Posturing or Prophesy?

The resignation of Ian Paisley has been widely reported as representing no threat to the power sharing institutions of the St. Andrews Agreement. This is something of a puzzle since Paisley’s resignation is in no small part a result of the Dromore by-election, which saw a substantial minority of unionist voters register their complete opposition to power sharing. It is not much of a surprise therefore that the London ‘Times’ has revealed the British government’s real concern for the future of the power sharing deal.

It stated that ‘The timing of his [Paisley’s] loss is profoundly unfortunate. The new institutions have been reasonably well established but cannot be described as secure. It would have been in the best interests of Northern Ireland if the First Minister could have stayed in place for at least another six months, entrenching the DUP-Sinn Fein accord further in the process, dealing with the controversial transfer of policing and justice to the Province and seeing through the summer marching season.’ The ‘Times’ went on ‘If Mr Robinson starts to find artificial fights with those who should be his partners then this will be reciprocated. And if that occurs, a fragile political bargain that serves the wider interests of Protestants and Catholics alike may be imperilled. Mr Robinson needs to state unequivocally that he intends to make the new arrangements work and that extremists who disagree with him can take their leave of the DUP.’

Peter Robinson however might recall that previous unionist leaders have come a cropper by going along with British demands, and that Paisley didn’t get where he was - to be top of the unionist pile - by compromising with Irish nationalism. The Dromore by-election was simply a reminder of this. The votes for the most blistering opponents of the current deal were of course a minority but Paisley also stated off in a much smaller minority.

No sooner had this warning been issued but Robinson revealed the end game of the DUP, indeed of all unionism, by stating that they aimed to dispense with power sharing altogether and head towards majority rule, i.e. unionist rule – ‘a far more normal democracy‘ he said. This is one hell of a sham fight to pick. The media have stayed true to their servile support for British policy by passing over this statement almost in silence. Certainly the threat to destroy the existing institutions by the putative leader of the biggest party has hardly received the attention it deserves. Nationalism has closed its eyes and hopes it’s all posturing. I think however this might be what SDLP politicians call ‘Sunningdale for slow learners’, thinking themselves ever so smart, but totally forgetting what happened to Sunningdale in the end.

It would also have been better for Sinn Fein if it too pretended that Robinson hadn’t said what he actually did say. Their response has been so weak as to reveal nakedly their limp prostration in front of the DUP. With Paisley having just revealed that the ‘chuckle brothers’ of himself and Martin McGuinness were not getting on quite so famously – he never refereed to McGuinness by name but only as ‘deputy’ and never once shook his hand; Paisley also crowed that he had in fact achieved his long standing election battle cry of "smashing Sinn Fein."

Much ridiculed because the Sinners are now in government, Paisley’s logic is pretty compelling. ‘I did smash them because I took away their main plank. Their main plank was that they would not recognise the British government. They can’t be true republicans when they now accept the right of Britain to govern this country and to take part in that government.’ As the ‘Times’ put it: ‘Bobby Sands and nine other men did not starve themselves to death so that Mr McGuinness could play the lesser role in a Chuckle Brothers routine within the United Kingdom,’ except that is what has happened.

Gerry Adams warned the DUP not to pick ‘sham and phoney fights with Sinn Fein.’ Why? Because this would frighten away foreign investment! The same foreign investment that isn’t coming in the first place. So no mention of what Sinn Fein would actually do to protect its position in government. Instead Adams stated, after having even been prevented from holding a commemoration for a republican volunteer at Stormont, that ‘republicans have been banned and censored and excluded before. Banned as a political party; banned from our city centre; banned from the airways; banned and demonised and vilified, and we came through it all.’

But isn’t all that supposed to belong to the past? Aren’t they now in government? Isn’t that supposed to mean an end to such things? Why are they now banned from certain places – Stormont’s Long Gallery; banned from the airways – unionist prevented cameras from accessing any attempt to film their commemoration anywhere else at Stormont? And what about the constant vilification, not to mention of humiliation, of Sinn Fein by the DUP – who continue to boast that they have ‘smashed’ the republicans?

Anyone who wants to write all this off as simple posturing hasn’t been paying attention over the last forty years. What do they call it? The triumph of wishful thinking over experience?

