Community Politics, Popular Fronts and the first thing on the agenda

The Belfast Telegraph today carries a short piece on the creation of cross community politics in the north of Ireland.

It lays out a strategy of developing a Popular Front in order to unify sectional interests in both communities who would you think have much in common i.e getting ordinary working class people in both communities to recognise they have plenty in common.

The specific strategy is to establish an:

electorally focused 'popular front', consisting both of political parties and individuals. The organisation would raise funds, provide organisational support for elections, support other campaigns, and, most importantly, promote debate around developing a progressive agenda. Activists would come from all traditions and would seek support from all.

Okay but easier said than done and based on the premise that there is no party already working on building cross community politics. Even though its a short piece it does not mention Sinn Fein once.

Its very easy to write a plan on building a cross community vote but very hard to do that in practice. One of the issues that makes this so difficult obviously is the political divide. Even if working class people in both communities have common interests they also have different political aspirations that cant be ignored, though they can be persuaded to change. The Workers Party tried to build cross community politics in the north previously, and for this article its good to park the many differences with that party, but its efforts to expand into loyalist communities were unsuccessful while its reading of the political reality of the north resulted in it losing support in the nationalist communities.

The proposed "Popular Front" strategy in the Bel Tel argues that "certainly, on a local level, there's no advantage in class terms to either remaining part of the UK or becoming part of a united Ireland." Is that true though? Does that set the value people place on having a sense of national identity at zero? And in a place like the six counties where two communities have aspirations to different national identities does it mean that looking at the challenges of the north purely in "class terms" is to miss out on the realities of political life there. Is an analysis purely in "class terms" a viable option today, or for the next few years? That doesn't mean progress cant be made towards it but first ground work has to be done before its an option. Any thoughts on that?

Look at the work of Sinn Fein in East Belfast or the recent meeting of Gerry Adams and Jackie McDonald as they paid the respects at a funeral.
Cross community relations are being built and thats going to lead to cross community political relationships. Look at the warm congratulations of John Stevenson to Michelle Gildernew, the independent, left wing candidate from a presbyterian background in Fermanagh South Tyrone. Small things but thats how cross-community politics is being built.

Critics of Sinn Fein can ignore the party's work in building new political relationships with loyalist communities but ignore it or no its making a difference and will allow class poltics to develop in the north. Thats more done than any putative popular front.

Regretably in the south a different left wing group, People Before Profit, choose also to ignore the work Sinn Fein does in towns, cities and rural areas and instead launched a fairly strong attack via The Village magazine. Robbie Smith in An Phoblacht has more on the The Village article and the Rathangan Sinn Fein blog notes that while others on the left might wish to engage in such squabbles well we in Sinn Fein shouldnt care. The only thing we do care for is the welfare of the Irish people.

We have more ambition to create real change than these groups, and have more support to do just that. We can just rise above this type of stuff and keep on working.

Dual Sovereignty over the North - How it might look

Below is a piece we received from Sean Swan. It arose out of a discussion around the passing of Thomas MacGiolla http://sinnfeinkeepleft.blogspot.com/2010/02/strange-quite-surrounding-passing-of.html .

Sean raised the issue of the failure of republicanism to deal with, what he sees as the realities of Unionist Identity. He proposed some form of dual sovereignty for the North. He was asked to put some meat on his idea of how such a system would operate in the North and as a result he sent in the piece below as a comment.

However, I felt it would be interesting to post this in its own right and allow people to discuss it.



His ideas are below.

