“Who would have thought that ‘Labour’ workers’ contributions away…”
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Socialist Republic1982Partition and the national questionLoyalism and unionismLabour, the left and left unityElections and electoral tacticsBritish troops and the occupationPartition and the national questionLoyalism and unionismLabour, the left and left unityElections and electoral tacticsBritish troops and the occupation
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Who would have thought that a ‘Labour’
workers’ contributions away from them?
their heads. IN A LETTER to the Irish Times, Noel Browne TD attacked the SDLP for failing to stand a candidate in Fermanagh/South Tyrone. According to Browne the SDLP should have put up a candidate in order to split the Nationalist vote and elect the Unionist in the interests of democracy: It is hard to see how democracy is served by electing a Unionist MP in a constituency that is majority Nationalist. But Dr Browne is not talking about real democracy, but a specific form: bourgeois parliamentary democracy. He is not interested in the right of the Irish people to self-determination: when the struggle to achieve this democratic right challenges the parliamentary institutions which maintain partition, Browne stands for Unionism. To defend parliamentary democracy against the democratic wishes of the people Browne has to ignore the facts and turn them on The Unionist candidate in that election was Ken Maginnis, an ex-major in the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), representative of a tradition which has denied democratic rights to Catholics during the 50 years of Stormont rule. He became, in Browne’s words, “‘the Protestant Unionist Parliamentarian who is not a gunman”’.
Browne is a self-styled socialist with a warped view of the world. He thinks the national question is an unnecessary complication of Irish politics. He has ignored the events in the Six Counties to the best of his ability. He can ignore it no longer. The H Block/ Armagh campaign once again made what is happening in the 6 Counties an issue in the 26 Counties. The victories of Kieran Doherty and Paddy Agnew in the last General Election showed clearly the level of support for the prisoners. Seven months ago Browne was challenged in Dublin North Central by Peoples Democracy candidate, Vincent Doherty, who supported the prisoners in their struggle.
Browne claimed credit for his 30 year -old Ministerial accomplishments during the 1981 campaign. A general*sed populist denunciation of unequal distribution of wealth (without explaining how the have-nots could get an equal share) was presented to remind people that Browne was once a ‘socialist’ Labour politician, It is fitting that he now shares a room in Leinster House with Jim Kemmy (who would have been more honest, and perhaps even more successful, had he campaigned under the slogan ‘Jim’ll fix it’.) Defying the SLP he seemed set on trying to revive with Kemmy the parliamentary contribution of the National Progressive Democrats that he maintained in the early 60s. Alas, as Marx said, the first time is tragedy, the second farce; the NPD consistently opposed the government of the day, and did not ‘critically support’ it.
Noel Browne has ‘critically supported’ the raising of the school entry age, ‘ thereby causing hardship to mainly working class people. He has also supported the closing of the Tuam sugar factory. In the recent budget Noel Browne voted for VAT on clothing and footwear, lowering of food subsidies and taxing social welfare benefits. All these measures would have directly attacked the livelihoods of people socialists are normally expected to defend. Browne was a self-proclaimed champion of a ‘goit-alone’ stragegy for the Labour Party in the early seventies. He now finds himself tagging on to the coattails of a discredited right wing government. Once Noel Browne went wrong on Irish unity and defence of the Catholic minority in the North of Ireland, there was no holding him. He has wound up on the side of the antidemocratic forces in our society.