[page 11]
Labour's
U-turn on
defence
ichael Roberts analyses Labour's
Policy Review on defence.
Roberts analys Policy Review
ick has led his
badge, (right).
Britain's
puny
armed rces are credible
defence
00
In their Policy Review documents to be presented to this year's party conference, the Labour leaders have adopted the policies of capitalism. They have embraced the 'market economy, completely dispensing with socialism, public ownership and workers' democracy. This rejection of socialism is also mirrored in foreign policy, with the acceptance of British nuclear weapons, an expanded conventional armed forces contribution to NATO and the maintenance of a private arms industry.
The Labour leaders clearly understand nothing about how to achieve world peace and disarmament.
Whether Britain maintains a large or small army, more or less stockpiles of weapons, nuclear or non-nuclear armaments, they would all be useless in defending the country in the event of war with either superpower, the USSR or the USA. Just a single megaton nuclear bomb landing on the UK would annihilate most of the population. The conventional arms superiority of the Russians is so formidable that experts agree that they could occupy Europe, including Britain, within six to eight weeks.
Faced with such overwhelming odds, Britain's puny armed forces are no credible defence. The only real defence is one where a socialist government appeals to the workers of the superpowers to stop any attack on Britain and overthrow any government that threatens to do so. Socialist internationalism, not multilateral arms
control tion, is peace.
Labour's right-wing leaders try to dress up their new policy of 'keeping the bomb' as the product of new opportunities and a changed situation brought about by Glasnost and Perestroika in the Soviet Union and President Reagan's 'vision' in recognising these changes. This new 'political compulsion for peace', they say, justifies a changed policy which will include elements of unilateralism, bilateralism and multilateralism.
But what is this unilateralist part of the Labour leaders' new policy? The next Labour government will unilaterally 'cancel the order as soon as we come into office of one of the four Trident submarine nuclear weapon systems that the Tories are purchasing from the USA to replace Polaris in the 1990s! In addition, the Labour leaders plan a further courageous unilateralist action. They will cancel Tory plans to increase the number of warheads on each Trident compared with the existing number of Polaris warheads'!
This is all that is left of Labour's unilateralism in its new 'multi-faceted' strategy for peace. The Labour leaders justify their unwillingness to decommission the other three Trident subs on the grounds that they will already have been built and there are no financial savings from halting their completion.
But that should not stop Labour
or even nuclear
the only real
unilateralism in isolaguarantee of world
[page 12]
missioning these submarines. As the Policy Review NO NUCLEAR admits, Britain's independent nuclear deterrent is WEAPONS neither 'independent' nor a guir 'deterrent'. All the servicing CEMENIGNC of the Tridents will take place in King's Bay in Geor- NUCLEAR gia by the US who hold all DARMANI CAST or WESTS the spare parts, while the missiles themselves would still be under US control, being periodically returned to the US stockpile in King's Bay.
The Policy Review recog nises that: 'it is inaccurate to describe Britain's tiny nuc- HUMAN RACE OR NUCLEAR RACE lear capability as a deterrent. If the Soviet Union were not deterred by the immense missile arsenal of the USA it would certainly not be deterred by Britain's capability, constituting four per cent of the American total'.
state contracts for arms spending provide an The Labour leaders are advocating a policy important source of profits for several multinawhich ties the defence of Britain entirely to the tional companies. Indeed, says the Review, the foreign policy and interests of the American defence sector is one of the 'few coherent segruling-class. That may be entirely acceptable to ments of British manufacturing industry'. This the British ruling-class and the Tories, but it apparently justifies leaving the arms manufacshould be rejected outright by a socialist turers untouched by a Labour government. government.
Behind the Labour leaders' policy lies a com- And what of the savings from the cancellation plete lack of a class approach to foreign policy of the one Trident submarine? Will they be used and world peace. The British army cannot profor badly needed public and social services? tect the British people from attack from any Unfortunately not. Instead the Labour leaders superpower - the only conceivable aggressors. plan to find 'alternative work at the Barrow It is too small and anyway that is not its real shipyard, most likely for a hunter-killer subpurpose. Under the British capitalist system, the marine which would enhance our capability army is there to protect the British ruling class, within NATO'.