Paisley Won the War

The following article has been sent to us by US socialist Matt Siegfried. He is a regular contributor to the SD website.

After 45 years as Northern Ireland’s leading demagogue the 82 year old sectarian preacher Reverend Doctor Ian Paisley has exited the political stage. He has resigned, as of May, his position as Stormont’s First Minister as well as Leader of his Democratic Unionist Party. He is Reverend of the Free Presbyterian Church, which can only be described as a shrill caricature of fundamentalist hokum and evangelical brimstone. He will hold on to his honorary Doctorate in Divinity bestowed upon him by the racist Bob Jones University.

Since his rival David Trimble and the Ulster Unionists along with the Good Friday Agreement fell, in large part, to his opposition, Paisley reconstructed the GFA with the pliant agreement of Sinn Fein into an even more sectarian and unionist agreement. Through the provisions of the October, 2006 Saint Andrew’s Agreement Ian Paisley became First Minister in a devolved Stormont regime. The structures of this regime are premised on a sectarian division. To create positions to fill it has more ministers, more members and more expenses than any other political entity its size. This large bureaucracy is perfect for handing out positions and sweetening pots. The Welsh and Scottish Assemblies have much more self rule than the one that sits in Ireland. Northern Ireland’s union with Britain is guaranteed by the Agreement and the Assembly itself carries a dual Unionist/British veto. It’s always potentially only a phone call away from collapsing if the Fenians ever get out of line.

Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness has taken the job of Ian Paisley’s Deputy. Together they have become known as the “Chuckle Brothers” as they knee slap with George Bush and cut the opening ribbon to tacky shopping developments in Belfast. McGuinness’s lack of dignity not withstanding, the former IRA Commander sits as a Minister of the British Crown. This erstwhile revolutionary who once was at war with the very idea of a Stormont administers its rule. Sinn Fein still have the shamelessness to claim to be socialists as they partner with Ian Paisley, who believes the world is four thousand years old, the pope is the anti-Christ and who once led a “Save Ulster from Sodomy” campaign. The DUP is the most right-wing party in power in Western Europe and Sinn Fein “chuckle” as they administer the rule of a thoroughly capitalist British state with them.

Ireland of today, North and South, is vastly different than it was even ten years ago. The war the IRA waged against British rule is clearly over. Southern Ireland’s integration into the European Union has seen it grow economically. This once economic basket case now has one of the highest standards of living in Europe. Immigration trends have reversed and instead of Ireland being a point of departure it for the New World or Australia it has become a place of arrival for hundreds of thousands of workers from the newly EU countries of the east like Poland and Lithuania.

But Ireland remains partitioned and Northern Ireland remains firmly British. Northern Ireland cannot help but be based on sectarianism because partition, British rule, requires it. What has been achieved in the North is a rebalancing of sectarian privilege not its destruction. Sinn Fein has readily accepted this formula which necessitated their abandonment of all but the title of Irish Republicanism. But the problem with basing solutions on sectarian privilege is that it requires consensus and in the Stormont context that means a reactionary neo-liberal policy with no opposition.

It is also the nature of sectarian division to be unequal, otherwise there is no justification for the division. The unionist will always have the veto and the British state to back them up on whatever question should arise. The use of that veto to scuttle the attempt at an Irish Language act late last year proves the point. If even the Irish language isn’t to be recognized how can Irish speakers? Sectarian benefits are doled out with precision. EU funds in particular are apportioned out to any number of projects defined by community or intercommunity, which can amount to the same thing since it is also premised on sectarian division. More than a few former guerillas now man these well funded community centers. Foreign investment and economic growth have not led to a single integrated school in Ireland or a single one of the “Peace Walls” to come down.

As I watched BBC Northern Ireland’s Spotlight on Tuesday as the substance of Paisley resignation began to seep in I was struck at the tone of the Unionists about Paisley’s legacy. Nigel Dodds of Paisley’s DUP and potential successor as party leader made it perfectly clear that from his perspective what was to celebrate about Paisley’s life was Paisley’s commitment to the Union and Unionist dominance within that Union. Far from a surrender to Sinn Fein, Dodds said, Paisley and the DUP had got them to not only drop their opposition to British rule but to be junior partners in its administration thus tying them politically to the fate of the union. Ironically, this is the same critique that many Republicans who disagree with the strategy Adams and McGuinness would invoke. His tone was one of bigoted triumphalism over the defeated nationalists. They would never see a united Ireland he said, and their leaders had even agreed to it.

