of it cease to be part of her majesty’s dominions and of the United Kingdom without the consent of the majority of the people in Northern Ireland voting in a poll held for the purposes of this section.”

Given that it is British guns and British money which maintain the North and that as long as they are able to maintain privileges over catholics there is no reason why the unionists should vote to give up the guns, money and privilege this section simply becomes a cynical manoeuvre which has allowed Britain for 20 years to claim it is defending democracy in Ireland when it is in fact thwarting that democracy.

The claims of balance thinly disguise a massive suppression of national rights by the framework document.

North - South bodies The nationalist apologists for the framework document dismiss criticism of the constitutional deal as airy-fairy theorising. What matters, they say. is the practical and the concrete. The North - South bodies will have a real

oso uNraaarae ca 1 - world - pours billions into the North each year. Still ess are they able to explain why the “independent” souttem state was forced to devalue in line with the British pound while Irish capitalist strategy was committed to maintining parity with the rest of Europe.

The new realists push all this aside. The pragmatic reality of North - South institutions proves their case. But even this reality is unable to face any serious examination. If Britain were moving to withdrawal and the cross- border institutions were the mechanism then there should be some strategy to protect the bodies from the inevitable unionist resistance. In fact the evidence is all the other way.

"It would be for the Assembly and the Irish pariiament both to operate the body and decide whether its functions should be extended" {John Major. Framework prologue} It's clear the North/ South body is to be subordinate to a Unionist majority assembly stridently opposed to any formal obligation to the Dail. Even though it would have been easy to give the unionists only nominal powers of veto, the British chose not to do this.

In fact the proposals in the framework document flow naturally from British policy since the Hunger strike. Reestablishing a six-county assembly has been a consistent policy all along. Unionism is too fragmented, weak and bigoted to serve as the sole base. The Dublin govern-