if necessary, against what Thatcher has called The Policy Review makes no commitment to the 'enemy within' i.e an aroused labour movereducing conventional weaponry. On the contment which could threaten the profit system. It rary it wastes no time in railing against 'reckless' also exists to promote the interests of British Tory cuts in arms spending and recommends big business, its markets and spheres of inf- 'maximum cost-effectiveness' in order to get luence (such as they are) worldwide. value for money' from the defence budget. The Labour leaders claim that the new policy Surely any socialist Labour policy document is based on the new opportunities that have should be committed to drastic cuts in convenopened up for bilateral and multilateral negotiational arms, while providing means to convert tions which would bring about the end of Britarms industry into civil use so that the jobs and ish nuclear weapons through what Kinnock has conditions of workers employed in the military called 'something for something' instead for sector are protected. But conversion to civilian 'nothing'.
employment could only succeed if a Labour But is it true that such opportunities exist? government renationalised those sectors of The widely praised and publicised INF treaty arms industry privatised by the Tories, and between Reagan and Gorbachev which removbrought into public ownership under workers' ed Cruise missiles reduced the world stock of control and management other sectors, as part nuclear weapons by 'only four per cent of the of an overall socialist plan for the economy to total' (Policy Review). Everything apparently expand civil production.
now depends on the success of the Strategic The Labour leaders say nothing of this. In- Arms Talks (START), the first phase of which stead, they insist on promoting conventional aims to cut by half the number of intercontinenarms spending. The Policy Review notes that tal missiles held by the superpowers. In the TOGETHER WE CAN STOP LAMARETI Labour's new strategy cannot bring peace.
NATO has no intention of eliminating nuclear weapons MIR O11
[page 13]
120 Autu Defer
MIR
19 ce
Spending
on enventional,
chemical
and
biological weapons is accelerating
second phase, the idea is that Britain will enter the negotiations, along with all the other nuclear powers, to negotiate away their weaponry.
Thus a future Labour government would have no plans to dispense with weaponry which it admits offers no defence against attack and is not even under the independent control of any British government, unless and until START phase 1 and START phase 2 talks are completed successfully.
But START 1 will take some time to complete as Bush is insisting on heavy cuts in Soviet conventional forces over and above the unilateral cut of 200,000 already planned by Gorbachev before discussing further nuclear arms reductions.
Also, NATO has agreed to oppose any discussions on short-range nuclear missiles until after the implementation of Soviet conventional cuts (that could be as late as 1993 or even 1997). They are insisting that the Soviet Union cut unilaterally its short-range missiles to NATO levels before discussions can begin.
There is no date even set for the commencement of START 2 or who will be involved and what will be up for discussion. Even under the most optimistic timetable it could be well into the mid-1990s before Britain's nuclear capability was even discussed. As Bruce Kent, Chairman of CND, has correctly pointed out, despite the fine language about peace in the Policy Review, a Labour government could run a full term of office, spend not a penny less than the Conservatives on the military, destroy not a single nuclear or conventional weapon, remove not a single foreign base and still claim to be working within a strict interpretation of this "new" policy' (The Guardian 14 July 1989).
While the Labour leaders prevaricate over keeping Britain's non-independent, non-deterrent nuclear weaponry, the superpowers are
continuing with an expanded programme of
modernisation and substitution that was agreed
by NATO at Montebello in 1983. Cruise mis-
siles may be leaving Greenham but new nuclear
armed F-111s will soon be arriving at Upper
Heyford. At the same time President Bush is
pushing ahead with plans to develop new MX and
Minuteman missiles. As the Policy Review docu-
ment admits, these 'nuclear capable aircraft and
nuclear sea-launched missiles... would be far
more lethal' than those presently deployed.
The Labour leaders claim that they can 'per-
suade the US government not to deploy these
weapons. But the US ruling-class will not be
swayed by any 'moral' appeal from a British
government.
The Policy Review sets an objective of 'sec-
uring the elimination of all nuclear weapons by
the year 2000'. At the same time as Labour's
new policy was published, NATO officially
announced that nuclear and conventional
weapons would be needed 'for the foreseeable
future.
NATO is an armed alliance of national capitalist ruling-classes under the leadership of American imperialism. Such a group has no intention of disarming, nuclear or non-nuclear weaponry, while the planned economies of Eastern Europe continue to exist, whatever 'compromises' and 'initiatives' Gorbachev may propose.
