The general election in the north of Ireland has served to further deepen the crisis in the Irish peace process. Ian Paisley has cemented his position as the leading voice of Unionism, obtaining one in three of all votes cast in the Six Counties on the basis of his refusal to share power with Sinn Fein. Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) now has nine Westminster MPs compared to only one from the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). The UUP leader and former north of Ireland First Minister, David Trimble, lost his seat and has resigned as party leader. During his election acceptance speech Ian Paisley, occasionally breaking into hymns, declared that ‘the old path of Unionism has returned. The Bible says “Look for the good way”’. This latest election has left the intransigent Unionism of the DUP in the political ascendancy and has further served to entrench the deadlock in the political process in the north of Ireland.
On 12 April, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams made a direct appeal to the IRA calling on the organisation to ‘commit itself to purely political and democratic activity’. The next day the IRA responded in a short statement declaring that it will respond ‘in due course’. As we have reported in previous issues of FRFI, it is the disbandment of the IRA which is at the top of the political agenda in Ireland. Until this issue is resolved there will be no movement in regard to the political process and the restoration of the devolved power which was suspended in October 2002. The reasons for the stalemate are clear; integral to the Good Friday Agreement is the right for Unionism to veto political progress at a whim. It is the aim of Unionism, supported by British imperialism, to crush revolutionary nationalism in Ireland; this expresses itself today in the continued calls for the IRA to disband before ‘progress’ can be made.
On 18 May, the leaders of the DUP and Sinn Fein met with Prime Minister Tony Blair in London in separate meetings and further confirmed this point. Paisley restated the position of the DUP which refuses to share power with Sinn Fein, because the ‘party cannot be trusted’. The IRA must decommission all of its weaponry to the DUP’s full satisfaction and fully disband, and after that there would have to be a cooling off period before Sinn Fein could enter into government. Adams responded by saying that there can be no alternative to the Good Friday Agreement.
In the context of a political process where Unionism has the right of veto, the election fortunes of the pro-agreement nationalist parties become a matter of irrelevant detail. Sinn Fein increased its number of MPs to five, gaining one from the fellow nationalist SDLP which now has three MPs. The nationalist vote fell from 345,257 in 2001 to 300,156 this time round, a fall of 13%. Sinn Fein increased its share of the vote by 2.6% to 24.3%, 174,530, the SDLP were down 3.5% to 125,626 or 17.5%. The DUP crushed its UUP rivals winning 33.7%, up 11.2% of the vote, compared to David Trimble’s UUP at 17.7% which was down 9.1%.
The Labour government appointed Peter Hain as its fifth direct ruler from Westminster since 1997. Hain will double up as Welsh Secretary in Blair’s cabinet in an indication of the time he will spend actually attempting to resolve the stalemate. Hain’s appointment will further serve to fuel illusions among those who imagine British imperialism, and in particular the remnants of the Labour left, playing some sort of progressive role in Ireland. The International Monitoring Commission, the body set up to oversee the disbandment of the IRA, is set to report once again in early June, which will further heap pressure on Republicans to disband. All eyes now return to the outcome of the internal debate within the IRA surrounding the appeal for its disbandment. The outcome of this next phase may well prove to be significant.
Paul Mallon
FRFI 185 June / July 2005