There is nothing to celebrate in the life or politics of Ian Paisley. He has represented the worst kinds of divisions wrought by imperialism on Ireland. And no attempt to stand on the St. Andrews Agreement as history’s vindication will work. The agreement institutionalized a state that is a labyrinth of sectarianism and meaningless dispensations. It closes hospitals, cuts funding to education and pursues all of the devastating policies of neo-liberalism. Paisley’s gift to Ireland was almost 50 years of fighting for Protestant supremacy and Unionist rejection. That he became First Minister in his old age of a state with his former enemies that enshrined supremacy and rejection is no sign of change.

Though the war is over and I can’t imagine the circumstances that could reignite it, the state in the North is unstable. The pressures from within one side or the other could break down the consensus required to the balancing act. Due in large part to Sinn Fein’s malleability the balancing act may continue to work for a time. No balancing act lasts forever.

Unlike another Ian in another British colony Paisley wouldn’t go down like Rhodesia’s Ian Smith. Whatever clouds he may leave under and whatever may befall his party and their government one thing is clear after thirty-five years of strife; Ian Paisley won the war.

Matt Siegfried

DUP dumps Paisley Jnr – can daddy be far behind?

The first ministerial casualty of the power-sharing executive came this week with the resignation of Ian Paisley Jnr. His departure from the post of junior minister in the Office of the First Minister came on the back of yet more revelations about his financial dealings.

The latest one revolved around the rental of a DUP constituency office in Ballymena. A response to a freedom of information request disclosed that Ian Paisley Jnr and his father are each receiving £28,600 per year for the Church Street office. This combined total of £57,200 for one property is almost three times higher than the next highest MLA claim. It was further revealed that the mortgage for this property had been initially secured by developer and DUP member Seymour Sweeney. For a period he was the sole director of the company (Sacron) that purchased it. That company was subsequently transferred to Ian Paisley’s Jnr’s father-in-law.

Through the rental of this office, the Paisley’s were effectively giving a thousand pounds a week (claimed as expenses) to one of their relatives. Paisley Jnr stated that the money was being used by his father-in-law's company to repay the mortgage. However, given the extremely high rent being charged, it wouldn’t take long to pay off a mortgage. In a relatively short time period his father in law would own the property - any money accrued after that would be pure profit.

Another example of Paisley Jnr’s milking of the public purse came just last week with the revelation that he was receiving a salary as his father’s parliamentary researcher in addition to his MLA and ministerial salaries. He was taking three salaries for what is essentially one job.

However, these were just the latest in a series of controversies that surrounded Paisley Jnr during his tenure as a minister. Others included his St Andrews list that appeared to link the restoration of devolution to progress on a number of pet projects in his north Antrim constituency. There was the lobbying for a privately owned visitors’ centre at the Giants Causeway, and the attempt to influence a government department over the sale of public land. The developer and DUP member Seymour Sweeney was an interested party in both schemes. What is common to all of these is the accruement of benefits for the Paisley’s, their relatives and their supporters, at the expense of the public.

However, Ian Paisley Jnr’s dodgy dealings do not in themselves account for his resignation. He had given every indication that he would brazen it out. It was assumed that being the son the DUP leader and First Minister would protect him. There was no opposition from other parties to his continued presence in Government. This prompted SDLP deputy leader Alasdair McDonnell to ask: "Why was it always left to journalists to dig out the truth under the Freedom of Information Act?" Of course he did not offer an answer. This would have exposed the bankruptcy, not only of his party, but of the whole set up at Stormont.

What really did for Paisley Jnr was the opposition of senior members of his own party. This came to a head over the weekend at a meeting of six of its MPs to discuss the Dromore by-election defeat. They told Paisley to resign or face a party disciplinary hearing. Against this background Paisley’s resignation can be seen as the most immediate ramification of the DUP’s debacle. However, his probity was not the major factor in Dromore by-election. It was opposition to power sharing and the strong showing of Jim Allister’s TUV that damaged the DUP. The dumping of Paisley Jnr therefore has a political significance well beyond the immediate claims of improbity made against him. The whole basis of the St Andrews settlement is now in question.