The Labour leaders place full reliance on what they call 'collective security' to achieve world peace. By accepting the idea of collective security, the Labour leaders swallow wholesale the argument of the Tories and the cold war theorists about the 'aggressive' intentions of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet build-up of arms and nuclear weapons was entirely a response to a justifiable fear of intervention by the imperialist powers after the last world war. But Stalin, Krushcher or Brezhnev never planned to invade Western Europe. They had enough on their hands in Eastern Europe. Clearly the Soviet army could have occupied Britain within weeks if they had wanted to. Yet the Labour leaders continue to hint at the Soviet threat and the need for collective security ie NATO.
The NATO powers have already publicly stated that their objective in any negotiations with the Soviet Union is only a partial reduction in nuclear weapons. They will never agree to a
nuclear-free Europe.
Moreover, whatever temporary agreements are made, they do not remove the causes that created the need to make nuclear or other weaponry, and they do not remove the knowledge. As one commentator pointed out: 'it is a delusion, because even if we got rid of nuclear weapons, there are plenty of other means by which human beings can do terrible things to
one another on a mass scale - chemical warfare is one obvious candidate. It is at any rate impractical: the secret is out and is widely dispersed. Nuclear status could be recovered during the course of a war and this possibility,
along with the anxieties that someone some-
where would have kept a few devices for safe
keeping' (Lawrence Freedman, Professor of
War Studies, London University).
Nuclear weapons are just one part of the arsenal of mass destruction in the hands of the governments of the major powers. The Policy
Review states 'it must be obvious to everybody
that conventional war is more lethal and dest-
ructive today than it has ever been' and yet the
Labour leaders plan to expand conventional
arms spending in Britain.
There has been some sort of war somewhere
in the world ever since the last world war. Far
from plans to reduce or to disband conven-
tional, chemical and biological arms, spending
on these terrible weapons is on the increase
worldwide. Ninety per cent of US spending on
[page 14]
arms is for conventional weaponry. The super-
powers now account for only 63 per cent of conventional arms exports. Increasingly their power to control arms supply is weakening as conventional arms proliferate. World arms spending is now $1000bn a year or five per cent of world output.
Even if a Labour government disbanded all nuclear, chemical or biological weapons what is to stop a new Tory government reversing that policy? And there is nothing in Labour's proposals to stop the capitalist state machine (army chiefs, secret service etc) working with armaments manufacturers to maintain nuclear capability behind the scenes. It must not be forgotten that in 1973 Labour's conference adopted a unilateralist policy but within a year Wilson and Callaghan, behind the backs of the party and most of the Cabinet, secretly decided to modernise ageing Polaris missiles at a cost of &lbn to the taxpayer, while Callaghan agreed to double Britain's contribution to NATO.
Without a fundamental change in the control of the state and the military industrial complex, there can be no guarantee that any policy of nuclear unilateralism would be implemented. While the capitalist class remains in control of the state machine they will continue to develop the arsenals of war to defend the profit system.
Marxists support unilateralism, not because it is a 'moral issue' as former CND chair Joan Ruddock MP has argued. Marxists see the question in class terms and call for public ownership under workers' control and management of the arms industries and for democratisation of the armed forces, including trade union membership and election of officers. Only in this way can the labour movement really exercise control over the military and the armaments industry to ensure that they act for the interests of working people and not for the capitalist state.
The anarchic and competitive nature of capitalism, particularly in its imperialist era, breeds conflict among the various capitalist powers over markets, profits and resources. There is intense rivalry between the USA, the European powers, and Japan as each tries to carve out its sphere of influence. This is increasingly exhibited in battles over trade restrictions and even within NATO over arms modernisation.
These conflicts will not disappear because they are in the nature of capitalism. In the past they have led to two world wars. The capitalist class is opposed to nuclear war because it would destroy the profit system, as well themselves physically! But if the labour movement was to suffer a series of defeats in the major imperialist nations leading to the establishment of military dictators, there would no longer be any guarantee that some such unstable regime would not launch a 'first strike' against a perceived enemy.
That is why world peace is only possible when state power passes into the hands of the working-class in the major imperialist and Stalinist countries on the basis of socialist democracy. And it is why the main foreign policy plank of a genuinely socialist Labour government would be an international appeal to working-classes of the USA and USSR to overthrow the big business class and Stalinist bureaucracy
which rule over them and end the arms race Only when socialist democracy is established in the superpower states can peace be really assured. Any other policy is utopian and false.
