Dawn Purvis Stands up for the Bill of Rights

The Bill of Rights saga has been a total disaster, partly due to the approach taken by the Commission, and partly because unionists are averse to such a thing in the first place. Which we might consider a bit ironic given that one of the major things guaranteeing civil and religious liberty (for male Protestant property-owners anyway) under King Billy was in fact a Bill of Rights. First as tragedy, then as farce eh?

The topic came up recently in the Assembly at Stormont, with Dawn Purvis of the PUP taking the lead. Interestingly, she raised the point that the conditions that bred the Troubles – discrimination in jobs and housing among other things – would have been prevented by a strong Bill of Rights, much to the annoyance of a UUP sensitive over its shameful record. A strong and enforceable Bill of Rights has been a central plank of Workers’ Party policy in NI for decades, and remains so. So it’s good to see someone standing up for a bill of rights on class grounds, even if it is couched in terms of working class protestants.

The lack of honesty in the other unionist parties in this chamber is disheartening,” said Ms Purvis.
“Are they afraid that if the Protestant working classes fully understood and recognised their own rights, they would then have expectations of a more equitable society?
“Are they afraid that they couldn’t then deliver such a society? Or do they just not want to deliver such a society?”
She added: “The duplicity continues. Every week the parties in this chamber wax lyrical about how hard they are working on the issues they are seeing in their constituency offices.
“Problems with housing, access to medication and adequate care, mental health services, the post-primary transfer and the guarantee of a decent education.
“What exactly do they think these are? These are rights for which people are seeking protection.”

Hard to argue with a lot of that, especially when the DUP and Ulster Unionists remain hostile. Dawn Purvis was calling for a public consultation on the issue. Personally I’d rather see the government produce a bill of rights. Can’t see it happening though.

Utter Speculation. A Hung Parliament and Abstentionism.

Just thinking out loud and very speculatively in this post. Whehn Fianna Fáil decided they would establish some kind of presence in the north, they said that while they might stand for elections in the Northern Ireland Assembly, they would never seek seats at Westminster. Not, I suspect, out of any principles, for I believe they have none, but just to avoid the possibility of being in government in Dublin and negotiating with an EU partner government they were in opposition to in London. PSF long ago abandoned absentionism as a political principle, but they still refuse to take their seats at Westminster. They do, however, use the office facitilies they are entitled to there, and claim expenses. There were however noises during the expenses scandal that this arrangement would no longer be acceptable in a newly-changed climate, though the issue seems to have dropped off the radar. PSF are also of course already administering part of the UK, and so the refusal to go to Westminster is more symbolic than anything else.

I think it’s fair to say that most people expect a quite crushing Tory victory at the next UK general election. I’m one of them. Not so Michael Heseltine, who thinks that a hung parliament is more likely.

But in order to get an overall majority, David [Cameron] has got to have the biggest swing, with two exceptions, since the war.
I think David is doing a very good job, I think that the odds on him winning are significant, but the overall majority is a mountain to climb and I think he’s been absolutely right in making this point clear.
I think it’s very unlikely we’ll see a Labour government, that I do believe.
Then you come to another problem – there are not many parties… that will form any sort of relationship with the Conservatives, so the Conservatives have got to win outright or be sufficiently the largest party that there isn’t a coalition against them and they face the House of Commons, which of course will mean a relatively short Parliament.

It’s an interesting possibility. I would agree with him that there is next to no chance of a Labour victory, but if the economy takes an upturn, Labour succeed in mounting a strong campaign, and disillusioned voters chose the Liberal Democrats rather than the Tories in sufficent numbers, there might be some chance of a hung Parliament. At which point, Northern Ireland’s 18 seats may or may not prove crucial, as they proved after John Major’s narrow majority after 1992 was chipped at by by-elections and Tory splits, and the UUP forged an agreement with him.

In a hung Parliament, the seats PSF hold (now five, and likely to be the same after the next election I think) could make them a serious player in Westminster deal-making. Given that the Tories are once again unambiguously the Conservative and Unionist Party and formally allied to the UUP, and that they are likely to make savage cuts in public services and benefits in line with their underlying Thatcherism that would hurt Northern Ireland disproportionately, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that in such circumstances pressure would emerge from within northern nationalism to take the seats in Westminster to protect nationalist interests. In such a scenario, the case for retaining absentionism might well be weakened. Would pragmatic people like Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness spurn such an opportunity to have the British government dancing in part to their tune? I’m not sure. It’s likely that they would, on the grounds that it is not their job to determine the government of a country they wish to see leave Ireland. But then again, who remembers “no return to Stormont” and “not a bullet, not an ounce now”? Nothing is beyond the bounds of possibility.