He was offered up as a sacrifice to assuage that section of the DUP’s supporters who are now in revolt against its participation in the power sharing executive. The problem for the DUP is that opposition from this quarter is unlikely to be diminished by such gestures. Paisley Jnr’s resignation was immediately dismissed by Jim Allister. He said that it would “not be enough to redeem the DUP with the unionist electorate.” For him the “fundamental problem” was the “policy of having IRA/Sinn Fein at the heart of government.” He warned that unless this policy was reversed the DUP’s decline would continue.

The departure of Ian Paisley Jnr is undoubtedly a blow to his father. It diminishes his political authority and increases his vulnerability. All the criticisms attached to his son can be just as easily be attached to him. Paisley and his chuckle brothers’ routine is now the primary the focus of unionist opposition to power sharing.

Ten months ago Ian Paisley was considered to be at the zenith of his political career. He had triumphed over his unionist rivals, forced the disbandment of the IRA, and was sitting at the head of settlement that was very favourable to unionists. He was master of the political landscape. Now he looks to be on the way out – forced from the post of party leader and First Minister by a growing revolt among his own supporters.

This turn of events punctures the assumption which has underpinned the St Andrews (and the Good Friday Agreement before that) – that if a settlement had the endorsement of Paisley (or Trimble in the case of the latter) then unionists would accept it. The reality is that there remains a solid core of unionists who will not accept any form of power sharing no matter how favourable. They will not be appeased by the departures of the Paisleys or new faces at the top of the party.

Paisley’s little list

Given the thoroughly corrupt character of the political settlement in the north the exposure of the sordid dealings that accompanied its inception at the St Andrews talks should not come as a surprise. Some of these have now been revealed in a ministerial letter released under the Freedom of Information Act.

This letter was a response by one of direct rule ministers at the time to a “shopping list” of demands from the DUP’s Ian Paisley Jnr. The demands raised by Paisley were pure pork barrel politics - all related to commercial activities with his own north Antrim constituency. They included planning approval for a "resort spa" including "200 homes"; a request for "private sector land to be included in development" of the new visitors centre at the Giant's Causeway; and a suggestion that a judicial review of lands in Ballee be dropped. The letter concluded with an assurance that Tony Blair’s government would "try to respond positively" to the requests, that the letter itself should be regarded as a “statement of intent". The clear inference of such correspondence is that the restoration of devolution would be eased by a favourable response.

Ian Paisley Jnr claimed that that these dealings were on the “margins” of the talks and that he was merely taking the opportunity to raise issues pertinent to his constituents. However, when his “shopping list” is examined it is clear that its items relate to one constituent in particular. Two of the projects listed are linked to the millionaire developer and DUP member Seymour Sweeney.

The judicial review of the sale of land in Ballee related to a dispute between the Department of Social Development over how much landowners would have to pay for the return of land that had been vested in the 1970s. The legal action taken by landowners, which was subsequently the subject of a review, was backed by Sweeney. At the time Paisley was lobbying for the review to be halted Sweeney and his associates were offering just £9m for the land. The court battle was eventually settled in June 2007 when a £50m price was agreed. For a party that supposedly supports law and order (with Paisley Jnr as its justice spokesperson) the DUP was very relaxed about such an overtly political intervention in the judicial process.

The case of the Causeway visitors centre is better known, with the attempts by the DUP to scupper the long standing commitment to a publicly owned centre in favour of a private development owned by Sweeney. The subsequent decisions by DUP ministers on the Causeway are consistent with the demands made by the Paisleys’ in their lobbying of British ministers. What these cases have in common is that despite the rhetoric about benefitting the constituency, all the benefit accrues to Sweeney. In both cases the public loses out.

Despite the allegations of sleaze and corruption building up around the DUP, Paisley’s Jnr in particular, there is very little criticism from other parties. Obscure backbnmcnhers are allowed to make minor criticisms. But without backing from the party leadership their opposition is merely tokenistic. When asked to comment on the Paisley shopping list, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams made some pious statement about his party not being interested in side deals but the common good. This is nonsense. Sinn Fein have made numerous side deals with the British. Most of these have either collapsed, such as the On the Run legislation, or been reneged upon, as in a case of the devolution of policing and justice powers. The difference with the DUP’s side deals is that are actually delivered upon. Four of the six demands on Paisley’s wish list have been granted!

