Facing The Future

When the Free Citizen began, a year ago this week, it looked as if the first round in the struggle for the Workers' Republic had just been won. It looked as if the Orange statelet in the North was about to be dismantled and this was a pre-condition to the building of a mass socialist movement. 'Smiling Jim' Callaghan had just returned to London after wringing a package of reforms out of the Unionist gang at Stormont. And within a week the Hunt Committee would report, recommending an end to the B-Specials and the disarming of the R.U.C. These weren't all the demands made behind the barricades but, if implemented, they would have gone a long way towards desectarianising the Northern set-up.

For many in the Civil Rights movement the first round was the only one they intended to fight, and they sat back contented waiting for Britain to force through the reforms for them. But, almost immediately, the rot set in. The Hunt report sparked off an explosion df resentment on the Shankill Road which ended with one R.U.C. man and two civilians dead. The revolt on the Shankill was the despairing cry of confused working people, who for years had been brainwashed by the Craigs, Brookes, and Chichester-Clarkes, and now saw themselves betrayed. They had been told that bigotry, discrimination and a sectarian militia were essential to their survival and now these safeguards were being thrown on the scrap heap. To make matters worse, when they revolted - they who had been the shock-troops of British imperialism in Ireland for so long - they were crushed by the British imperialist army.

The Shankill was crushed, but its revolt gave new heart to Paisley, Craig, and West. They realised that all might not be lost if they exploited the Protestant back-lash correctly. And exploit it they did.

Paisley stomped the countryside all that winter and spring - and in Ap-ril got his reward. He and the mindless nonentity Beattie were elected to Stormont in Bannside and South Antrim by-elections. It was the high point of their support. In the June election for Westminster Paisley won in N.Antrim, but Beattie came a poor third in North Belfast (which includes the Shankill and Crumlin Roads).

But, though Paisleyism had passed its peak by the summer, it hada profound effect on the Unionist party and the reform programme. The local bosses of the party saw the prospect of losing their support among the working class, coupled with losing their control of local patronage. The revolt moved from the slums of the Shankill and the hovels of Bannside to the committees of the Unionist party and the demand grew for a change in the leadership and an end to the reforms. The spotlight shifted from Paisley to Craig, West and the West Ulster Unionist Council.

Under constant pressure from even further right, the blundering, stumbling Clarke regime diluted the reforms. At first they tried to appease the right with repression which was at least impartial, and so the British could readily accept it. The Public Order Amendment Act was pushed through early in the year and followed by a new and stiffer Explosives Act. Then at the beginning of July came the dictatorial Criminal Justice Act. Measures extraordinarily unpopular with the rank and file demanded extraordinary repression as an appeasement, and so the re-routing of some Orange parades on the 12th was preceded by the vicious and preplanned attack on the Falls which left three civilians dead.

But all the gestures to the right only whetted their appetite and after the banning of the Blackmen and Apprentice Boys a show-down was inevitable. It will now come at the special meeting of the Unionist Council at the end of October. The appeasement has been stepped up in preparation for it. Porter has gone as Minister of Home Affairs to be replaced by right-winger Taylor. Sir Arthur Young, appointed to de-sectarianise the R.U.C., is to be replaced by Shillington, who was second-in-command to the discredited Unionist hack Peacocke.

Meanwhile, nothing has been done to implement the Central Housing Authority, or the McCrory Report on Local Government which are central to ending the system of sectarian patronage. Faulkner has even hinted at reneging on these measures.

So, one year later, the reforms of August 1968 are in jeopardy and Chichester-Clarke is likely to be replaced by someone even further to the right. In the meantime the Unionists have acquired even more repressive laws and are currently issuing a spate of political summonses against militant leftists like the P.D. Resistance was never more necessary than today. But it will not come from organisations like the C.R.A., which is nearly dead, or from the opposition M.P.'s who were bought over long ago and showed it by their failure to oppose the Criminal Justice Act. It will be left to militant socialist organisations like the P.D.

But the situation is far from kopéess. Britain was forced to start reforming Stormont in August 1969 by the revolt of the Civil Rights movement and the danger that the Unionist pogroms would stir the apathetic masses in the South into action. Westminster has only allowed the Unionists to dilute the reform package because of the threat of revolt by the Unionist right. At the moment they are wavering. Determined protest against any dilution and the threat _ by mike farrell of further riots can convince the British government that in the long term they will have to dismantle the North's Orange state.

The future of the North is in the balance. If the reforms can be forced through the Unionist party will be finished - that is why they are resisting so bitterly. Their hold on Protestant farmers and workers will be broken and the road will be open for the building of a mass socialist movement. The job of spcialists is to force the granting of reforms and to build the framework of a movement which can unite the working class in the next round of the struggle. -The P.D. has always been in the forefront of the demand for reforms, We have also worked long and hard on building the framework of a revolutionary socialist organisation. It is time now to work out a clear socialist programme on which to base future campaigns and to attempt to tie round that pro- -gramme the revolutionary socialists to be found in the Mid-Ulster constituency organisation, a very few branches of the Labour Party and in the Republican movement, together with the Peoples Democracy.

ROACH ......

Frank Roach is currently being held in Brixton Prison awaiting trial for the C.S. gas throwing incident in the House of Commons at Westminster.

His stay which has already lasted several weeks is to say the least unpleasant. He is, however, allowed to receive as many letters as are sent to him, and these do help to aleviate’the tedium. If anyone would like to write to him, evena few lines of good wishes, his address is: Frank Roach, Brixton Prison, Jebb Avenue, Brixton, London S.W.2. His number, 086700, should be quoted on the envelope.

finlays charged The Housing Trust it seems is out for blood.

Since the publication of the story of the Finlay family in last week's Free Citizen a letter has arrived from the Housing Trust informing the family that Petty Sessions Action is being taken to "recover"

the £22 which the Trust claims the Finlays owe in arrears.

By our reckoning the Housing Trust owes the Finlays money.

The Trust's policy is to charge families living in chalets 12/6d. per week, for the first six months.

The Finlays have been in occu~ pation for seven months. For the first few months they were asked to pay £2 10s. rent per week. Allin all Mrs. Finlay has paid the Trust at least what she "owes" them.

Meanwhile the Welfare Authorities have gained a rather tenuous "stay of execution", while in the background that many-head monster, the Housing Trust, is howling for blood and bone marrow.

FREE CITIZEN 2nd October 1970