Monthly Archives: February 2024

Troubles Amnesty Bill Further Undermined 

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Today’s High Court ruling that the Legacy Bill, which plans to offer immunity from prosecution for Troubles related offences, is in breach of the European Court of Human Rights is to be welcomed. There has been wide spread opposition to the bill from victim’s groups, relatives and political parties.

The Bill affects not just outstanding  prosecutions but new investigations and even inquests, many of them still outstanding decades after the deaths.

Full judicial scrutiny of legacy murders and other serious crimes of the Troubles has now been done away with, in actions  designed to cover up and excuse the excesses of state and terrorist actions.

It shows a total  disregard for the needs of victims, survivors and their families and, irrespective of those responsible,  provides a legal  escape route for murder.

The relatives who brought the challenge are to be congratulated and deserving of ongoing support in their struggle

‘Shared Education’ – a sectarian con trick

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Amidst all the back slapping, self-congratulations and photo opportunities which marked the official opening of the £11 million pounds  Limavady Shared Education Campus last week,  no one seemed willing to point out that the whole project was based on little more than smoke and mirrors. In fact, it was an enormous confidence trick.

The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 committed to  ” facilitate and encourage integrated education…”  Since then, both Sinn Fein and the DUP have been instrumental in sidelining the progression of integrated education and have connived to set back the integrated education project through disingenuous schemes such as their ‘shared education’ ploy.

Confirming Division

‘Shared’ education is not Integrated education. It was never meant to be. Instead, it is a deliberate and reprehensible dodge which confirms, consolidates  and copper-fastens divisions in our society at the expense of the integrated education of yet another generation of children.

The ‘Shared Education’ mirage is  a shameful, scandalous, sectarian swindle.

But as a very compliant media and its fellow travellers focus on the personal relationships between the First and Deputy First Ministers, don’t expected any in depth analysis let alone criticism of something as important as the education of our children or the continuing divisions in society.

More than 90% of schools in Northern Ireland are segregated on religious grounds, operating with de facto parallel systems for Catholics and Protestants. No more than  7% of  pupils here are educated in integrated schools.

The Cost of Division

Research estimates  that our divided education and school system costs £226m extra a year to the public purse. The  cost of division and duplication of services in education runs to about £600,000 a day.

It is an appalling indictment of our society, and of our political processes, that, 43 years after the opening of Northern Ireland’s first integrated school and 26 years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, only 7% of our pupils are taught in an integrated setting and that we continue to maintain separate teacher training colleges.

The stark reality is that, for as long as the Northern Ireland Executive is run by two major and competing sectarian power blocs, no progress will be made on integrating the education system, or indeed any other aspect of society.

There has never been a justification for the apartheid-like education of our children. There is no justification for it now.

The Olives still Bleed

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This month marks the eighty-seventh anniversary of the Battle of Jarama during the Spanish Civil War. It also marks the fifth month of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza.

Franco’s fascist nationalist forces, supported by Italy and Nazi Germany, attacked positions held by the inexperienced but heroic volunteers of the International Brigades. At the end of three weeks, the death count was high. The young poet, Charlie Donnelly, one of the brigadiers from Ireland said “even the olives are bleeding”, He was later fatally wounded.

In Gaza, the olives continue to bleed. The disgraceful “non-intervention” policy pursued by the capitalist countries during the Spanish Civil War was, in fact, intervention on the side of fascism and against democracy. 

Immediate Ceasefire

Today, that policy is continued in the shameful stance of those imperialist powers and their supporters which oppose the popular demands for an immediate ceasefire and an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.  

The deafening silence and the refusal to demand an end to the Israeli atrocities demonstrate complicity in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, the destruction of its infrastructure and the mass murder, injury and displacement of Palestinians.

That is why the Workers Party continues its protests and demands for an immediate ceasefire. Silence is complicity. Socialist internationalism demands our solidarity with the people of Palestine. Dark forces cannot be permitted to prevail.

Housing Remains a Basic Human Right

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There is, and has been for some time, a serious housing crisis in Northern Ireland.