Given the lack of real opposition, scandals such this are unlikely to destabilise the settlement. However, they do serve a useful purpose as they erode the illusions that workers may have in the Assembly. Such a process is as essential element of building a new opposition movement.

Stormont leaders pay homage to Bush

As an exercise in sycophancy and cretinism the visit by Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness to the US plumbs new depths (even by Irish standards). They resembled a pair of wide eyed first century provincial peasants who suddenly find themselves in Imperial Rome. Given the relationship between the US and Ireland, this is a very appropriate analogy.

The ostensible purpose of the trip was to drum up support for an investment conference that is to take place in Belfast early next year. This mission was therefore very much in line with the current economy strategy of the Executive which identifies foreign capital (particularly US) as the main engine of development. As a means of attracting US companies to the north the Executive is busy diverting funds from the health and housing budgets to create incentives (publically funded handouts) for them to locate here. All this is summed up in the breezy phrase “Northern Ireland is open for business”; a phrase regularly repeated by various minsters.

This is the essential message that Paisley and McGuiness brought to the New York Stock Exchange as they addressed an audience of company chief executives at its Wall St headquarters. Paisley tried to ingratiate himself by describing himself as “a businessman of God.” However, he was soon turning his attention to more worldly matters in a meeting with billionaire property developer Donald Trump about locating a golf course on the Antrim coast. This came on the back of Aberdeenshire Council rejecting a similar proposal for the west coast of Scotland. Trump’s plans to rip up a stretch of the coastline to create a Disneyland style had provoked understandable hostility from locals. However, no such objections crossed the mind of Paisley, he was all for it. Such enthusiasm should not be surprising given his associations with north coast property developers. Maybe he envisaged Trump linking up with Seymour Sweeney to create a course that incorporated the Giants Causeway! More likely Trump was playing him for a patsy to put pressure on the Scottish Executive to overturn the local planning decision and approve his proposal.

That Trump’s golf course was the main talking point of the visit to New York demonstrates the lack of substance to the mission. They won no firm investment commitments from any US companies’ only promises to attend a conference. Yet the conference itself is actually a cover for the lack of investment that has taken place. For the promised economic peace dividend, which envisaged billions of dollars of investment flowing into the north, has not materialised. There has actually been a flow of capital out of the north, with foreign owned companies such as Seagate moving to even lower cost economies. With the US economy now on the edge of a recession the prospect of major investment is even more remote.

Having paid homage at the seat of economic power Paisley and McGuinness rounded off their trip with a visit to Washington DC- the seat of political power. Here they were granted an audience with Emperor (President) Bush. They also managed to fit in a photo opportunity with Hillary Clinton; no doubt designed to boost her flagging presidential campaign. Paisley and McGuinness were at their most obsequious when meeting Bush, laughing at his lame jokes and praising him to the heavens. Paisley thanked the President and said that he looked “forward to good dealings between our little country and yours”. Not to be outdone in the crawling stakes McGuinness said he was “delighted and overjoyed” to meet Bush and expressed his “deepest thanks and appreciation to you and your administration”. They should have just prostrated themselves on the floor before Bush.

This was a truly sick making performance from the pair. In fawning over Bush they were lending credibility to a political leader loathed by people all over the world, including in the US itself, for waging war, destroying civil rights, whipping up racism and attacking the poor. They even offered support for the war in Iraq with Paisley mentioning that Royal Irish Regiment soldiers were stationed there, and McGuinness agreeing to take part in further talks with Iraqi leaders to sell the US plan for the pacification of the country. For his part Bush got to wash his hands in the cleansing waters of the Irish peace process.

It should come as no surprise that Ian Paisley should engage in kow towing to Bush. After all Paisley is a pro-imperialist, right wing bigot; he and Bush are political bedfellows. The most severe condemnation must be reserved for Martin McGuinness and Sinn Fein who are still claiming to be of “the left” and “anti-imperialist”. How empty such rhetoric appears when set against the images of McGuinness with Bush and the neo-liberal polices being pursued by the Stormont Executive. The more they get integrated into the settlement the more right wing Sinn Fein become. That this settlement now has the endorsement of Bush is surely a clear indicator of its rottenness.