Neither the unilateralists nor the Labour leaders understand the causes of war and the nature of the arms race, and therefore how to achieve world peace. The authors of the Policy Review happily quote Clausewitz who said that 'war is nothing more than the continuation of politics by other means' and add "so too is peace." But they do not understand what Clausewitz meant.
He explained that whatever causes conflict between nations or classes may require settlement by force. But what does cause conflict? A doctor may be able to cure a patient temporarily by suppressing symptoms of illness; but unless the causes are known, a permanent cure or even better, preventive action, cannot be taken successfully and the disease is likely to reoccur. Unless we know the causes of war and the reasons for the arms race, we cannot stop or prevent it indefinitely.
The Policy Review authors imagine that the arms race and the 'cold war' were products of 'suspicion and tension' or 'mutual distrust and hostility'. That is like arguing that the only reason that there was a rail strike in Britain in the summer was because the management and unions were suspicious of each other, and it had nothing to do with low wages, management attacks on working conditions, and under-investment in railways that created the 'hostility'.
The world remains dominated by governments in the West which represent the interests of international bankers and multinationals. The governments of the East represent the narrow nationalist interests of a privileged and corrupt bureaucratic elite. They both prop up equally venal and reactionary regimes in the Third World. So there can be no permanent peace.
Rather than faith in 'fully' verifiable international agreements achieved by negotiation with and between the nuclear-armed powers' as the authors of the Policy Review believe will bring a nuclear-free and peaceful world, socialists will look to the revolutionary struggles of the working-class of the West and East and the masses in the Third World to establish workers democracy as the only guarantee of real and lasting peace. L
MIR
Autumn 1989
•13 1989 fence
Unilate is not 'moral'
issue
[page 15]
Northern Ireland
Twenty years since
the troops went in
Clare Short of the Time debates the Hadden of Labour and
Labour MP and leader
To Go' Campaign issues with Peter the Northern Ireland Trade Union Group.
There was
no alternative to sending
in the
troops in
1969'.
Clare Short
140 MIR
MIR: Why did the troops go in in 1969?
Clare Short (CS): The civil rights movement had very mild demands: one person one vote; equal access to housing and jobs etc. They marched. But it evoked an incredibly crude response from the Northern Ireland state. People were beaten and attacked and the police looked on or joined in. It got horrendously worse when it got to Derry, with burnings etc. The troops went in to protect the nationalists from the forces of the Northern Ireland state. They were initially welcomed and given their famous cups of tea.
MIR:
in?
Do you
they
CS: I think there was no alternative in those circumstances. That is why this slogan "Troops Out' is totally confusing, as it suggests that the troops are only the problem rather than the need for a political settlement. You cannot just pull the troops out and leave the present political settlement.
Peter Hadden (PH): I do not think that the British troops were sent in to protect the minority community in the North. In the past, British imperialism partitioned Ireland partly to hold onto the North where there was the bulk of industry. But it was primarily to divide the working-class and prevent the struggle for soc-
ialism. The economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s changed the strategic interests of the British imperialists. The development of industry in the South, and trade with the South produced a relative stabilisation on the border. The border became an anachronism which the British would have liked to get rid of. That is why in the 1960s they put pressure on the Unionist government to introduce reforms and meet and discuss with the South, such as the Lemass- O'Neill talks. They hoped that this would lead to dismantling the Northern state and perhapsthe reunification of Ireland by a federal solution.
The civil rights movement demanded basic democratic rights, but at the bottom it was a movement motivated by social and economic discontent among both Catholics and Protestants. The Protestants were sympathetic to the civil rights demands. It was a myth that it was just a Catholic movement. The first civil rights marches in Dungannon in August 1968 and in Derry in October 1968 had many Protestants supporting them and on the platform.
But the experience of the civil rights movement proved that the Unionist state could not be dismantled. Because it was a repressive institution, attempts to introduce reforms on the basis of that state and on the basis of capitalism would lead only to a backlash. In August 1969, the situation reached boiling point. There was the possibility of civil war. The British were forced to send in the troops, as they said at the time, as a 'temporary expedient'.
