David Coen TONY BLAIR will meet Gerry Adams on December 1l for the real talks of the "peace" process.
Remember that? Back in September the media were full of the agonising of the Unionists led by David Trimble as to whether they would even enter the talks, which Blair has said must reach a conclusion by May next year at the latest.
Blair eventually persuaded them in, but they have not met with Sinn Fein and have made it clear they don't treat the process seriously. What they have done is try to hatch out a deal through bi-lateral talks with the SDLP and Dublin. Trimble refused to meet Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in Dublin - the meeting was arranged while Ahern was "passing through" London.
The outline of the deal Blair will attempt to sell to Adams has been clear for a long time: a devolved government in Belfast, a clean-up of the sectarian state - Mowlem's proposals on the RUC are part of gameplan - and a parliamentary All Ireland Committee to deal with issues of common interest, for example, tourism and cross border development.
In return for this, Dublin will give up its "claim" to the Six Counties under Articles 2 and 3 of its constitution. The only argument is over the powers of the All Ireland Committee - the Unionists are opposed to it having any power, because that would look like a step towards Irish unity!
Weaker position
Adams' position is much weaker than that of the previous negotiators of partition - the 1921 delegation led by Michael Collins. Despite the war-like noises coming. from some sections of the Republican movement, the vast majority realise that the war is unwinnable.
In a way Adams' weakness is also his strength. Whatever the outcome, he knows that the militarists within the movement are not a serious threat because they have no strategy other than a return to war.
He will, no doubt, try to appeal to Blair's "modernising" instincts and sense of justice. He will ask for serious reform of the Northern State : and for "parity of esteem" for Nationalists within it, mentioning the chaos which would follow a breakdown of the "peace" process. In support of his position he will cite Bertie Ahern and Bill Clinton.
Рані FA OUTLOOK The whole tone of the discussion will be much more "appeal" than "negotiation" because the truth is, Adams has very little to trade.
Many people on the left in Britain have for long argued that militarism was a blind alley and that only mass action North and South would get Britain out of Ireland.
We also criticised the panNationalist strategy because it put the negotiations in the hands of Dublin and Irish America - the very elements who want to defeat Republicanism.
But there is a need to go beyond the politics of "we told you so". Just because the leadership of the Republican Movement are about to give up their historic goal of getting Britain out of Ireland (partly because the military road has failed) THE PROMISE OF SOCIALISM A major publication racy (Ireland).£5.50. Send cheque payable to Socialist Outlook Fund to PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU. How will they sell Blair's line to the punters? Sinn Fein vice-president Martin McGuiness does not mean the same is true of the base of the movement or indeed the majority of nationalists in Ireland.
The Republican leadership may willing to settle for a revamped Socialism will not come about in Ireland or Britain without the defeat of the ruling classes and the break-up of the British state which sustains them. Stormont Government which was abolished after Bloody Sunday in 1972, but that doesn't mean that Blair's aim to modernise partition will succeed.
The first reason is that Northern Ireland is a "failed political entity"
- the border was drawn to encompass the most territory which the Unionists could hold with a numerical majority.
The 70 years of violence and discrimination flored not just from bigour of the U'nionists bur was absolutely necessary to preserve the state. It cannot be reformed.
The likeliband is that the new The Unionists ce Ice De DOccessions -how anasa t: 0 discrimination be comed':
Any change treases i bring the whole strusture rashing down.
It was the opposition of the Unionists/Loyalists which in 1974 brought down the Power Sharing Executive negotiated by Edward Heath at Sunningdale. Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party refused to even enter the current talks, while further out, King Rat Billy Wright's Loyalist Volunteer Force is steadily undermining the position of the loyalist parties who have participated, the Progressive Unionist Party and the Ulster Democratic Party. The chances are that a large section of Unionists will oppose any settlement, even one with as few meagre concessions to nationalists as Blair will offer. Finally, any Blair proposals for mild reforms of the Six County State will trigger opposition from a significant section of the British ruling class, and not simply those nostalgic for empire who draw the line after Hong Kong. Unionism is a founding principle of the British state (opposition to it is an equal test for would be revolutionaries!) and of the Tory Party, which until 1985 was called "The Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". If Blair, with a majority of 179 is frightened to challenge them on foxhunting, think what would happen if he began to reform the Six County state.
The 1974 stand-off between the Wilson government and the Loyalists was used by elements in the British security forces to destabilise Wilson and to remove Heath from the leadership of the Tory Party.
The forces involved, including (until his death) Airey Neave, became the Thatcherite faction and it is no surprise that these proUnionists are the most xenophobic and worker-hating elements in British politics.
One of the foremost, Lord Cranborne, a minister in John Major's gorerment, is actively trying to build a "pan Unionist front" to oppose any deal.
Thatcher herself said Northern Ireland was as British as Finchley, though she swallowed her gut Unionism in 1985 to sign the Anglo Irish Agreement which for the first time revognised that Dublin had an interest in the affairs of the North.
The Hunger Strikes in 1980 and 1981 had led to mass protests on the streets of a size not seen since before the Bloody Sunday Demonstration was shot off the streets of Derry by Socialist Dudlooki the British Army.
As the economic crisis in the South threatened to combine with the political crisis which followed the rise of Sinn Fein, the Dublin ruling class and the British tried to save the "moderate" middle class nationalists of the SDLP by posing Dublin as the protectors of Northern nationalists.
Thatcher moved in 1985 under the threat of the mass movement. Blair will not move in 1997 because there is no equivalent movement, and the threat to return to war does not hold the same menace to the ruling class in Ireland or Britain.
Blair wants to modernise and therefore preserve the British State, not abolish it. He will remove the worst excesses of the sectarian regime abolished in 1972, though the changes will be cosmetic.
The Republican leadership has a choice. It's not between capitulation or a return to war, but whether they want to help Blair restructure the British state or to smash it. Their problem is that even before going into the talks they conceded the Unionist veto - and then found the Unionists won't talk to them. Now they realise that the real negotiations are going to be with the British, hence Adams' visit to Blair.
Republicans should withdraw from the talks and build mass opposition to the whole process, which the British, Dublin and the SDLP saw from the beginning as a way of disarming them.
A focal point will be the proposed referenda on the settlement and on the South's constitution. There is tremendous potential for such a movement.
Even the "respectable" SDLP were shocked by Blair's capitulation to loyalism at Drumcree during last summer's Orange marches, not to mention the blatant sectarianism of the RUC.
The outcome of a referendum in the South is still very much in doubt in spite of the election of a conservative northern nationalist as President.
Of course the Adams leadership will not now drop this disastrous line - if only because they've been committed to it since at least 1986. But sections of the Republican Movement have shown their contempt for the strategy by leaving Sinn Fein.
The numbers are not large but in an organisation where loyalty is almost religious, it shows there are large numbers of dissatisfied members looking for an alternative. Neither are those leaving simply reflex militarists.
Socialists are in favour of reforms. Transfer of prisoners, changes to the RUC and others which may come out of the talks should be welcomed as far as they go.
But socialism will not come about in Iréland or Britain without the defeat of the ruling classes and the break-up of the British state which sustains them.
The Republican "rejectionists", whatever the limits of their political positions, are our allies in opposing whatever deal is struck between Adams and Blair.