Irish Card

Bipartisanship?

This course adopted by Fianna Fail cannot simply be attributed to opposition-bench tactics designed to embarass the government. FF's manoeuvres have been too serious for this. For instance when a delegation from the SDLP visited Dublin at the end of August, for discussions with the government, no official statement was issued afterwards. The affair was such a hollow gesture that the /rish Times asked editorially: “ts there an official spokesman anywhere around the corridors of gowernment power who can tel! the peopie of tor the ~ecors and for quotstor enecty ahet the gowernemert a st Bt FF ns uct off the mark enc efter 6 meeting wrth the for firm political action from Dublin”. This could only be interpreted as e rebuke to the government Tee rat Tienes pottical correspondent noted :

SOUP for several months has been worried by an increasing sense of isolation .. . Nothing has been done to reassure the pafty following the statements of the Taoiseach and the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, which seem to indicate a growing disillusion with the North and its problems.”

What FF has done is to use the SDLP in an attack on the government and thereby rob the government of any legitimacy its collaboration policy might seem to have in the light of the SOLP’s silence. This stroke was then followed up by another biow a few days later when Michael O’Kennedy, shadow minister for Foreign Affairs, denounced the “silence and temerity” of the government on the North and declared that “there could be not bipartisanship in silence”. Although the editor of the Irish Times thought that FF was only playing politics, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach John Kelly caught the real significance of O’ Kennedy's outburst. “If bi-partisanship is forthcoming from Fianna Fail only on condition that unpleasant truths are left u@uttered, it is scarcely worth having” he said. He added “before the public know what value to place on the Opposition’s support, they will have to be convinced that the responsible members of the party really carry the rest with them.”

Bipartisonship is clearly under pressure and Fine Gael is obviously anxious about the strength of Haughey and his clique. the Labour Party trembles But it is not only within Fianna Fail that forces are gathering which could blow the lid off the situation in the South. There is also considerable misgiving within the Labour Party.

Over the last decade the Labour Party has diversified its social base. Although there is no doubt that the party has won a lot of support from general layers of workers this support has been unstable — 60 years after the foundation of Labour there is still no general tradition of voting Labour among ordinary workers. The main stable social base upon which Labour depends is the skilled and serm-skilled workers of the rural towns.

But in the 60's the new layer of professionals and technocrats which emerged as part of the economic expansion was largely attracted to Labour. For the first time ever this layer gave Labour s base in the big cities of Cork and Dublin and through this base resched many general workers.

On immediate social and economic questions there was little ground for friction between the old and the new layers in the party. But on broader political issues-a clash of interests emerged. The urban workers from the provincial areas who depended largely on traditional small industry are strongly nationalist while the new orofessional-technocratic layer who owed their thanks to Britain's economic miracle in treland were anti-nationalist/republican and very comprador in outlook. Around the national question, therefore, two factions inevitably emerged — one grouped around Stevey Coughlan, Tim Pat Murphy, Sean Treacy and the other around Brendan Halligan, Conor Cruise O’Brien and Barry Desmond.

The old guard has been prepared to suffer the blatently pro-imperialist line of O'Brien only because they are in a minority. But they greatly fear that their association with Labour under its present leadership will cost them their electoral support. Even the middle-of-the-roaders such as Keating and O'Leary etc. are concerned because they fear that a major defeat for Labour outside Dublin could have foreboding effects in Dublin as well. since the credibility of Labour as a national electoral alternative to the two big parties would be seriously damaged. Thus it is easy to understand the alliance between the “‘Marxist”’ Thornley and anti-semitest Coughlan.

As far as both these groups are concerned O’Brien is taking his comprador policy too far and they are pressing for a return to a more orthodox Labour policy of capitulation without prostration. Of course O’Brien will resist, although a retreat on this spineless creatures part, is not excluded. One way or another the outcome will not be a happy one for the National Coalition.

A political crisis All this points towards the possible development of a political crisis in the South. Given that an economic crisis already exists and a social crisis is beginning to mature the occurrance of insolluable political division within the ruling class will make likely a revolutionary situation in the real meaning of the term.