Halloween: Beyond Evil

The headline doesn’t refer to Rob Zombie’s rubbish remake of John Carpenter’s classic movie. It refers to a story I saw on BBC Newsline yesterday. I wanted to post on it straight away, but it wasn’t online. However, Henry McDonald has ridden to my rescue (much to my chagrin it must be said) here. Basically, a minister of the Independent Methodist Church (the amount of splits in protestant churches suggests that all is not lost in terms of bringing Irish protestants round to the idea of a republic), Reverend Jonathan Campbell, has said that the annual Derry Halloween Festival, which sees tens of thousands of people gather in fancy dress, in Derry “makes evil look innocent”. Halloween, we are told by the good Reverend is

one of the two major days for Satanists. God’s word clearly condemns and warns people about celebrating or glorifying Halloween or the occult. One of the main reasons we as a church are opposed to the carnival is that children are being disturbed. People are being deceived – they look on it as harmless fun, but it isn’t. We are doing this because we care for the people of Londonderry, and this is harming parents, children, families in Londonderry

Now, I’m not at all averse to the idea that Derry makes evil look innocent even at the best of times. However, I can’t help but think that this is utter madness. I can’t say that I want to ruin my Halloween by seeing thousands of drunken delinquents fighting and copulating on the streets of Derry, but it is hardly a form of Satanic activity. I do wonder sometimes if the reverends who complain about Halloween, Harry Potter, rock music, dancing (but not line dancing – clearly a satanic activity) etc need to get out more. After all, the parks and the cinemas are open everywhere even on a Sunday. They can’t be that stuck for things to do, can they?

Poverty and Class in Northern Ireland

A very interesting post from WP Ard Comhairle member Justin O’Hagan over at the Irish Left Review on class and poverty in NI. The stark inequalities in NI are laid out in facts and figures. This is exactly the sort of thing the left needs to be producing more of. Definitely recommended reading.

Workers’ Party Northern Ireland Regional Conference – October 10th 2009

Below are the details of the Northern Ireland Regional Conference of The Workers’ Party. The Conference is not a policy making body, so there are no motions or the like. Instead the aim of the conference is to encourage debate among as broad a segment of left and progressive opinion as possible. All are welcome to attend and contribute.

The Workers’ Party
Northern Ireland Regional Conference

Saturday 10th October 2009

Wellington Park Hotel

Belfast

10.45am Registration

11.00am Opening Address

John Lowry, General Secretary

11.30am Opportunities for the Left in Northern Ireland

Workers Party Speaker

Chris McGimpsey: Former Ulster Unionist Party Councillor

Michael Robinson: Irish Labour Group in Northern Ireland

Incorporating Question and Answer Session

1.0pm Lunch

2.00pm Stop the Extradition of Sean Garland

Reverend Chris Hudson

2.20pm Unionism in 1969

Dr. Marc Mulholland, St Catherine’s College, Oxford

Response: Roy Garland, Member of the U.U.P. 1969

Incorporating Question and Answer Session

3.45pm Close of Conference

4.00pm Music in the Upstairs Bar

Trickle Down Economics No Answer

The Irish Left Review has a short article by the Research Section of The Workers’ Party analysing the failure of trickle down economics in Northern Ireland, in light of Peter Robinson’s declared faith in trickle down economics. Here is its conclusion, pointing to the twin failures of the current set up:

Just as the current Stormont regime has sectarianism built into its DNA, it seems as if any social democratic policy urges will be severely constrained by the privatising agenda of the UK Treasury. And nothing will trickle down to the working class.

The Poor will always be with you. Just not in your schools

Yesterday’s Irish News has details of the transfer test that will be used by the Catholic grammar schools in the north. A link to the story is here, although it will work only for a week without subscription. The Post-Primary Transfer Consortium, 34 overwhelmingly Catholic schools, is organising this test. There is of course a separate test for the state grammar schools, which are attended overwhelmingly by protestants. This “catholic” test unlike the previous test is completely multiple choice, and does not include science. So we are seeing a return to something along the lines of the old Eleven Plus that the likes of me sat, based on maths and English. The introduction of science reflected a desire to broaden the curriculum and prepare children better for secondary education, and give them a greater appreciation of the world around them. So this represents a narrowing of things tested.

That’s not the only narrrowing that will happen as a result of this private transfer test.

Parents have been provided sample mathematics and English papers and encouraged to help their children prepare.

Now, how do parents help their children prepare? Well they can do it themselves, by sitting and helping them. The new-old type of test will prove more parent-friendly than that being replaced. Or, more likely, they can hire someone to do it for £20 an hour or more. Around a third of a single person’s weekly job seeker’s allowance, to put that in perspective. So again we return to the importance of class in the transfer system. Those who can afford private tuition will pay for it, and their children are as a result much more likely to do well. This is on top of the unquantifiable educational and cultural advantages that middle-class children tend to have over their working class counterparts.

I’ve been following the debacle over academic selection since I started this blog about a year ago. Each post seems to anger me more than the last. The naked aggression of bourgeois parents seeking to protect their own dominance at the expense of working-class children doesn’t surprise me. The abject failure of those responsible to stop this happening infuriates me. Only political representatives dedicated unambiguously to the interests of the working class can offer any real alternative to the injustice of capitalist society in education or anywhere else.

Cowardly Attacks on Families

A new and even more cowardly trend has emerged in the activities of dissident terrorists against both the police and those they claim are guilty of anti-social behaviour. This is targeting the families of those who have been deemed suitable targets. First they shot in the legs the brother of a young man responsible for an horrific rape and warned they would shoot him and another brother. Now they have extended this logic to the families of policemen in Derry, with simultaneous bombings of the houses of the parents and sister of a police officer. This is terrorism, pure and simple. There can be no justification for it in the slightest. More proof, if it were needed, that these people have nothing to contribute to politics in this island. And certainly have no strategy to unite the people of Ireland.

We’ve Abolished the Eleven Plus, But You’ll Have To Sit It Anyway

Thank you very much Catriona Ruane and your party

Cedar Lounge Revolution Post on elections and the left

I’ve just put up a post on why the left in NI needs to contest elections despite the fact they result in a guaranteed kicking over at Cedar Lounge Revolution should anyone be interested.