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The heart of it (dual sovereignty) would have to be an NI parliament which is internally sovereign over NI, which can set the tax rate, make laws etc. BUT this parliament would exist as only a devolved, not a federal, parliament – its existence, sovereignty and powers would only be devolved from Dublin and London. Its acts would have to be signed into law by both Dublin and London to have legal effect. In the vast majority of cases that would be a mere technicality, but it would be an important reserved power in cases of any potential discrimination. All taxation raised in NI would stay in NI plus it would continue to receive a subvention from Dublin and London in proportion to the GDP of both states. As to foreign policy, it wouldn’t have one. NI would absolutely not be a sovereign state for any external purposes. That would be the province of the national governments. It would make sense to maintain NI as a demilitarized zone in relation to either the British or Irish army except in the case of invasion by a foreign power (not a likely event for the foreseeable future). ‘Designation’ would be dropped, but the D’Hondt formula for allocating seats in the executive would stay. NI would become part of the Republic while remaining part of the UK, but the relevant tax rate, currency, laws, etc would be decided by the NI parliament. NI would continue to send MPs to London but would also return TDs to Dublin – though in both cases a good argument could be made for reduced representation for NI TDs and MPs compared to what exist for southern constituencies in the Dail or English constituencies in the House of Commons.

Ending ‘designation’ and granting the NI parliament the right to raise taxes, make all laws pertaining to NI, etc, would make the emergence of left/right politics more likely. Here’s the bit nationalist won’t like – no future referendums on the constitutional status of NI. That’s the only way unionists would agree to joint sovereignty which they currently see as simply a staging post on the way to a united Ireland. That does not mean there could never be a united Ireland. That could still evolve out of the situation. Britain’s actual sovereignty over NI could fade over time if it was never exercised, whatever the technical status. This is what happened in Canada where the British North America Act remained on the statute, but despite this actual British control over Canada faded to nothing. Of course this lacks the appeal of an ‘instant karma’ situation where tomorrow the British government says they are kicking NI out of the UK (which is what ‘Brits out’ would amount to) or a referendum in which there’s a 50.1% vote in favour of a united Ireland. But the trouble with the ‘instant karma’ situation – apart from anything else – is how the unionists might react to this ‘doomsday’ scenario. How does UDI or repartition, a rerun of 1912 (remember that unionists were happy to let 3 counties go when it became clear that they couldn’t run a 9 county Ulster) sound? Like a nightmare. Nora will argue that a smaller ‘rump’ NI would not be economically feasible. I think that’s possibly wishful thinking. Firstly NI is not economically feasible now – though it goes on existing. Secondly there’s no minimum size for economic feasibility (particularly in the context of the EU) and it’s a mistake to imagine that economics trumps everything. North Korea is, compared to South Korea, an economic disaster – but there’s still no united Korea. The Republic was an economic disaster in the 1950s, but it didn’t lead it back to the UK.

Sean Swan

The really hard stuff

Over the course of the past while I've posted a piece about racist attacks within the loyalist working class and I asked how can Sinn féin reach out to the unionist working class and attempt to get our message over in person.

I was asked to followed that up with the editorial from An phoblacht on the issue of the racist attacks. I personally found the views in that editorial as very weak as they seemed to see no role for Sinn Féin in dealing with the problem and seemed to suggest that unionism must deal with the issue of racist violence.
My post on Sunday was highlighting the main points Gerry Adams made in his report ‘Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, April 2009" following his recent visit to the area.

In reading this report I cannot help but be fully aware that the situation in the North is not truley one of real peace, and the events that occur at this time of year highlight that very clearly. There exists massive underlying tensions and hostilities and these are at there most obvious in working class areas.

This raises an age old question, is there any way to bridge the divides within the working class and can Sinn Féin play a role in that.

In reading the Adams report a number of points stand out for me;

1. Dialogue has to be a central tenet of any attempt to make peace; to achieve justice, stability, security and peace.

2. There are two ways to end conflict. Either one side convincingly beats the other or all of those involved engage in the more difficult and challenging process of peace making.


3. Peace making is conducted by and between enemies not between friends.
4. This required a serious, good faith effort to engage between political opponents.
5. But in the end it is for Palestinians and Israelis to make the peace.