[page 16]
They sent them in not to protect the Catholics. The record of British imperialism over 700 years in Ireland and for that matter internationally shows scant regard for the rights or the lives of its subject peoples. A civil war would have disrupted Ireland economically North and South and led to re-partition and destabilised that corner of Europe. Also it would have spread into Britain: It would have affected Britain's international standing. So they sent in the troops to hold the situation, hoping for a solution later
MIR:
analysis?
you
CS: I agree with a lot of it. But it attributes greater clarity to the thinking of the ruling class than they have. They stumble towards these objectives rather than have such a clear-minded analysis. That is the way history develops. By 1969 partition had become an historical trap. Britain no longer had any economic, military or political reason for remaining in Ireland. No doubt Foreign Office thinking was that it was an embarrassment and it was time to find a way out. The civil rights movement had revealed the bigotry and discrimination that Britain had allowed to continue and never intervened against. I am sure that Britain now thinks that partition is not essential to its interests but it is not enough of an embarrassment or a problem for the establishment to deal with.
2581
PH: But we must not forget that it was a Labour government that sent in the troops. In doing so, they represented the interests not of the working class in Britain or Ireland, but of British capitalism. The lesson for socialists is that on a capitalist basis no matter which government is in power, there is no solution. A government basing itself on a capitalist solution will end up falling back on military expediency.
CS: That is too crude. You talk about capitalism as though it is instantly replaceable and can be abolished by the best possible Labour government, which we most certainly did not have then. There was no longer any objective interest for British capitalism to retain partition, so in that sense it is just a hangover of history. So the troops did not go in to prop up capitalist interests. Ireland was partitioned for that reason, creating this potential chaos and conflict. But the nationalists did welcome the troops initially. They had been barricaded into their areas and were under threat of burnings.
PH: But the situation in 1968-9 has been completely forgotten. History is written by the victors, and the people who emerged victorious from this situation were the various sectarian forces who have rewritten the history of that period and distorted it. This was an historic opportunity for building in the North a movement of Catholics and Protestants united against the Unionist state. The leaders of the
Since British troops went in in 1969 3,000 people have died
By sen in the troops Labour backed capitali Peter Ha
MIR
John Arthur (Reflex)
[page 17]
MIR
Autumn 1989
160 Autu Irela
Time To Go stands
for withdrawal but with a
new
political settlement.
Clare Short
Labour Party and trade unions had tens of thousands of workers behind them but simply failed to intervene. They could have channeled the energies of the civil rights movement into a class movement against the very foundations of the state. The whole course of subsequent history could have been changed.
What has been forgotten is that it was not the soldiers that prevented a civil war at that time. There also existed joint committees of Catholics and Protestants in most of Belfast who patrolled the areas and prevented sectarian upheaval, protecting Catholic and Protestant. The army went into a few areas in Derry and West Belfast. But the night after in Belfast soldiers looked on when Catholics were burnt out because they did not know what streets were Catholic or Protestant. If there had been burnings all over the city, the army would not have been able to contain it. There were not because of the joint committees.
Instead of the Labour leaders relying on the army as the only instrument to keep peace, they should have developed this unity of workers on the ground into a peacekeeping force based on the trade unions and local communities. That would have united the communities and would have prevented the sectarianism. Linked to socialist demands the movement could have gone forward to unite people to solve their basic problems. But the Labour leaders rejected this as utopian. History shows who was really utopian. After 20 years using the troops we have had 3,000 people killed.
MIR: Why are later?
the troops still
CS: They are still there because Northern Ireland is irreformable. Discrimination and bigotry are built into that political settlement and attempts to reform it, like the Housing Executive designed to allocate housing fairly, have failed. The state was formed on the basis of a sectarian headcount to create a false majority and prevent a democratic settlement, and bigotry followed inevitably from that — the fear of a nationalist majority - to keep them in their place. The 20 years have proved that if we don't deal with the question of the border all the mess and sadness will continue into the indefinite future.
MIR: So what you are saying is that it is not just a question now of trying to get the troops out but it is also getting a settlement that deals with the question of the border first and foremost?
CS: Yes, "Time To Go' is not "Troops Out'. It is saying it is time for Britain to withdraw from Ireland but that does not mean you can just pull up sticks and walk away tomorrow. The effect
of the partition means that you need a new constitutional settlement and new arrangements for the continuation, from education to benefits. The spending on repression is massive and jobs in that industry go to Protestants. So you will need new economic and investment programmes in order generate job opportunities.
