Few bob fora pint, Paddy’?

The S.D.L.P. has been organising a series of meetings all over the 26 counties to raise funds for the party. All three bourgeois parties are supposed to be involved, but in reality Fine Gael is providing the main assistance.

But what are the S.D.L.P. raising funds for? _ ‘To highlight the plight of the Catholic minority in the 6 counties? To aid the internees dependants? To protect the minority areas from Loyalist murder gangs? .

Anyone going to one of these weil publicised fund-raising sessions might expect these and other questions to be raised and answered. Their hopes, however, would be in vain. The trend at all these meetings has been to block discussion, with a directive from the chairperson that the S.D.L.P. members present were not there to answer questions: but only to collect money and go!

Of course, with the SDLP’s politics, it’s quite understandable that their members might not want any discussion, even though they expect people in the 26 counties to fork out to further their policies. But what could they say if someone did stand up and asked them to explain why they had on one hand urged the Catholics to withhold their rent and rates until Internment ended and themselves swore never to speak with the British government until the last internee had been released, and then some months later wky they had taken up positions in that puppet government — the assembly — and demanded that the people:pay up their arrears! The internees had not been released, the situation . had not changed, but the SDLP were taking salaries from the British government. Should we blame them for not wanting to be pushed to give an answer.

However, at one fund raising occasion, in Limerick, in spite of the ban on questions, a group of militants at the meeting raised these points insistantly. They’ demanded to know why the internees had been sold out, why the S.D.L.P. were _ to all intents and purposes supporting the R.U.C, and collaborating with the loyalists, whose ideas on civil rights are well expressed in the assassinations carried out by their military wings. These questions were, needless to say, not answered. Moreover, in spite of the fact that the group of questioners (members of R.M.G., P.D., 1.R.S.P.) made no attempt to disrupt the meeting, the chairperson, Cllr. Kennedy (Mayor of Limerick and a member of Fine Gael), and both the SDLP speakers — Hume and Devlin — turned on them and continuously interrupted anyone questioning S.D.L.P. policy. In fact, helped by a few Fine Gael half-wits, they abused every person who made even the slightest critical comment.

What a contrast between the attitude of the S.D.L.P. to these people — asking only after all, where the money was going and suggesting where it might best be spent to help the minority — and the attitude of the same S.D.L.P.ers to the U.U.U.C. We may be sure that Paddy Devlin does not act like a drunken heckler when Gienn Barr expresses his opinions in the cosy chats of the _ Convention.

Why should we contribute money to a party which is already receiving salaries from the British government? To a party that claims to speak for the minority in the 6 counties, but which in government did nothing to end internment? To a party whose voice is heard stridently bewailing the death of an R.U.C. gangster, but scarcely raises a whisper at the mounting toll of catholics killed daily by the Loyalists. Its talk of peace ‘contrasts with its collaboration with the British government and army, whose imperialist oppression causes the war. The truth is, there is no reason for supporting them.

BOYCOTT ALL SDLP COLLECTIONS!

The SDLP has accepted that the Northern Ireland Convention will lead to the re-establishment of a loyalist dominated administration in the North. This has forced the party on to a course of intensified capitulation to Loyalism.

The dilemma of the northern catholic middle class is reflected in the strains and tensions within and around the SDLP. In January, the Party’s Chairman, Dennis Haughey stated the likelihood of a loyalist takeover in the North. In October last year Ivan Cooper warned of possible civil war. In the following months John Hume put forward a resolution within the Party that it should threaten the British Government with a boycott of the Convention unless power sharing structures were guaranteed, The majority of the SDLP adopted its present policy of participation in the Convention in the hope of salvaging a minimum presence within an emerging administration.

The crisis facing catholic middle class politicians in the North springs from the strength of Loyalism as expressed both in electoral and mass action forms which have sent the North on to a path to the restoration of the loyalist forces as the policeman for Britain in the six counties.

Two basic courses are open to the catholic politicians. One, to co-operate in the rebuilding of a loyalist dominated state in the hope of gaining nominal roles in administration, must of necessity involve the increased watering down of former pillars of policy such as power sharing and the “Irish Dimension”. Such a dilution inevitably conflicts with the interests of the catholic working class but also with the immediate interests of sections of the middle class.

