The controversy over the Irish “Backstop” is at bottom one of the many long-term consequences of the 1920 Partition of Ireland.
For nearly a century now Partition has done deep damage to the peoples of both countries.
In the current instance the Irish “backstop” is being used by the
most reactionary elements of the British, Irish and EU Establishments to frustrate the progressive desire of the majority in the 2016 Brexit referendum in the UK to “take back control” of their law-making, money and borders from the EU and re-establish self-government.
The backstop issue is an example of one of the long-term consequences of Partition being used to foist reaction indirectly on the British/English people, rather than directly on Ireland itself.
If the leadership of Sinn Fein had stuck by the EU-critical principles that party upheld in Ireland’s EU-related referendums from 1972 to 2012 and backed Brexit in the UK referendum, there probably would have been a majority in the North for Brexit. There would also have been a whole new dynamic between Sinn Fein and the DUP, for they would both have been on the same, progressive, side.
If a Northern majority had consequently voted for Brexit, Sinn Fein and the DUP together could then have turned to the Dublin Government and political parties and called on them to follow the UK out of the EU, thus preventing an EU external border being drawn across Ireland and putting the Southern Establishment politically on the spot.
That might also have made encouraged some Northern Unionists to think of the possibly progressive role they might play in a future All-Ireland State, side by side with Republicans.
It was a lost political opportunity.
Having missed that opportunity, it is truly a sad situation that the current Sinn Fein leadership now finds itself aligned with the most reactionary anti-democratic forces in these islands and internationally that seek to scupper Brexit in the interests of EU supranationalism and the giant Transnational Companies which the EU serves.
On this 29 March, which was the day the UK was originally meant to leave the EU, you may find of interest the article below by the historian C.Desmond Greaves (1913-1988), whose literary executor the undersigned is, taken from the March 1977 issue of the “Irish Democrat”, the monthly journal of the Connolly Association in Britain that Greaves edited.
The points made in it seem prescient 42 years after they were written.
Thoughts on Socialism, Nationalism and Partition today
by C. Desmond Greaves
Irish Democrat March 1977
It is not surprising, in these conditions, that people are asking if Connolly’s principles are still valid today, when “nationalism” is a dirty word to educationalists, economists and lawyers, and every twopenny cross-channel journalist is lecturing the Irish on the folly of wanting to remain Irish. Quite worthy people are known to speak of the internationalism of the Common Market, of making it democratic, and so getting to a united socialist Europe….
Even if the national parliaments are stripped of their exclusive sovereignty, they will be scaled down into, or be replaced by, national pressure groups. The superstate will thus resemble the old Austro-Hungarian empire, a jumble of nations, whose internal politics were concerned only with the national question, so that the place became a by-word. This is a situation where reliance is put on the continuing antagonism of nations to keep them all balanced and impotent. It was recognised by all thorough-going socialists before the First World War, that what had to go was the overall state structure, the empire, and the separate nations must be allowed to develop…
The Common Market is ideal for the transnational companies. It is not only that rules are made to benefit them, to crush small businesses, to drive farmers off the land and create a reserve army of unemployed to bring down workers’ conditions in all countries. The separate states within the Common Market are set into competition to secure the investments of the big monopolies. This means offering inducements which are allowed, provided big businesses gets the booty…
Read more: http://www.desmondgreavesarchive.com/articles/nation-nationalism-socialism/thoughts-on-socialism-nationalism-and-partition-today/
Filed under: EU Superstate, Ireland & Irish Independence/Sovereignty, The Left / Socialism / "Social europe" | Tagged: big business, desmond greaves, irish nationalism, james connolly, social europe, socialism | Leave a comment »
NationalPlatform.Org 