De Lorean: No Solution to Crisis

The present crisis at the De Lorean car plant at Dunmurray in in West Belfast, will come as no no surprise to muny people. When Roy Mason, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, announced the details of the project in August 1978, influential pro-cupitalist journals, such as the Economist and the Wall Street Journal, voiced criticism of the commercial feasibility of the venture. However John De Lorean would have us believe that the present difficulties arise * purely through lack of "operating capital", and he is confident that the company would make a "modest profit in 1981", However a report last December from a team of international consultants revealed numerous technical and production problems as well as financial problems.

The report from McKinsey and Co concluded that "the company's prospects for 1981 could be grim".

TAXPAYER FOOTS THE BILL Regardless of the opinions of the capitalist press, the British government went ahead with the venture and the cost of lan Paisley's show of strength at the beginning of February, staged in the dark Antrim hills has been discussed by many as a stunt to whip up support for his Democratic Unionist Party in the forthcoming local gov -emment elections, Appealing as it may be to view the waving of 500 firearms‘ certificates as a publicity gimmick or Paisley as an Ulster Colonel Blimp, this would be false reassurance and dangerously mistaken.

Paisley is undoubtedly a master of publicity but he is no fool. . He and his DUP face no real challenge within the loyalisr population and wos already assured of a very comfortable victory over his Official Unionist rivals in the May elections. The stakes in this game are much higher than the transfer of some votes between the Official Union -ists and the DUP.

Paisley wants power. His whole career has trodden an ambivalent path of courting the loyalist paramilitthe project was estimated at £65m. The lions share of £55m was to be provided by the government through the Ministry of Commerce and their agents in the Northern Ireland Development Association (NIDA). De Lorean was to find the balance of 10m. In fact to date the Roy Mason, who foisted De Lorean on the people of Belfast government has provided funds to the tune of 770m and has just under-written bank loans worth another £19m, of £4m and most of it isn't his own money. So if the plant De Lorean on the other hand only invested somewhere in the region on a high note.

isley: Political blood would be willingly shed before we entered your priest-ridden banana Ostensibly this blood and thunder was directed at Charlies Haughey but the Ireland. The betrayal which he fears is that the Thatcher-Haughey alliance may lead to new attempts to "reform" the North, new attempts to wallpaper Sure of firearms. resisted, closes he has little to lose while the money held through the cuts in the Health and Social Services and other essential services, go to funding a White Elephant.

It is interesting to note that initially De Lorean had discussions with American businessmen, then with the Puerto Rican government and with the Irish government, through the Industrial Development Authority (IDA)

before he finally decided on the Six County site. The reason he decided on West Belfast had nothing to do with any humanitarian concern about unemployment, he simply was offered the best deal, a blank cheque so to speak, from the British Labour government.

The Puerto Ricans and the IDA were only prepared to advance between £30m and £40m and there had to be inbuilt safeguards and guarantees against total losses should the project fail.

Roy Mason told his negotiators to give De Lorean anything he wanted within reason!

Roy of course was bowing out of the North and wanted to end his career as Northern Secretary on. But this difference should not be overestimated. Thatcher may not be pleased with Paisley's threats but at the same time she allows the UDA to remain a legal organisation, and continues a policy of strengthening the loyalist RUC and UDR. All 3 organisations were well represented in the Antrim hills. If the British Tories do not show the same enthusiasm for Paisley that their ancestors showed for Carson, there is absolutely no reason to expect that they will determinedly oppose him.

Paisley's potential firepower is literally terrifying. Apart from his ormed supporters in the so-called security forces, the North's loyalists have an enormous number of weapons at their command. Some 110,000 guns of various description are legally held in the 6 counties, the vast majority in loyalist hands. As the case of Bernadette McAliskey's unsuccessful applications for a firearms licence illustrates,it is almost impossible for an onti-unionist to obtain a legal gun. In addition to those guns legally held, the loyalist paramilitaries are heavily armed and are reputed experts at the home made manufactIn the context of a new hunger strike by the political prisoners in the HBlocks and Armagh, Paisley's monoeuvres represent a double edged threat. The anti- unionist population will need of course to be vigilant in its own defence but we should not be torn away from our main task of the moment - the defence of the hunger strikers and their prison comrades. Paisley's attacks should be taken up within the context of the H-Block/ Armagh compoign. Attempts by the SDLP and the Church to utilise the loyalist threat to dampen support for the hunger strikers must be firmly The best defence against Paisley, the best way to show the British that we will not be intimidated is to build the massive campaign necessary to win victory for our political prisoners. The SDLP and the Church can be part of this campaign or they con get out of the firing line.

No independent investigation was commissioned by the British to assess the feasibility of the project. De Lorean convinced Roy Mason it was alright and Mason fell for it. To add insult to injury we were told that the cuts in public spending on schools, hospitals and other social services were to be used to fund projects like De Lorean in order to "re-establish business confidence and provide jobs for the future’. To date £70m of public money has been spent on De Lorean with 880 jobs to show for it, most of them Joyalists, skilled workers from other declining industries around Belfast. That's almost £€°,000 for each job and few jobs or training schemes for unemployed catholics of West Belfast. So far we have heard nothing from Fitt, Devlin or trade union leaders, all of whom welcomed De Lorean with open arms in 1978. All oF these, by their silence and inactivity support this kind of strategy as a means of combatting unemployment.

IMPERIALISM THE CAUSE OF UNEMPLOYMENT The present crisis at De Lorean underlines the weakness of this typ® of economic strategy which both British and Irish governments pursue with zeal, preferring to hand out millions of pounds of public money to conmen like De Lorean rather than expand the health and social services for example, thereby creating employment and providing a decent service for those least able to help themselves, the old and the sick. Their idea is to lure multinational companies like Ferenka and "fly by night" merchants like De Lorean, to Ireland. By offering massive state funded subsidies, tax tree holidays and low interest loans, they hope that these people will be successful in exploiting our natural resources and working class and that somehow, if things get a bit tough, they will retain a commitment to the workers they have so successfully exploited! This is nonsense of course, Ferenka is a case in point and we have seen what can happen with capital intensive ventures like Strathern Audio thanks to capitalist government ministers who just can't wait to give away public money.

The fact is the imperialists have no answer to unemploy-. ment for workers of Ireland North or South, because they are the root cause of it. "When England sneezes Ireland catches cold". This accurately reflects the total domination of our whole economy by British imperialism. The continued existence of both partitioned states constitutes a real barrier to the unity of Irish workers which is necessary if we are to come to grips with unemployment and the many other social injustices in our society. Trade union activists must continue the fight for real democracy within the unions in order to force an end to the pro-imperialist and partitionist leadership.

They must fight for a 32 County County radical trade union movement with an action programme capable of uniting anti-imperialist workers North and South in opposition to unemployment, for an end to the squandering of public funds and for a policy of public expenditure on a programme of useful works, Only such a fight back by organised working class can defeat the strategy which allows con-men like John De Lorean to act out his fantasies at the expense of ordinary working people.

DENIS LARKIN