For the SDLP it is to risk fragmentation THE ABSENCE OF MASS ACTIVITY AGAINST REPRESSION HAS ALLOWED THE SDLP ROOM FOR MANOEUVRE and the formation of alternative catholic political poles. For the anti-unionist population it means the SDLP giving a cover of respectability to the restoration of Orange supremacy, or once again seeking to politically disarm the catholic working class for the tasks ahead.

Indeed, alongside the fragmentation which may rise from such a course, it can do nothing more than to temporarily postpone the explosive eruption of the contradictions between Loyalism and the needs of the catholic working class for a limited period, and certainly cannot rule out such an eruption.

The absence of mass activity against repression has allowed the SDLP room for manouevre and to increase its accomodation to loyalism.

NOT ONLY DOES THE TREND OF SDLP POLICY REPRESENT A SURRENDER TO LOYALISM BUT IT CAN BE SEEN AS A GROWING TOGETHER OF THE LINES OF THE SDLP AND OF THE CONOR CRUISE O’BRIEN WING OF THE LEINSTER HOUSE GOVERNMENT Difficult and dangerous as this strategy might be for the SDLP it is to them more attractive than the alternative. This would be not to capitulate to Loyalism but to combat it and encourage mass mobilisations of the catholic working class against repression. But the SDLP is well aware that if successful such a strategy would set off a militant dynamic across the 6 and 26 counties that it would place the ability of bourgeois parties to retain control of the movement in severe jeopardy.

Thus the SDLP-has opted for the less adventurous of two alternative courses.

In practice this has meant the dropping of demands for power sharing and an “Irish Dimension”, now replaced by a call for support for Northern Ireland institutions.

Speaking at the Convention in mid-June John Hume stated the SDLP did not seek a “meaningless” united Ireland but “they (Convention members) should try to arrive at a situation in which Northern Ireland institutions were supported not only by those who produced them, but by the people of Britain and Ireland as a whole’.

On June 5, Gerry Fitt had expressed his acceptance of the loyalist imposed status quo and of the undemocratic six county state. He explained why he did not object ‘to the UUUC claiming a majority on the Convention Business Committee by saying, . “The electorate had decided that was to be the structure. At the end of the day the UUUC’s will would prevail’’.

Not only does the trend of SDLP policy represent a surrender to loyalism but it can be seen as a growing together of the lines of the SDLP and of the Conor Cruise O’Brien wing of the Leinster House Government.

The SDLP has dropped its political demands in order to accomodate loyalists — and has extended this with a series of initiatives.

John Hume and UDA member Glenn Barr issued a joint call for moves to deal with economic — TF THE SASH problems in the Derry area. It was an initiative to which the local Official Republican Movement gave support, totally failing to place it in the overall political context, and to recognise it as a move which might create dangerous illusions in the Convention and SDLP-UUUC cooperation.

North Belfast SDLP Councillor Tom Donnelly has issueti a joint call for an end to, violence with his UUUC counterpart John Carson, obscuring the role played by a number of UUUC leaders in initiating and supporting loyalist murder campaigns, In the Convention itself, closed discussions . between Paddy Devlin, Austin Currie and John Hume, representing the SDLP and Harry West, Reg Empey and Paisley’s right hand man, William Beattie, have been taking place regularly since June 3, intended “‘to assist our various parties in their objective of ensuring a successful outcome of the Convention”, in the words of a joint press statement.

The result has been a “‘gentleman’s agreement” between the SDLP and Loyalists to avoid “contentious” points in open debate at the Convention. It is an agreement which can only serve to obscure the real nature of the SDLP’s, capitulation to loyalism by dodging central issues.

Similarly, Paddy Devlin’s suggestion that the Convention should present an all-party report on economic issues fulfills a similar obscuring role. It was no breakthrough for co-operation, as some sought to present it, but the SDLP aiding the unionists in presenting the convention and the resulting administration in a liberal mask.

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SDLP capitulates to Loyalism: =p Mates to Loyalism