events at Drumcree earlier this year. THE ORANGE MARCH at Drumcree was without doubt the most significant turning point In une mistory or Nortern Ireland since at least 1974.
At first, the loyalists were prevented by the RUC from marching along the nationalist Garvaghy Road on their way back from Drumcree Church The threat of revolt within the RUC and, more importantly, the blocking of roads across the six counties by the loyalists in the days following the ban, led to an Chief Constable AnaDOuL- ureY nesley. The march was forced through accompanied by extreme violence by the RUC, as was another through the Ormeau Road in Belfast.
The public relations effort of the RUC to portray itself as an impartial police force came to nothing. In fact some RUC members left Drumcree to aon range sasnes and beat meir sectarian drums through nationalist areas elsewhere in the north.
So upset was opinion in the south that the normally pro-unionist John Bruton was forced to denounce John Major on the BBC. What upset Bruton most was not so much that Dublin was not consulted about the RUC's change of plan, but what Drumcree revealed about British and unionist attitudes.
For it is plain that the unionists will not concede even the most minor reforms necessarv to re-structure partition and the British are both unwilling and Derry this Summer incapable of making them do so. Mayhew's 'cheer up, it's not all that bad' comment to a Newsnight interviewer who pointed this out was typical of his colonialist attitudes and probably signals the end of nis pollical career. But most of all, it reveals a total inability to grasp what is at stake.
Not even the most trusting nationalist in the north of Ireland now believes inat tere is any possibility of an acceptable settlement within the six counties.
Even though they initially benefited from the exposure of the real role of the RUC, the political fallout from Drumcree has very serious implications for republicans.
Having failed to drive the British out by force of arms, they formed an allance with Dublin and Irish America to press the British to reform the six counties. It is clearer than ever after Drumcree that the British and the unionists will not make even limited concessions; still, the main demand of Sinn Fein's leadership is to be allowed into the talks which resumed in September.
However it is the activities of Sinn Fein in Derry in the lead up to and during the Apprentice Boys March in August which give the clearest picture of the direction in which the current leadership wishes to go. This is to supplant the Social Democratic and Labour Party as the main nationalist party in the DONED.
Part of the route of the Apprentice Boys march along the walls of Derry overlooks the nationalist Bogside. In the past, apart from banging their drums and trailing the Union Jack in the faces of the nationalists below, the marchers occasionally threw pennies down into the Bogside.
Orange marches along the walls had been banned since 1969 when the loyalists and the RUC attacked the Bogside but got such a hammering that the British Labour Government had to send in troops to help the beaten and demoralised RUC. It was not until 1995, after the IRA ceasefire, that a march along the walls was again forced through by ine RUC. This year it was clear that the RUC would not be able to smash through the nationalist counter demonstration and so the walls were closed off by Mayhew. The position of the Sinn Fein dominated Bogside Residents Committee was that the Apprentice Boys could march along the walls by negotiation, but they had to ensure that loyalist marchers in other areas also sought permission from local residents before they marched. Though in the end negotiations broke what Sinn Fein were attempting to establish throughout the north was the principle of consent. Their thinking seems to be that if a united Ireland can only be achieved with unionist consent, then equally, an internal settlement in the north requires nationalist consent to unionist rule.
Apart from establishing this principle of consent to an internal settlement and, by implication, abandoning the traditional republican demand for a united Ireland, the events in Derry were important in one other respect.
It is the base of SLP leader John Hume and it is rumoured that he will retire soon, possibly before the next General Election. It is by no means certain that his anointed successor, Mark Durkan, would be able to hold the seat in the face of a challenge from say, Martin McGuinness or Mitchell MacLoughlin of Sinn Fein.
Given that in the recent assemblv elections Sinn Fein were only 6 per cent and 4 seats behind the SDLP and the fact that a significant part of the SDLP's vote is a personal vote for John Hume, it looks very possible for Sinn Fein to hecome the main nationalist party in the north. They are already the largest party on Belfast City Council.
Those who argue that the republicans have no strategy should beware. Although the armed struggle has not succeded in driving the British out, if it has any remaining purpose it is to hammer on the door to the negotiations. The pan-nationalist alliance strategy which has largely replaced it has likewise failed to deliver.
Now there seems to be a new strategy of overtaking the SDLP by turning Sinn Fein into a conventional bourgeois nationalist party.
This is the logical consequence of a decision to accept the unionist veto and an internal settlement. It is the real meaning of the demand that the loyalists seek the consent of local nationalists before marching through their areas. ceasefire in return for him wringing concessions out of the unionists.
Out of office the Tories will feel free to give vent to their unionist instincts, especially if they are led by Redwood or Portillo. More likely, Blair will continue with "Old Labour" policies in Ireland. In other words more repression.
Drumcree was also a lesson for all of those on the left in Britain who see the Orange marches through nationalist areas as harmless assertions of culture and tradition. The blocked roads, the intimidation and the burning out of Catholic nomes. norto mennon cevera secanan killings by loyalists around the same demonstrate the real nature of These so coiled testives A 'peace process' welcomed by some as creating space for 'real class' politics has been shown to lead neither to peace or class politics. All that has happened is that the Sinn Fein leadership has given up the struggle against the British presence. It is now on the point of accepting a partionist settlement which has been a bloody failure over 70 years.
The acceptance of partition is the acceptance of working class division. Historically it has been used by the unionists to split the working class both in the six counties and throughout Ireland.
By this token it is impossible to carry out the class struggle through parties which claim to be socialist but represent only the unionist working class.
The experience of the last couple of years exposes one other delusion common on the left - that there was a realistic possibility of a capitalist united Ireland.
Quite clearly, the bourgeoisie, north and south, are incapable of bringing this about, whatever the desire of some sectors of business to do so.
Behind the unionists stand the British ruling class, determined to crush Republicanism, determined to hang on to their at colony anti tere is no ionger any possibility of a resurgent republicanism developing in a socialist direction and sweeping through the whole island.
Their problem is the historic crisis of the British state itself. As it fragments, the opportunities for socialists will multiply.
What the republicans fail to see with their eyes fixed on Dublin and Washington and the votes of the nationalist middle class in the north, is that their historic compromise will be with a decaying and unstable power clinging to the shards of empire.
The choices for socialists in the republican movement are becoming ever more clear.