But such a revolutionary situation could easily be avoided or quickly superceded by a period of reactior#f the working class does not play an autonomous and independent role in the period ahead. In the south the workers are unlikely to play such a role spontaneously. What is absent is strong revolutionary leadership that can rally workers in a consistant struggle for socialism.

The primary task before socialists in the South is to build such a leadership and it is that fact which makes a group like the Revolutionary Marxist Group so relevant today. working class. Weakness Dire warning Ever since the defeat of the Tory Government, various supporters of the ruling class in Britain have come forward with a whole series of exotic and nasty schemes for defeating the British These range from the crusade of Lord Longford to group all ‘true patriots’, the private armies of Sir Walter Walker, and the slightly more serious strike-breaking squads of Colonel Stirling.

However, there is one big snag with all these reprehensible schemes — they are unworkable, given the present strength of the British workers. Rather than being added adjuncts to a determined march of the ruling class, they are responses to the defeat of its chosen strategy, which was embodied in the confrontationist policies of the Tory government. They represent the fragmentation of the base of the Tory government, They represent the fragmentation of the base of the Tory party and indicate the weakness of the ruling class at this stage.

From that point of view Enoch Powell's project of seeking a seat in the Six Counties fits into this process of fragmentation. But Powell’s plan has one major difference from ail the other hare-brained schemes. |t actually provides an alternative for the ruling class which contains ali the elements which might make it successful.

The fall of Heath showed the weakness of the ruling class in relation to the strength of the organised workers’ movement in Britain. The strength of the working class in the unions and in the factories means no direct repressive attack can be successful. A prior defeat of the working class would be needed before any strong state Measures can be put into practice and used against the working class. The defeat of Heath was a defeat for the British ruling class as a whole — because his policies aimed to carry out the overall project of the ruling class. That strategy is now checked.

Enoch Powell's proposal sounds a dire warning.

For where British workers are weakest is on the ideological front. The great bulk of workers can see thedanger of the Industrial Relations Act and are prepared to fight against it. But on the question of racism and anti-Irish chauvinism the working class sees no danger. It is around these issues however that labour organisations could be divided. On this basis an actual repressive assault could be successful.

Powell is cultivating a base in order to show the ruling class that there is an alternative. The victory of the Loyalist strike has shown such a reactionary base does exist in the 6 counties. This base, which is alienated from the most immediate aims of the British ruling class, is the spring board from which Powell has chosen to relaunch himself. _ The policy it offers to the Loyalist is the only coherent one. It projects a new Union with Britain by a linkup of the Loyalists with the most reactionary trends in British politics. Although this policy has not yet been fully endorsed by the Loyalists — only Paisley proposes Union at this stage — Powell's immediate ‘goal, that of gaining a wider representation in the Westminster Parliament, commands total support from the Loyalists and has a large band of adherents inside the Tory Party. No wender last week's 'Observer’ headlined declared that: “Powell Return will Split Tories’.

As far as Enoch Powell is concerned, the recent actions of the Loyalists serve as a model for the rest of Britain. Powell bases himself on this new found confidence of the Loyalists since their general strike. This base is being continually reinforced by the concessions which the Labour Government keeps granting to the Loyalist forces. The recent attempted re-creation of the B-Specials under the guise of the special reserves is all grist to Powell's mill. But his policy of the permanent integration of the Six Counties with Britain cuts across the other platform of the Labour government — that of the Ulsterisation of the war.

Powell provides an answer which together with his already considerable political weight could unify the Loyalist forces and overcome their continuing fragmentation after thg brief unity they had enjoyed in the flush of the general strike victory.

Block And such a unified base would take Powell from the fringes of British politics back into the centre block of Ulster MP’s in the presently disorganised state of parliamentary politics which would make Powell an important factor. This would be further increased if representation of the Six Counties is expanded to 20 MP’s instead of the present 12. Powell is also attracting support from the right wing of the Conservative Party, from the 70 or so Tory MP's in the Ulster Group, and even from people inside the shadow cabinet.

Mr. Enoch Powell arriving at Aldergrove Airport, Belfast,

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SOLP the fotiowing day issued 2 joint statement which said that “the SOLP emphasised the need

we om™oportence Of he ceteTect. Ty (mons om firm action by Oubien was sigerficant The