The formation of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) in 1971 was one of the early, and significant gains, of the campaign for civil rights 

The Executive took over sole responsibility for the building, allocation, maintenance and upgrading of public housing. It was a landmark decision which was to have a profound and positive social impact.

In less than twenty years the NIHE had transformed the public housing stock in Northern Ireland with a portfolio of over 80,000 homes and providing financial assistance and grants to upgrade homes and those deemed unfit for purpose.

In 2002 the Stormont Executive revoked the NIHE’s role as sole public housing provider and transferred those powers to private housing associations – a joint enterprise between the DUP and Sinn Fein as they sought to deregulate and privatise the housing sector.

At that point there were 25,000 people on the housing waiting list. Today there are more than 45,000. Almost half are officially in housing stress and almost 16,000 are officially homeless. Last year local  Housing Associations had set themselves a target of starting to build around 2,000 houses. Only 570 were built. 

But housing is about much more than bricks and mortar. Good quality, affordable housing has a significant bearing on our health, our wellbeing, our life chances and our job prospects.

Yet, under the capitalist economy, it is treated as a commodity, is even called a ‘housing market’ and this basic human right is exploited as yet another opportunity to accumulate capital and make profit for the few while failing to guarantee the construction and maintenance of acceptable and affordable housing.

Sectarianism also plays a role in the housing crisis. Over 90% of families in public housing live in segregated areas. Sectarian trade-offs between political parties further exacerbate the crisis and the housing shortage.

The development at the former Girwood army base and the stifling of shared housing on the former Mackies site, both in Belfast, are cases in point. Only when sectarian parties and paramilitaries are forced to end their dictating of the geography of Northern Ireland can any real progress be made.

The State has a clear responsibility to all of its citizens to ensure that, not only is housing provided, but that it is accessible, affordable, of high quality and meets the physical, emotional and recreational needs of the population.

What progressive forces there are in our society should be coalescing around a basic set of demands.

Immediate Housing Priorities

  • The building of at least 6,000 units of public housing in Belfast alone, in the next four years
  • An immediate cap on rents in the private rented sector
  • The re-establishment of the NI Housing Executive as the lead housing body
  • A comprehensive and effective homelessness strategy
  • A qualified, low interest, Government mortgage scheme for owner occupiers to replace the exploitative profiteering of the big six banks and the buy to profit landlords

Raising Revenue – its already there !

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Decades of social progress and social supports are about to be wiped out and working people will, once again, be left to face the consequences.

It is workers and their families, through so-called ‘Revenue Raising’ ‘measures, who will be left to make up the underfunding in the Northern Ireland budget while bankers, big businesses and multi-national corporations are, once again, let off the hook to profit and prosper.

We are about to witness the further erosion of our public services, our social security provision and our places of knowledge and inquiry, as they are targeted as cash cow commodities.

Money Talks

This is not about a lack of money in the financial system. Just as it was when the International Monetary Fund, The European Central Bank and the European Commission – or the Troika as they were known – moved in on the Republic of Ireland, Greece and Portugal in the wake of the Euro crisis in 2008, the Treasury at Westminster is saying, if you need financial assistance  to re-inflate your economy then it will be on our terms, not on your terms nor those of your elected Assembly.

This is a deliberate, political and ideologically driven decision by the Tory party and a move that, if not openly supported, then one not particularly opposed by the Executive parties at Stormont. Rhetoric, manifesto promises and grandstanding are one thing – reality is another.

Hit List

The financial ransom list will almost certainly demand the introduction of additional water charges, reduced welfare benefits, the withdrawal of over 60s concessionary travel, prescription charges, paying to see your GP, bin collection charges and higher tuition fees.

That may only be the tip of the iceberg. As the screw is turned on publicly funded services, then the arts, libraries, museums, leisure centres and parks all become potential targets for the withdrawal of funding or the introduction of charges.

The money exists to fund and develop our public services and social supports. It can be made available. But the opportunity to further advance the Tory agenda of privatisation and the ongoing erosion of the public sector while advancing the interests of big businesses is being pursued instead at our expense.

