“After repeated delays, the ‘New Ireland’ Forum is expected…”

After repeated delays, the ‘New Ireland’ Forum is expected to produce its final report at the beginning of April. Publicly conceived with the task of producing a blueprint for a ‘new’ Ireland, the Forum has never loose from the fetters of ‘old’ Ireland. It is this failure that guarantees that the final report will be in Seamus Mallon’s words ‘a bag of dolly mixtures’.

In the following article John Magee argues that the refusal of the Forum to come out unanimously for Irish unity and independence will deepen divisions and prolong the violence which scars Ireland today.

When the Coalition government first announced its initiative to establish a broad political forum to discuss the shape of a ‘new Ireland’ it set down preconditions on participation that ensured the Forum's efforts would fail. An Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald declared that there was no place for Sinn Fein at the Forum because that party supported the armed campaign of the Irish Republican Army.

From the outset then, the Coalition Government, supported by Fianna Fail, the Labour Party and the SDLP, made it clear they were* not prepared to take into account the views and interests of the nationally minded working people of the Six Counties whose resistance of 15 years to British rule was the very factor which had placed a ‘new Ireland’ on the agenda.

This issue of ‘violence’ was however to be no problem when it came to encouraging loyalist participation in the Forum. Letters of invitation were sent to all the Unionist leaders including Paisley, ‘Commandant’ of the loyalist ‘Third Force’. The Loyalists however had no intention of entering the discussion. Their reply was the same message they have thundered violently down through the decades — ‘No Surrender’.

This unequivocal rejection of any move to further reconciliation between the majority and minority communities in Ireland didn’t suit the Forum participants — so they ignored it! The ceremonial opening of the Forum in St. Patrick’s ~ Hall, Dublin Castle on May 30 last year witnessed speeches by all party leaders which addressed the Northern minority as the intransigents and spoke to the loyalists as if they were the fair-minded, reasonable people.

An Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald attacked the nationalist community for paying ‘scant regard for the identity of the unionists, who feel their very existence threatened by the aspirations of Irish unity.’’ Charles Haughey spoke of the need for the new Ireland to be based on agreement and consent and went on to offer the loyalists ‘local autonomy”’ in any new Ireland.

Tn tha anesn cnt CHIN been’ able to shake leader John Hume dwelled on the need for ‘accommodation’ with the loyalists: *How would we propose to give to Unionists an adequate sense of security — ‘religious, political, and cultural — in a new Ireland?’

In short, the constitutional nationalist parties while proclaiming the desire for a united Ireland were proposing to replace the veto given to the loyalists by the British with a veto fashioned by themselves. This approach was to be hardened out over the following months as the Forum progressed to look at the political, social, economic and cultural factors in a ‘mew Ireland’. It became clearer that far from advancing towards a United Ireland, the work of the Forum was to rebuild and strengthen the barriers to Irish Unity and _ independence.

This approach was made oufstandingly clear in the Forum's discussions of the economies, North and South. Despite the fact that the Forum had three well-researched papers prepared by its secretariat, all of which set out in graphic detail the disastrous consequences of partition on both economies, the political parties preferred to give greater weight to the bigoted impressionism of Sir Charles Carter, head of the Northern Ireland Economic Council who came to Dublin simply to tell the Forum that ‘Irish unity won’t work’.

For the establishment parties it would be best if the Forum could simply report that view and have it accepted. Fortunately, there’s no chance of that being the case which explains the serious difficulties the parties in the Forum have had in agreeing a final report. They cannot ignore the deep aspiration of the majority of the Irish people for national reunification but at the same time they are not prepared to take any serious step towards realising that goal. Their only option is continued support for partition and British rule in the North. The dilemma is how to disguise this option so that it is acceptable to the Irish people.

The traditional way in which this deceit has been accomplished is to step up __— republican rhetoric simultaneously with repression of republican fighters. This remains the choice of Fianna Fail and the © Mallon wing of | the SDLP: they wanted a final report which combined. a call for a unitary state with the promise of ever-' toughening measures against ‘subversives’.

The Coalition and the SDLP majority led by John Hume have lost confidence in this trad? itional manoeuvre. They understand that the problem with republican rhetoric is that, if repeated often enough, people will begin to believe it and_ start to question why republican fighters are being persecuted instead of a tougher line being taken with Britain and the loyalists.

Another important factor in the calculations exists however, which severely narrows the room for manoeuvre of the capitalist parties - the crisis of the capitalist economies, which has produced major capitalist organisation of society as a _ whole. As people get increasingly discontented with the capitalist parties the chance is they will look for an alternative.

The only seriou’ political challenge to the capitalist parties at present is posed by the anti-imperialist | movement which has spearheaded the resistance to British rule in the North over the past 15 years. The seriousness of this challenge has increased dramatically with Sinn Fein’s electoral success in the 6 counties and its entry into the electoral arena in the South.All the capitalist parties are united in their determination to stop the advance of Sinn Fein.

The Coalition and the SDLP recognise that Sinn Fein will not be stopped without injecting some stability into the North. They also recognise — that this stability won't come from Britain coercing the loyalists to accept power sharing or séme link up with the South. That leaves only . the nationalist people to make the concessions.

Throughout the Forum the Coalition has been at pains to. promote the idea that Ireland’s future lies not in breaking the connection with Britain but _in cementing this relationship and integrating Treland eawven mare inta