If, amid all the media circus, midnight protestors, leaks claims and counter claims, the DUP do make an imminent return to Stormont, what will it actually mean for working people and their families?
Forgetting the rose-tinted glasses, let alone the orange and green ones, and all the hype about Northern Ireland Plc getting back to business, stability, certainty and the promises of pay settlements – the reality and the political future, particularly for working people, remains as grim as it’s ever been.
Others shape their worlds around tribal politics, community division and blatant sectarian trade-offs, all set against the backdrop of a ‘free-market’ economy which turns everything into commodities, profit and personal gain with the resultant hardship, misery and lost opportunities that implies for the vast majority of this and future generations.
The Workers Party sees and understands things differently. Very differently. Our scrutiny of what is happening, why, and its implications is always based on a class analysis of the consequences for working people, the political forces lined up against them and how to secure advances while remaining focussed on the longer-term transformation of society.
If, as seems likely, there is a restoration of the Assembly and the formation of a new Executive then we are in for a prolonged period of sectarian triumphalism, tribalism, heightened community division, a lot of noise but very little social, political or economic progress. But for the Executive parties that’s never been what it’s about.
They can be relied upon to return to their tried, trusted and well-rehearsed routines of blaming ‘others’ for blocking progress, while building up their support base through fear, suspicion and community division: paying less than lip service to the needs of working people and their families. We know this because the track record is there for all to see.
Health, education, child care, transport, jobs, social policy, social care and the cost of living were all in turmoil before the Assembly was collapsed.
Sinn Fein and the DUP have failed to deliver on the expectations evident at the time of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement – not by mis-management, but by design. Between them they have carved out and consolidated two sectarian power blocs.
How else can the deliberate side-lining of integrated education and integrated housing be explained? Why is it that we have more walls dividing the community today than we had twenty-five years ago? Why have cultural identity, tribal symbols and community background been given precedence over jobs, health and social progress?
The answer to all those questions is ‘because that’s how you build and maintain a sectarian power base’, and that is the strategy that both parties will continue to pursue when a new Executive is formed.
The challenge for socialists, trade unionists and other progressive forces in our society is to call out, confront and overcome the corrupt and corrupting politics of these parties and to present a credible, class-based socialist alternative for workers, their families and their futures.
That is not a challenge that can wait.
Workers Party of Ireland 