These three posts I mentioned earlier are to me central in looking at how Sinn Féin needs to move forward in the North. For me if we in Sinn Féin are serious about trying to break out of the sectarian divide that exists in the north then we really have to follow the ideas laid out above. Sinn Féin must reach out to the loyalist working class and continuously try to show that republicanism respects them and offers them something of value. Clearly reaching out to the loyalist working class is not going to be an easy thing to do, but it must be done.
It will be very easy for Sinn Féin to accept its role as being that of "Defenders and representatives of the Catholic community". Indeed some people say that is what Sinn Féin has become. However, there are people within the party who show that this is not the case.
Below is a section of a piece written by Niall Ó Donnghaile, the Sinn Féin representative for East Belfast, and it is this type of action and leadership that Sinn Fein must be involved in if we are to attempt to bridge the gap to the loyalist working class.


I return to the issue of leadership; a number of months back I received a phone call very like the one I got yesterday. On that occasion it was from Joe O'Donnell, a friend and comrade, himself a former Sinn féin rep for this area. Joe has been involved in sterling cross community work with countless representatives throughout East Belfast but particularly with the East Belfast Mission.

Joe informed me that morning that the memorial garden on the Newtonards Road in rememberance of the men killed on 27th June 1970 had been attacked and vandalised with paint. There and then Joe and I took the decision that we needed to stand with the people at the bottom of the Newtonards Road, understanding completely we probably wouldn't be very welcome, and tell them very clearly that those attacking the memorial were not Republican, they weren't motivated by Republicanism and they certainly weren't representative of the Short Strand Community.

So we headed off, now joined by well known community stalwart and activist Bernie McCrory of the Short Strand Community Forum. As we headed to the junction of Bryson Street and the Newtonards Road we collectively took a very deep breath; this was unprecedented, no one had ever crossed this particular line in such an open and public way.

I recall seeing the scores of people, many understandably upset, some relatives of the victims openly weeping, I saw numerous TV crews and photographers who immediately began snapping our pictures. I noticed a number of senior political and church representative who I had met with on numerous occasions before, head away from us as opposed to meeting us in the same fashion they had on other occasions; that was particularly disappointing.

I was approach by a young woman and told to 'get the f**k back over to your own side of the road'. I informed her I was here to condemn what had happened and that we needed to maintain the links so tentatively built up over a difficult period, that that was best for everyone.

A number of ordinary residents understood this, they didn't hide their anger though, and to be fair we didn't expect them to. Many of the relatives told us what was on their minds but again, we understood they needed an outlet, and here we were, three faces from the Short Strand right beside the damaged memorial.

The fact remains that the people who carried that attack out have no political, social or even cultural motivation; they most certainly aren't representative of the people in the Short Strand who know very well the pain and suffering that comes with loss and therefore the respect which must be shown to the dead.

Another sad fact which remains is that during that difficult Sunday morning, those same leaders I mentioned earlier disappeared; they faded into the background or they weren't even present. They allowed us to stand alone to explain the process that we have collectively engaged in to try and bring some sort of peace to the people living along the 'interface' in that part of Belfast.
Once again when I took a walk round to Saint Matthews yesterday morning I did so alone, while a very clear opportunity existed for the leaders within Unionism and Loyalism to take the chance and stand against this attack, that chance was missed, for whatever reason I am not sure.
What remains certain throughout is that the work and engagement will continue, we will continue to meet and address our shared issues, we will continue to sit down and secure a better standard of living for the people who live in what is classed as the 9th most socio-economically deprived ward in the north of Ireland.

However we must also lead and stand up to those who would attempt to tarnish our respective communities, stand up to those so called 'leaders' whose word and deed create the space and the mentality for attacks on Catholic Churches.

I look forward to quieter times ahead, as I write I am aware that the day isn't over yet.
Wherever sectarianism or anti community activity rears its ugly head we must all, collectively have the courage to face it down.

Posted by Niall Ó Donnghaile at 05:23