John McAnulty surveys the results of the referendum and assembly elections
The Drumcree standoff of 1998, as reported by the British media, reads like the plot line of a badly constructed thriller.
The wise British colonialists hold peace talks and get the tribes to shake hands. We then have the cliffhanger of the referendum, followed by the cliffhanger of the assembly elections, followed by the cliffhanger of Drumcree.
The tragedy of the sectarian murder of the Quinn children leads to a reconciliation of "moderates" and the defeat of "extremists" The Irish question disappears into the sunset, solved at last.
Any connection with reality is totally fortuitous. The real winner in the present situation is the British government. The extent of their victory can be measured by the fact that they and their responsibility for the sectarian hell-hole in the North of Ireland have become largely invisible.
Britain has fought a long and costly war over the past 30 years with very clear aims. It wants to stay in Ireland. it aims to do so by restabilising the undemocratic partition of the country and maintaining the sectarian privilege which is the base for unionist support for the British presence.
The peace process rests on two big opportunities:
* The first, arising from the Sunningdale agreement, involves a new willingness by Irish capital to openly support partition.
* The second involved the collapse of the republican program and the willingness of the republican leadership to enter service under the direction of Irish capital.
There was one big obstacle – the Unionists’ program, which essentially boiled down to the military suppression of nationalism and the restoration of a full-blooded supremacy, was not a realistic basis for a settlement.
The three years of the peace process gave time for the unionists to reflect on the small shift that the British required while the republicans became accustomed to the little that was on offer from the process.
So British realism told them early on that they would have to split the unionist forces and be prepared to lose Paisley and his loyalist base.
However they were also determined not to fragment unionism and lose their base altogether, so the peace process involved the defence of unionism and of the majority of sectarian privilege within the state, winning nationalism to a junior partnership by reserving some sectarian privilege for them.
The central aspect of the peace process has always been the idea of "unionist consent" – in reality a veto over the whole process, only constrained by British pressure and the knowledge that the traditional unionist programme could not be implemented.
The breakthrough and actual agreement was when David Trimble of the Unionists, supported by the Loyalist paramilitaries of the UDA and UVF, agreed to this shift.
The referendum to copper-fasten the deal illustrated the wide ranging nature of that veto. It became clear early on that the overall outcome would depend only on the unionist vote.
So an outcome that looked like a total triumph for Britain, with over 70% voting for the agreement, was in fact the closest of close shaves. The only vote that counted to the British – between the Unionist right and ultra-right, split 45%/55% in favour of the deal.
The referendum vote illustrated the fragility and rabid bigotry of the unionist base that Britain was struggling to maintain. The bigots were reduced to campaigning on prisoner release and the likelihood that the republicans would win a place in government.
Fundamentally the deal was so pro-unionist that they were unable to find any fault with it, and were reduced to opposing it because it was a deal rather than a military offensive!
The British were able to take comfort from the massive nationalist vote in favour, the total republican collapse to a reformist program and the consequent vote for the modification of articles 2 and 3 to indicate southern Irish support for a partitionist solution.
The Assembly election
The next big test was the June Assembly election [See table]. The picture of unionist reaction emerged in even starker form.
The Official Unionists were humiliated by achieving a lower share of the vote than the SDLP, though managing to win more seats, because of the effect of transferred votes in a PR election.
Their minders in the parties representing the Loyalist paramilitaries – the UDP and PUP – lost half their vote, reducing the effect that their muscle had had in keeping Paisley and the rest of the ultraright at bay.
Paisley’s DUP, written off after the referendum, held their vote while the UK Unionists mixture of reaction and "socialist" populism made inroads in the protestant working areas that the paramilitaries had hoped to hold.
This bloc, along with 3 independent NO unionists, fell just short of the magic 30 seats needed to sabotage the complex working of the assembly. Given the public divisions of Trimble’s official unionists and the hidden no vote within that party, it was clear that the threat from the right was growing.
The divisions within unionism were offset by the avalanche of support for the agreement within the Nationalist community. A nationalist overall vote of 39% illustrated one of the totally reactionary ideas behind the vote – the idea that Catholics in the North of Ireland will simply breed their way to a united Ireland.
The ludicrous idea that biology would determine politics is contradicted by the fact that the 39% were in fact voting for an agreement that stabilised British rule and partition, and one that included within itself a unionist veto which, with British support, could be made to operate even if unionists were to become a minority.
