THE recent elections to the new Northern Ireland assembly represent a tactical problem for the British and a triumph for the A name leadershin or sina hell!
However in the longer term the British have won important strategic advantages.
Now the short-term setbacks a mee more general problems of the conservative administration in Britain mean that we face a period of neither peace nor war.
The British began by proposing that new initiatives must have broad support. They then adopted an election strategy that only unionists supporea, aeclanng inat these would solve all problems and act as a "gateway" to all party talks. Of course they were nothing of the sort.
Even with almost half the nationalist vote and 15 per cent of the overall vote Sinn Fein are to be excluded unless there is a new IRA ceasefire. Behind this condition lie others like the decommissioning of weapons-essentially calling for the surrender of the republican forces. A major British aim was the creation of a new assembly. This is a mere talking shop, but it establishes the shape of the outcome the British plan-an improved parton that will be able to garner some support from the Dublin government and sections of the Catholic middle class. ine new sov aso rebresens a mino card-an embryo solution that the British will be able to threaten to implement unilaterally if the Irish capitalists prove hesitant in falling into step. The outcome was very revealing. A voting figure of 65 per cent despite boycott calls showed massive illusions in the "peace process" on the part especially of nationalist workers. Yet within this vote was a major turn to Sinn Fein-their best ever result in Northern elections. Nationalists are very angry with British New book: pre-publication discount offer A programme for the Irish revolution TWO YEARS in the writing, and recently adopted at the founding conference of the new organisation 'Socialist Democracy', this programme is the most extensive Trotskyist analysis of Ireland since the 1940's.
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To order send your cheque, payable to 'Socialist Outlook Fund', to PO Box 1109, London, N4 2UU. foot-dragging. They blame them for the breakdown of the ceasefire.
Rather than feeling defeated and demoralised and ready to accept whatever the British hand out they have enormous expectations.
The overall message of the election is that the Irish question is far from being resolved. Britain has won major advantages but has a long way to go if it is to inflict a decisive defeat on the nationalist population.
The implied threat will be felt most sharply by bourgeois nationalism.
This was most clearly shown in West Belfast, where Sinn Fein took four of the five seats after Joe Hendron, the sitting SDLP MP, called them a sectarian and fascist organisation.
This is a major upset. Much of the dynamic of London-Dublin collaboration since the Hillsborough agreement has involved the need to suppress the Sinn Fein electoral threat to the SDLP following the hunger strikes.
Now they obtain their highest vote ever.
Implicit in the vote is a serious challenge to the hegemony of the SDLP.
Also it poses a threat to the Dublin government. They can only sell an agreement it mey are not seen as openly selling out the Northern nationalists.
Yet the framework document involves such a sell-out and goes on to denv the democratic rights of the Irish people as a whole.
The role of capitalist Irish-America, represented by the involvement of US Senator George Mitchell and his team, cuts much less ice than was supposed.
Unfortunately this development is innocent of any conscious revolutionary dynamic. The Sinn Fein leadership entered the election as the "peace party" explicitly to preserve the unity of the "nationalist family".
So the immediate political future is quite clear. Unionist positions are hardening and they will not agree even to retorm of the existing system without substantial pressure from the British.
There is no possibility of such pressure being mounted at any level by a British administration which needs unionist support in the Westminster parliament.
All this began to play itself out in the jostling for position before the all-party talks that the election gateway was supposed to open.
Like the hall of mirrors the door to the talks keeps receding. It is now made clearas if it were not clear all along-that only formal opening positions will be taken and the talks kicked into touch for September.
But the talks are not waiting for the collapse of IRA determination not to surrender arms The presence of the US means that a settlement to restabilise partition will be attempted. It will be thoroughly reactionary and will remain so whether republicans participate or not. The demand for surrender is a contession in advance that the settlement cannot be squared with the programme of republicanism or with the democratic rights of the Irish working class as a whole.
The republicans see much of this and have now adopted a longer term strategy. They will not wait for a new government in England, not dependent on unionist votes and a return of a Fianna Fail government in the 26 counties.
In the meantime Sinn Fein will create more space between itself and the IRA in the hone that its electoral mandate will force the British to eventually admit them to talks.
They hold to the illusions of British disinterest and of bourgeois nationalist support for a united Ireland, that US and European imperialism can play a progressive role, to the idea that they can go back to a militarist strategy that failed and maintain a strategy of secret diplomacy that has sharply eroded their activist base.
The situation in Ireland is familiar to socialists in many areas of the world the political offensive by imperialism far outstrips its physical impact.
There is a weak and limited regroupment by the class within traditional structures but real independent self-organisation or leadership. Given the difficulties of imperialism and the lack of any real reform on offer there will be further opportunities to regroup and rebuild.
Socialist Outlook 104 • June 29, 1996.