Britain needs to say this rotten settlement that we are propping up is doing no good for anyone. We intend to withdraw from Ireland but we intend to negotiate a new political settlement engaging all the people of Ireland in doing that. We have obligations to Ireland because of the damage we've done, so we must give economic support to provide decent opportunities. We cannot have some fantasy instant withdrawal of troops and the pretence that that alone would lead to a new and better Ireland.
PH: But why then does not the British ruling-class dismantle the state, do a deal with the Dublin government and reunify the country? The answer is because going down that road will worsen the destabilisation and lead ultimately to civil war. The Dublin government has no interest in a united Ireland because they have problems enough in the South without having to handle another poverty-ridden state in the North. But more fundamentally, the Protestants in the North would never accept being pushed into a capitalist united Ireland because it has no attraction whatsoever for them. If there was an attempt made to coerce them in that direction, they would resist arms in hand and the result would be a bloodbath. Then possibly the British troops would withdraw leaving a re-partitioned state with Catholic refugees over the border, a Palestine-like population on the doorstep.
CS: Peter said that it would be wrong to push the Protestants into a capitalist Ireland. But nowhere else do we impose the precondition of a socialist settlement for a solution to national problems. We support the right of the people of South Africa to democracy without preconditions about establishing socialism. We believe that the right of democracy will give them the right to work for socialist solutions. So I don't think we are entitled in Ireland to say you can only solve your national question if you do it in a socialist way. Solving the national question is a precondition to building the labour movement in Ireland that would be capable of developing a socialist Ireland.
The threat of a bloodbath is partly blackmail. Part of the Protestant rhetoric is to say 'you dare to move and we will cause a bloodbath. We threaten to slaughter people to keep things as they are'. We must acknowledge this as blackmail and then ask whether there are ways of minimising any such threat. And I think there are. I don't believe that if Britain dares to
[page 18]
change things that they will all reach for a gun and start to cause mayhem on every street corner. Secondly, who would take up weapons? At the moment there are masses of arms in the hands of the Protestants, but mostly licensed by the UDR. Thousands of legal weapons with licences have been issued to the Unionist community and recorded at the Northern Ireland Office. So Britain, as part of a serious process of getting a new settlement, could call in these arms.
If there is a proper new settlement that guarantees the rights of the Protestants, it will be in the interests of large numbers to be part of any negotiations to secure their stake in the future. So if done correctly the risks of a bloodbath, which are there (we already have Loyalist sectarian slaughter of Catholics) can be minimised and managed as part of any process of political settlement. The majority of Protestants have an interest in a long-term stable. settlement.
Also the response of the Protestants to the Anglo-Irish Agreement points in my direction. The Protestant leaders said they would fight the Agreement, there were huge demonstrations, they all resigned their seats and fought a minigeneral election, they threatened and blustered, and there was lots of talk of bloodshed, but here we are now and the Anglo-Irish Agreement is still there. It did not lead to a bloodbath and it is the first time since partition that Protestant bluster was taken on by the British state. The lesson of that to me is a hopeful one. I don't want to minimise the risk of a bloodbath but the lesson of the Agreement is that much of the bluster is exaggerated.
PH: That is not what the military chiefs of staff concluded when they analysed the situation. They advised the government to back off. The Anglo-Irish Agreement still exists but in framework only. Nothing has been implemented. In reality the British government backed down and what exists now is only an agreement on repression and security. Concessions to the Catholics were implied at the beginning of the Agreement but now nobody in the Catholic areas considers they have gained anything from the Agreement.
CS: I did not
PH: It is your analysis of the reaction to it I am criticising. The resistance was switched down because the Agreement was never implemented.
CS: No, the element the Protestants objected to was Dublin having a say in the government of the North and that has been carried through. They meet *egularly and they discuss the future government of the North. They lost on that.
PH: Nothing came from these meetings. There is still the same opposition to the Agreement by the Protestants but not the same need or motivation to get out on the streets to fight it. If they attempt to implement the Agreement further then a new reaction will develop.
