LFIU 18th November meeting
Labour for Irish Unity held a very thought provoking meeting in Portcullis House on 18 November 2024.
At this meeting LFIU looked forward to the work it was planning to undertake in the future. It was explained that LFIU was established during the heady days of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership when the Labour Party seemed much more open to change and diversity. A small group of activists had met in a series of bars and pubs in Liverpool during a Labour Party conference, and later in the London Irish Centre, to establish what became Labour for Irish Unity. But they had vivid memories of the failure of successive leaders of the Labour Party to recognise the settler colonialism experienced in Ireland over the centuries and the continuing civil rights breaches and abuses. Many of which are still unresolved. Therefore, membership was made open to members of the trade union movement and Irish organisations, as well as the Labour Party.
This turned out to be a prescient decision. We now have a Labour Government, but one whose actions, in relation to the war in Gaza, indicate both their lack of understanding of the consequences of settler colonialism and a lack of respect for the basic principles of international law. Their views and actions also bode ill for Britain’s oldest and one of its remaining colonies, that of Northern Ireland.
Many of those on the platform and in the audience had campaigned for Irish unity and civil rights in Ireland within the Labour Party over decades but have now had their membership of the Party terminated or have had the whip in parliament removed. Many others had resigned in despair. But this does not mean that they have abandoned the struggle for Irish unity or justice or no longer see themselves as part of the wider trade union and labour movement. Action and involvement are more essential than ever.
In these very turbulent times politically in Britain and internationally, LFIU has been joining with others in the Irish community and beyond to give a voice to those who believe in human rights, equality and collective action. Our banner is raised at the many demonstrations in support of Gaza. We use all available media outlets to argue for the full repeal of the Legacy Act and for the need for wide discussion and detailed preparation for an Irish border poll. We are also forging new and strong alliances with both trade union activists and those in the emerging social movements and the black and migrant communities in defence of the right to protest.
Those of us who are from the first, second or third generation Irish community are likely to remember their own parents’ and grandparents’ disbelief that their English friends and neighbours avoided any meaningful discussion of politics and religion. Thus leaving the leadership of English political parties to use politics and religion to divide and rule for their own benefit. I wondered whether my own memories of family dinner tables were not typical, but I recently read a survey entitled Racism and Ethnic Inequality in a Time of Crisis. It found that 84% of Irish respondents to the survey had a political affiliation and 78% supported the Black Lives Matter movement. The Irish community and its allies know that collective and principled action has a ripple effect no matter what the apparent odds are. The uprising of 1916 is just one example. As was the action of workers in Dunnes Stores in Dublin in 1984, who refused to handle goods from South Africa in protest at its apartheid regime.
At the moment, in Britain many from the Irish community do not have a political party that seems to speak for them on Irish unity or civil rights, but the wider labour movement is stepping up in a more public way than for decades. Of course, members of the Irish community have been prominent in trade union struggles throughout the years. We just have to remember the Matchgirls’ Strike of 1888 and the London Dockers’ Strike in 1889 and the role of Jim Larkin in the early twentieth century.
And now the roll call of first and second generation Irish leading trade union strikes and actions is very extensive. For example, Mick Lynch and Eddie Dempsey in the RMT, Mick Whelan in ASLEF, Sharon Graham in UNITE, Jo Grady in the UCU, Niamh Sweeney in the NEU and Pat Cullen, former chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing and now a Sinn Fein MP.
LFIU and Sinn Fein held a very successful fringe meeting at this year’s Trades Union Congress in Brighton and plan to organise a further meeting next year and hopefully other fringe meetings at some individual trade union conferences.
We will also be working with Colin Harvey to encourage British politicians to accept that a Border Poll is metaphorically just around the next corner and not a mirage on the far horizon, as Keir Starmer appears to believe. We will also be working to explain to those in Britain that the Good Friday Agreement may have much to commend it. But it does not contain sufficient detail to ensure that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will honour the spirit of the Agreement, when deciding when and how to call a Border Poll. When doing so, we will be engaging with all political parties, including Sinn Fein and Plaid Cymru, who spoke from the platform at the meeting on 18 November, as well as other minority parties, trade unions and social movements.
We very much support Daniel’s analysis of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 and we will be highlighting the on-going colonial nature of the Act. The Government’s decision to retain parts of it and syphon off investigations into some historic murders to the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery indicates that the Labour Government does not trust the Northern Ireland judiciary and lawyers to resolve these cases. The Government is also now appealing against the decision by the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal that the veto granted to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the Legacy Act on the disclosure of some evidence deemed to be sensitive is unlawful. It was the failure by the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the British security services to disclose key evidence that has delayed and frustrated some inquests and legal enquiries for the past 50 years or more. The Secretary of State should not be repeating this mistake.
Finally, the first Prevention of Terrorism Act was introduced in 1974, as a means to ensure that debate on the actions of the British state in Northern Ireland may lead to prosecution and to isolate the Irish as a suspect community. The Government is now increasingly using the Terrorism Act 2000 to stifle debate and protest in relation to Gaza, police actions, climate change and opposition to racism and fascism. LFIU will be sharing its historic and current experiences as a contribution to the work of other organisations now campaigning for justice and equality. It will also be campaigning against the suppression of debate and protest.
Nadine Finch, Vice Chair for Labour for Irish Unity