The 17.65% vote for SInn Fein – an increase of over 2%– was greeted with delight by the republican leadership. It indicated the success of their campaign to hold their own supporters – a policy of rank opportunism that allowed a ‘free Vote’ in the referendum, followed by the patient lobbying of each individual to make sure that they then joined the canvassing teams and got their hands dirty in the election.
The success of this strategy indicates the total marginalisation of the opposition. They have been unable to explain the collapse of the republican programme, or to break from the idea of the ‘nationalist family’ with the bourgeoisie.
The only alternative that they have offered so far is back to the failed militarist strategy of bombing London and the ‘long war’. This prospect is so unappealing that it makes the Sinn Fein leadership’s reformist strategy look good.
The fact that the Sinn Fein vote increased is an indication that the organisation is still sweeping up new voters in the ghettos who in the past would not have bothered to vote.
It will have escaped the attention of the organisation that the vote probably means that they are unlikely, outside of some massive upset in the political situation, to achieve their ambition of replacing the SDLP as the major nationalist party. To do that they would have had to make inroads now, as the party of youth and peace, authors of the Stormont agreement.
In fact the agreement was so bad that their manifesto was mostly lists of things they would have liked to see in the agreement. It was the SDLP who unabashedly endorsed the actual deal, and who increased their vote also.
As the party of the bourgeoisie they will be on their home ground in the assembly and in a government. Sinn Fein will find themselves at a disadvantage in both, especially when further concessions have to be made to unionism.
Drumcree
What did unite the majority of nationalist YES voters was a silent bottom line – the Orangemen had to be stopped at Drumcree.
Drumcree symbolised all that was rotten with the old system – the public celebration of totally unrestricted sectarian privilege. The Orangemen, and they alone, were to have an unfettered right to march and mark out their territory. The task of the state forces was to assure that right and to assault and imprison in their homes any nationalists who objected.
Britain has no objection in principle to this – what it does object to is any shock that might either lead it into direct conflict with its orange base or prevent the base from functioning. The Orangemen had to be isolated if they were to be stopped.
Massive fortifications were built to prevent the bigoted RUC fraternising with the Orangemen. A puppet parades commission had to be created to absolve the RUC from blame for the ban. The Orange Order had to be linked to the minority NO vote opposing a settlement, and thus, by implication, opposed to the majority of the population.
They had to be conciliated also. Any direct contact with residents would have led to the ban being lifted. The Belfast bigots were to march in the Ormeau road. Heavy hints were dropped that conceding this years march would win the following year.
It all went wrong. The Official Unionists indicated that all unionists supported the orangemen’s sectarian privilege. Trimble was supposed to hold the line with his SDLP deputy Mallon, but disappeared from view.
The Dublin government and media panicked, and laid heavy pressure on residents to agree a march. Blair nursed the situation along with mediation –essentially scrapping the legal structures that the British had set up.
Sinn Fein offered support to an idea of civic forums to discuss grievances as a method of settlement – an idea rejected by residents.
They demobilised completely, in an all-out reliance that the British would keep their word, and supported a silent protest while the Orangemen walked the Ormeau road. Ironically the first to propose this were the Orange order. We walk, and you protest ineffectually.
What became invisible were the massed rows of RUC and the British state ready to force the Orangemen through the Ormeau Road.
In the end the Portadown Orangemen isolated themselves. Not only because of the sectarian murder of three young boys but also because of their utter indifference after the deaths became known and their attempts to smear the family with drug charges.
Now it’s payback time. The Orange state has been moved 3 millimetres from absolute sectarian privilege. It nearly fell apart. Now it has to be built up again.
Official unionists and the SDLP and Dublin government are working with the British to set up civic forums. The Orangemen can come and speak to a forum without ever speaking directly to a catholic, and the marches will then take place with the state supporting bigotry yet again.
Sinn Fein, having called for talks rather than unyielding opposition to bigotry, are in a weak position.
Trimble needs to held up against the other bigots. That means a lot of pressure on Sinn Fein to decommission – and signals that they are ready to do so. The equality agenda – the vague bits of the peace agreement that promised reform – have apparently disappeared from the legislation to be put before Westminster.
There are plenty of shocks to come. There are many contradictions in the British plans for Ireland. There are plenty of expectations that aren’t going to be met. What is missing and what gives Britain such freedom to manoeuvre is the lack of any consciousness of their role. It’s the duty of socialists to provide that understanding in the many battles ahead.