As for your general analysis, I would put it the other way round. We won't solve the problem of the troops being there until we develop the unity of the working-class in the north and south, because it is only the labour movement which can remove the troops. We socialists surely hold that the problems of the working class can only be solved by the working class itself, through the trade unions and the Labour Party. The solutions to economic, national problems and the repression can only be achieved through the development of a movement of the working class not by some outside agency, as you suggest.
It is not a myth that the Protestants would resist arms in hand. This 'blackmail' you refer to is a real threat. So assuming that the Protestants resist any new settlement based on a capitalist united Ireland, who is going to enforce this new settlement, or even if you argue that it is mostly a bluff, who is going to test this bluff? It is certainly not the army of the South which is not equipped to do it even they wanted to, which
RUC clear streets.
'Protes will ne accept being pushed into a capitalist Ireland'.
Peter Hadc
[page 19]
180 Autu Irela
MIR nn 1
'You will
only get
workers'
inity when
you have solved the
border
question'.
Clare Short
they don't. It is not the Catholics and even less the IRA who don't have the 100,000 privately held arms of the UDR or the RUC or the potential to make arms in factories like Shorts, with even missiles at their disposal. The only people who can attempt to coerce the Protestants into a new settlement is the British army.
British imperialism should not be in Ireland, but more than that the labour movement in Britian should assist and help the labour movement in Ireland to bring about a socialist solution. Should the British army under a Labour government be used to coerce a million people into a state that they do not want? Certainly not. So as socialists we must put to the side these so-called solutions which are ideas from the bosses. There is no solution on a capitalist basis.
The way to solve the national problem is to help the labour movement to unite workers in both communities, north and south, around a programme to change society, to resolve the problems of unemployment and poverty, and in the course of that movement, create the conditions for a society that both Protestants and Catholics could accept. That woud allow reunification of the country.
CS: This is extremely interesting. You say that Britain should not be in Ireland but because Protestants would fight, Britain must stay. The danger of calling their bluff is so great that we have to rule out doing the right thing. The British labour movement has a duty to put right an historical wrong.
Some people already engage in sectarian targetless violence now, shooting Catholic kids on the way from school. This threat is always there. The whites of Zimbabwe said that they would fight to the last drop of their blood; the whites of South Africa say the same and even threaten using nuclear weapons rather than accept a democratic settlement. Despite the incredible war in Algeria, when De Gaulle acted the colonists backed down. Whatever the reaction, we have to stand up for what is right and look for a responsible settlement that minimises the risks of bloodshed. The status quo has bloodshed anyway.
MIR: Does necessary?
using
CS: Yes, as part of the process of settlement. In the case of Zimbabwe, in the end, after UDI by the whites and the guerrilla struggle, there was a negotiated settlement with the British army going in to help train and assist in the new settlement. So I do not think that using troops is as extraordinary as it sounds. The UDR is massively armed by the British state. If we have a new political settlement we must take back some of those weapons and the licensed one:
too: We must try to contain the violence but remind the Protestants that their real interests lie in a stable and fairer settlement.
MIR: Are there terms in any new political settlement that could convince the Protestants to accept it?
CS: Absolutely. If a Labour government is elected with a clear majority on a policy that it will withdraw from Northern Ireland in the kind of responsible way that I have talked about. The Protestant people are not stupid and understand history and they would grasp the meaning of such an election result. Of course, there would be fundamentalist ultra elements calling for bloodshed and mayhem but the majority would see that this was an historical turning point for a new political settlement and would negotiate their terms.
History shows us that, not just in Ireland, the bigotry that flows from partition prevents the building of the socialist movement. So it is the duty of the British labour movement to bring the old distorted settlement to an end, bringing in a new democratic settlement that will create the conditions, done responsibly and taking a bit of time, where Ireland will be able to develop a much more powerful socialist movement uniting both communities. You will only get that unity when you have solved the question of the border.
PH: I am against the presence of British troops in the North. I am in favour of the withdrawal of the troops unconditionally. Unlike yourself, Clare, when you admitted that it was correct for the army to go in 1969, I don't think it was. I was opposed to the entry of the troops at that time. And that position has been vindicated by the last 20 years.
But we must deal with what would be the consequences of the withdrawal of the troops. If a withdrawal was not coupled with a development of the workers' movement in the North to provide an alternative means of defence against sectarianism, it would be one factor pushing things towards confrontation. The alternative means of defence could be based on the organisations of the labour movement uniting Catholic and Protestant workers. That can be achieved.