War Chest

If the UK were to engage in yet another US or NATO led war against countries like Iraq, Iran, Yemen or elsewhere, the money for missiles, air strikes and boots-on-the-ground would be made available immediately and it would be used.

Locally, the Executive parties will plead that they have no options, they have no choices open to them and no levers to pull. They have, but they won’t use them.

The Costs of Segregation

The Executive parties have been happy to lay the blame exclusively at Westminster’s door step, yet have taken no steps themselves to ensure the provision of public services.

Maintaining ‘peace’ walls across Northern Ireland costs £1.5 billion every year. Segregated education, and the deliberate decision of Sinn Fein and the DUP in particular, to maintain and protect it, costs us over £220 million annually. Relocating that money to address immediate social need would do for a start.

The one button that they are all keen to push is the lowering of Corporation Tax. It would mean multinational corporations and local big businesses paying less tax – millions of pounds less tax – but it would not guarantee one single new job in return and the percentage reduction would in turn be taken back from Northern Ireland’s block grant.

Serial Underfunding

Northern Ireland, and particularly its infrastructure, was underfunded throughout the period of the Troubles. Additionally, the past decade and a half has witnessed the planned and systematic withdrawal of funding for public services.

The formula by which we receive our devolved budget is no longer fit for purpose. We are not being funded for our assessed need, which includes the mental health legacy of the Troubles, and the current shortfall is costing us up to £400 million per year.

Taking a stand – keeping a focus

Of course, we must stand up and oppose even more cuts to services, the introduction of costs for GP appointments, water services, and the withdrawal of the over 60s travel pass. But we must also apply pressure, in the numbers and with the determination we saw in recent days of industrial action, for the transformation of the funding model and for the recognition of people’s true assessed need.

Ultimately, what all of this highlights is that a capitalist system based on profit, over production, and exploitation can never be reformed.

Only a class-based socialist economy can deliver for working class people. As we engage in the necessary battles, we must always remain focussed on that longer term target.

Time for Working People to Set the Agenda

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The past  few years have been difficult and challenging times. Not because there has been no Assembly for five out of the last seven, but because working people have been forced to bear the brunt of bailing out the banks, a cost-of-living crisis, energy inflation, run down  public services, declining  living standards, rising rents and falling wages.

But for the main Assembly parties none of those matter.

As the Executive settles in for the next round of government, their agenda is already written: and it doesn’t feature the future, the fortunes or the wellbeing of working people.

Their headline economic priorities will be reducing corporation tax for multi-national corporations, setting up  tax haven enterprise zones for businesses and cutting business rates. Their priorities will not be about addressing the needs of working people. Those ‘concerns’ were the promises of a non-Assembly. With an Executive reformed they can be forgotten and the default agenda applied.

Further hardships

Further financial hardships are likely to be forced on to workers and their families through increased tuition fees in further education, significant rises in domestic rates and the withdrawal of the over 60’s free travel pass

The days of pleading. asking and arguing for a better deal for working people must end now. The power, industrial muscle and political clout of the organised working class in recent times has been evident and unmistakable.

At least 25% of the population is living in poverty: 10,000 children 220,000 working-age adults, and 40,000 pensioners and as many as 50% of households are in fuel poverty. These are the daily realities.

More people, particularly women, are dependent on insecure, part-time employment and often zero hours contracts. More people than ever, who are in employment, need benefits to top up the money they earn in our low wage economy. Workers’ rights are eroded and undermined.

Securing tangible gains

The collective power that we have witnessed on picket lines and rallies now demands to be focussed on challenging the business agendas of the major parties. It must be utilised to secure tangible gains for workers in the economy, in public services, utilities, health, education, transport and in a significantly improved quality of life.

The challenge now must be  to present a credible, class-based socialist alternative for workers, their families and their futures.

It is time we moved on from challenging the corporate agenda of all the Executive parties and started to write our own. It’s time for the working class to determine its own future.