29.05.1997

Sinn Féin shakes British arrogance

As the IRA’s ‘undeclared ceasefire’ continues, Sinn Féin’s negotiating hand was strengthened by its excellent results in the Six Counties local elections.

For the first time in Northern Ireland’s history unionists lost overall control of Belfast city council as both the Ulster Unionist Party and Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party lost ground. Another big loser was the Social Democratic and Labour Party - up to now the undisputed biggest recipient of nationalist votes.

Sinn Féin’s share increased to 16.9% across the Six Counties - 4.5% more than in the previous local elections and even better than its general election support, when it polled a record 16.1%. In Belfast it is now the equal largest group on the council alongside the UUP, with l3 representatives each, and in Derry it won three seats from the SDLP, depriving it of overall control. SF’s total representation across the Six Counties rose from 51 to 74.

The party did not of course gain votes directly from the mainstream unionist parties - the UUP and DUP lost out to organisations linked to paramilitary groups, the Progressive Unionist Party and the Ulster Democratic Party. These two won 10 seats between them in Belfast, giving unionists of one kind or another only 25 places on the 5l-seat council. However, in practice the Alliance Party, which claims to speak for both catholics and protestants, also supports the status quo in the form of the existing UK state, leaving an overall pro-British majority in Belfast.

Undoubtedly the results are a blow to British imperialism, which has all along tried to portray the IRA as a handful of mindless terrorists, isolated from the mass of the nationalist population. But now SF looks set to replace the SDLP as the main nationalist party, and not just among the working class. Some British commentators have tried to suggest that catholics had been fooled by Gerry Adams’ smooth talk into believing that there is no longer any connection between SF and the IRA. And British newspapers have been happy to imply that the party’s vote had been exaggerated by widespread vote-rigging. There is no evidence that such practices as impersonation had been used more in last week’s election than in the past, nor that SF’s supporters employ them more than any others.

The truth is that SF/IRA’s policy of using both the bullet and the ballot box has been successful in winning it support. It has also been successful in edging it ever nearer to full-blown direct negotiations with the British government, to a situation where SF will be a major player in talks leading towards an agreed settlement.

This does not mean that British imperialism is about to be forced out of Ireland. The ‘peace process’ is about the IRA ending its heroic resistance to the British occupation in exchange for concessions - perhaps including the setting up of new all-Ireland institutions. The fact that SF is looking to the USA to supervise the process emphatically shows that any settlement will be overwhelmingly on imperialist terms.

Both Martin McGuiness for SF and Mo Mowlam, secretary of state for Northern Ireland, have referred to the “complication” of the Irish general election on June 6. McGuinness said: “Many people ... are very conscious about that and about the need for those elections to be out of the way.” Just as no substantive steps towards a settlement could be taken before the British election produced a clear government majority, so the uncertainty of the political balance in Dublin means progress must wait for a few more weeks.

A settlement depends on carrying the widest possible acceptance in Britain, the Six Counties and the Irish Republic. The marginalisation of the Paisleyites on the one hand and intransigent anti-imperialists on the other must also be completed.

Jim Blackstock