MIR: Will the Protestant backlash be confined to the 'ultra-extreme elements' as Clare has suggested?
PH: No, in the event of Clare's policies being introduced ie a British withdrawal on a capitalist basis, or to be more accurate, of a timetable for withdrawal to be announced and then a movement to push the Protestants into what you call 'a reasonable settlement', whatever that
[page 20]
means....
CS: It means a democratic settlement with civil and religious liberties with a programme of economic development, and conversion of all security jobs.
PH: That means a capitalist settlement, which is impossible because there cannot be a development of the economy as you suggest on that basis either in the North or South. That is why we fight for socialism in Ireland or for that matter internationally - to solve these problems of capitalist failure to develop. If a Labour government was to attempt to implement Clare's policies, the mass of Protestants would resist and the outcome would be the re-partition of the country. That is why the British ruling class will not accept the withdrawal of troops.
Let me paint another scenario of what will happen under a Labour government. If we have a right-wing Labour government like that of 1974-9, which retreated on socialist policies in Britain, then inevitably such a government will end up adopting repressive means to contain the situation. Remember it was the 1974-9 Labour government, particularly under Roy Mason as Northern Ireland Secretary, which is remembered for its repressive methods. It was his policies which created the hunger strikes and H block troubles of the early 1980s.
If there was a Labour government which adopted Clare's programme, similar to that of some of the lefts like Tony Benn, of a withdrawal on a capitalist basis, then the upheaval that would develop in the North would force the government to drop withdrawal and ironically it would be forced to commit extra troops to try and hold the situation, let alone force through any political settlement.
So what you said about the "Time To Go' Campaign alarms me because it does not really mean that Britain should withdraw its military presence and stop the repression. To put it in a nutshell 'Time to Go' is really 'Time to Stay and Coerce the Protestants'. That is all you are advocating
CS: I think that a Labour government can provide the conditions that can give the people of Ireland a modern democratic state that the people of western Europe have, ending bloodshed and create the political possibility for transforming their society and controlling capitalism and building towards socialism.
Already there is a massive subsidy given to the North which is used mainly on repression. That money may need to continue for a time with perhaps more assistance available to bring to an end the conflict. The EEC could assist with economic investment and job opportunities. We need a security jobs conversion prog-
ramme. There is nothing unusual in this although Ireland is more complex than a straight de-colonising situation. But look at the settlement in Zimbabwe where Britain gave aid in order for the government to buy up farmland and re-distribute it to Africans who had no land, as part of a new settlement. And we now have a stable political situation in Zimbabwe, relatively good economic progress and the battle for socialism in Zimbabwe will continue in future years.
PH: What you are saying is that class unity and socialism cannot be developed through a mass movement under the present state. That is incorrect. Trade unions exist as mass organisations even after 20 years of sectarian violence. A Labour Party did exist which was the second party in the state and even up to 1970 gained 100,000 votes from both Catholics and Protestants. It disintegrated because of the rotten right-wing policies of its leaders. At rank-andfile level workers do stand together in strikes at Harland and Wolff and in Shorts, along with the health and local government workers.
We cannot say to these workers in struggle, nothing can be done until we solve the problem of the border. We should say: you are united economically, so you need political unity as well. That means you need a political party which can challenge the other parties which are all sectarian in composition. And you need a programme which will answer the social and economic issues like housing, unemployment and low wages, and will deal with the question of sectarian attack around protection against the paramilitaries, the repression and the national question. That means we need a transformation of society north and south which will allow a socialist solution to the national question.
Labour leaders in Britain, like yourself, could play a vital role in assisting that struggle of workers in Ireland. In 1981 the British Labour Party took a step forward in its policy document at conference which supported the idea of a Labour Party in Northern Ireland and a socialist solution to the national question. That is the way that the Labour leaders could help now.
CS: I am not saying the only position we must address is the question of the border and freeze politics on all other issues. Neither is the only issue for the British labour movement the question of Ireland. Your programme for a mass movement based on the unions clearly has not materialised after 20 years. You will not be able to build it under present conditions, but every bit of it you manage is welcome and precious. You are unlikely to succeed in building such a mass movement, but if I am wrong I would be delighted to be wrong.
MIR umn
019 1989 land
Time To
o' really
means
Time to
stay and coerce the rotestants'.
'eter Hadden