The defeat of Brian Faulkner at the Ulster Unionist Council last Friday was the most predictable political event of 1974. The split which will inevitably emerge from this defeat will be the logical outcome of the process which was initiated by Direct Rule, and the final shattering of the Unionist monolith will rank with the smashing of the old Stormont Parliament as one of the historic milestones during this phase of the Irish struggle.
Traditionally, the Unionist Party was a cross-class party which integrated all sections of the protestant community, and this was reflected in its corporatist structure, Class and sectional conflicts were resolved within the twin doctrines of the Union with Britain and the protes tant ascondancy. When the State was founded these were interdependent, the protestant owned industry in the north-cast of Ireland, and the prospect of a 'normal" Conservative Party the livelihood of the protestant aristocracy of labour depended on unrestricted access to the British market. The changing pattern of British economic policy, the greater importance of the South of Ireland for British capitalism, and the heavy investment of capital from the North of Ireland in British industry, implying an Integration with British capital, created a cone fict of interest within Unionism. The big protestant bourgeoisie was dragged willy-nilly behind the British re-orientation, while small protestant capital-consisting of large numbers of tamily busineses, the protestant petitbourgroisie, the protestant skilled working class, and the protestant lumpen proletariat Stormont well protected behind barbed wire continued to demand a privileged position for the protestants.
an important clement in the British strategy. For a whole period the long term aims of the British Government were frustrated by the need to work through the State institutions of Northern Ireland in order to keep the Unionist Party together, This meant that all of its initiatives had to go through the sectarian mill before implementation. They were thus unable to win a hase of support in the catholic middle class, and were prevented from working more closely with the Free State bourgeoisie, After the Bloody Sunday massacre in 1971 and the mass response which this evoked, British Imperialism decided that the Unionist Party must be sacnificed in order to pursue these other aims.
The British Press has been licking its lips at in the North of Ireland, led by Faulkner. Toey work on the rule of thumb that the more closely a political system resembles that of Britain the better it is. But Faulkner understands that things are not that simple, He is reluctant to announce a new party just yet, Support for his policies rests with a thin upper crust of Unionist capital, and a scarcely more suhstantial layer of'enlightened" middle class protestants. Meanwhile the traditional mass base of Unionism remains opposed to his policies.
Nevertheless a split is inevitable. The Unionist Party means nothing without protestant politics in a protestant parliament for a protestant people. The Batish Government, however, has gone too far along its present path to turn back in order to re-unite the Unionist Parly around Brian Faulkner, particularly when an clection can be put off for nearly five years, EXTRA-PARLIAMENTARY UNIONISM Faulkner has sufficient forces in the Assembly to maintain the Executive, and to bold on lo power until constitutionally forced into an election. But the perspectives of those who defeated him do not include parliamentary action-such action is quite outside their world view. However if the extra-parliamentary protestant opposition were to put effective pressure on the British Government, the antiFaulkner parliamentary Unionists would be the beneficiaries of the resulling shill by British imperialism, back to maintenance of the protestant ascendancy.
But there has been a serious weakening of the mass protestant organisations. The DA marched up the hill to a controntation with the British Army just over a year ago, and fell head over heels down again; its spine snapped before the British publication of the new deal to replace Direct Kule, The explanation is simple, although not simple enough for some on the British left who insisted that the L'DA represented a threat so terrible as to make appeasement by the catholics necessary. Resis tance to the British Government and the British Army, by. Logalists could only produce the most scute political schizophrenia. The mass of the protestant working class shrank back into passivity. The break up of the UIDA as an elective mass movement was completed by the actions of judiciously intiltrated British agents.
Firstly, from the end of Fehruary there is The following Jerter has been sent by the International Marxist Group to Labour Weekly.
Party.
Dear Cdes, As you are aware the TUC has called a special conference of union general secretaries and attacks on the working class but at the same time in a situation of great potential for the working class movement. This special conference is therefore an important event in the life lobby of the special conference must be the demand that this TUC meeting call a general for such a lobby of all organisations which are prepared to call on the special conference to call for a General Strike. Such a joint campaign should consist both of national and local meetings, a joint platform for a meeting at the lobby on this theme, joint resolution for presenting in trade union branches, and so on. We would propose that a meeting be held as soon as possible of all organisations which agree to this proposal to plan this campaign.
If your organisation or supporters of your newspaper agree to this proposal we would as possible a time for a joint meeting.
Continued resistance was left to the small underground milirary organisations the UVF. the UFF, the Red Hand Commandoes, and sumilar diseased animals. Their campaign consisted almost entirely of sectarian murders against catholics, although here again the operations of British agents, in particular the Military Reaction Force, played a role PARANOID UNIONISM With the Sunningdale agreement, the British Army and the RUC rake on a different political complexion. In the puranoid world of exirene Loyalism These forces ase now seen as the direct agents of a united Ireland, and action agains! them becomes a consistent and logical defence of the protestant ascendanes We have therefore seen some isolated actions against the British Army and the RUG. by protestants, in the last two weeks. If the UVE were to call off their cease-fire these would escalate.
Bul althoush these underground groups have broad sympathy among protestanis, particularly in the lumpen proletariat, they do not have the saine kind of relationslap to the Shankill or Sandy Row as the IRA does to Anderstown or Ballymurpby. They consist of small isolated. gangs whose politics have been formed by protestant sectarian traditions, and whose prychology is twisted by the sick society which has dominaled the Norih East of Ireland, but who do not represent a potential mass morement, Tribune, the Labour Party Young Socialists, the Cormunist Party, and the organisations of the revolutionary left, including the international Socialists and the Workers Revolutionary presidents on January 16th, This meeting takes place at a time of unprecedented government of the working class and it is necessary that the maximum forces are organised to express the need for this meeting to take decisive action. This means the need for the largest possible mass lobby of the conferenor. At present the aim of the government and the employers is to divide the working class and centralise the forces of the state against sach group of workers individual. ly. For this reason we believe that the policy which must be called for is the maximum possible unification of struggle, The highest form of such unification, and therefore the one with the greatest possible power, is a General Strike. We therefore believe that the main demand of the strike. Many militant sections of the working class will be prasent on such a lobby and clearly the maximum possible unity around this demand has the best chance of winning these sections of the working class to the demand for a General Strike. We therefore propose a joint campaign undertake, in collaboration with all organisations accepting this proposal, to set up as rapidly ACROBATIC UNIONISM The mass of the protestants are likely to transter their allegiance to the party led by the unpledged Unionists. Bur they will find themselves clinging to a broken reed, and the fragmentation of Unionism will get worse before it gets eliminated. Such is the ideologic al vacuum created by the collapse of the traditional Unionist Party that all kinds of bits of ideas will be stuck together, by all kinds of groupings and individuals, in order . to re-create a political base fot a protestant party. The graceful are described by Desmond Boal's leap from Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party to advocacy of in 'Amalgamated Ireland' is less startling than the acrobatics of his former collaborator, who has jumped from ice-foe to ice-floe as the Unionist monolith has broken This should not be confused with an evolution to progressive or socialist policies by a section of the protestants. Their ideas do not develop logically, and so fur no significant section of the protestants has broken trom either of the two rectionary planks of Unionism. But the ideolog cal crisis and class differentistion within Unionisni does represent a step closer to workang class unity, altough this can only take place on the basis of an all Ireland strugge anst British Imperialism and sectional privilege, as well as Unionist and Free Stute capicalisin.
BOB FURD E
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united lobby of TUC meeting