Rediscovering the Road Less Travelled: Lessons of ’s Election Victory

Sean Mitchell

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- News nor the Telegraph-the two I took the one less traveled by, main newspapers in the North-saw fit to And that has made all the difference.1 mention Carroll’s candidacy, let alone the possibility that he could win, when pro- ‘I am not a Nationalist or a Unionist; filing the constituency prior to the elec- I Am a Socialist.’2 This was the plain tion. This was particularly interesting in and unadorned phrase that newly elected the case of the Telegraph, which employed Belfast city councillor Gerry Carroll used polling company Lucid Talk to carry out to announce his arrival on the political their projections.3 There was a reason why scene. Its innate message was clear: the Lucid Talk didn’t see Gerry’s victory com- long and protracted isolation of the radical ing. Theirs was a poll conducted without Left in Belfast is now over. On the 23rd any actual polling: the results having been of May, Carroll became the first socialist gleaned from previous electoral trends and elected to for decades constituency demographics. Readers else- when he took a seat in the Black Moun- where might be surprised to learn that a tain ward of the city. Not only was Gerry Northern-wide poll is carried out without elected, but he won the seat quite com- any actual polling, but this is just symp- fortably, placing third out of 7 candidates. tomatic of politics in the North, where it is He was elected on the second count, just a assumed that the ‘tribal’ pattern of voting hundred votes shy of topping the poll. is a permanent facet of life here. As such, no regional poll to determine the opinions of the populace is necessary: ‘Taigs’ will vote Nationalist, ‘Prods’ will vote Union- ist and that is that. All that remains is to determine how the vote management of each side will work out. Or so it would seem.

Background to a Breakthrough ‘I am not a Nationalist or a Unionist; I Am a Socialist.’ -Gerry Carroll following his election to Belfast City Council On the surface at least, the political back- ground to this year’s election hardly ap- peared conducive to a breakthrough for the The vote caught media and establish- radical Left. The preceding 18 months had ment pundits unawares. Neither the Irish been dominated by the unfortunate resur- 1Robert Frost, ‘The Road Not Taken’, 1916 2http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/elections/i-am-not-a-nationalist-or-a-unionist- i-am-a-socialist-says-people-before-profits-new-belfast-councillor-gerry-carroll- 30300411.html 3http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/elections/belfast-city-council-full-election- analysis-from-pollsters-lucidtalk-30265995.html

44 gence in sectarianism in Belfast: loyalist to belief that sectarian division could be ‘flag protests’ and Orange marches provid- overcome. It is, without succumbing to lo- ing the focus for a rekindling of commu- calised particularism, the most Northern nal enmity in the city. The proposed so- Irish of vicious circles. lution to these divisions- a series of inter- But as Marx acutely put it, the ‘out- party talks led by the insipid neo-con and ward appearance and the essence of things’ onetime Bush administration aide Richard rarely coincide.4 Whilst sectarianism was Haass-proved to be an embarrassing non- on the rise socialists understood that it was starter. Talk of returning to the ‘bad old the underlying economic crisis that was fu- days’ of the Troubles, whether exaggerated elling it. As such we could see past the or not, was pervasive amongst ordinary ‘outward appearance’ of the situation to people. understand that the same underlying fac- This renascent sectarianism was com- tors, or ‘the essence of things’, could open pounded by the almost complete absence up opportunties for the Left. As we wrote of large-scale class struggle in the North. in this journal about the resurgence of sec- The upturn in trade union struggles crys- tarianism before the elections: tallized in the 2011 pension strikes had What we are witnessing is the long since dissipated: the remarkable crisis of capitalism mediated on display in those struggles squandered through the political specicity as union leaders retreated into the famil- of the North: unemployment iar groove of rhetorical grandstanding and and austerity are causing a practical inaction. Within the wider so- well of anger which reactionary cialist and trade union Left there was a forces are anxious to exploit. visible demoralisation: ‘I’ve never seen the But as Marxists we understand level of struggle so low,’ remarked one that these same underlying fac- union leader in the run up to the election. tors can give fuel to class strug- It was hoped that the fledgling People’s gle and new opportunities for Assembly-initiated by union leaders from the Left. Socialists have to Unite and NIPSA at the tail end of 2013 be confident about the possi- after the success of a similar initiative in bilities that class politics of- Britain-could offer a vehicle for breaking fers for building a serious re- the inertia of the labour movement, only to sistance and winning working reconfirm the intransigence of bureaucracy class Catholics and Protestants when it was put on the shelf immediately to a new and effective round of after being set up. mass struggles.5 These two factors- the absence of a trade union-led struggle against austerity Unique to this analysis was both a re- and the resurgence of sectarianism-were jection of the notion that loyalist reac- not completely unconnected. Indeed the tion was insurmountable and that the class two are mutually re-enforceable: the ab- struggle was now on hold for the foresee- sence of coordinated labour militancy al- able future. There was significant anger lowed reactionary elements to articulate and dissatisfaction on the ground with the class concerns in a sectarian direction, and political impasse: people had been bear- in turn, the flag protests worked to dampen ing the brunt of austerity for years and the 4Karl Marx, Economic Manuscripts: Capital, Vol.3, Chapter 48 5 Se´anMitchell, ‘The Permanent Crisis of 21st Century Ulster Unionism’, Irish Marxist Review 9

45 gloss had clearly gone off the ‘new dispen- was building a significant base in West sation’ in the North. The way that work- Belfast. Indeed, other than an ill-prepared ing class people had reacted to this, how- and disorganised incursion into the South ever, was uneven. Evidently, a minority Belfast local elections in 2011-organised of people-egged on by the combined agi- by the now defunct ‘Belfast Counterfire’ tation of loyalist paramilitaries and DUP grouping-People Before Profit has been politicians-had drawn the conclusion that the most consistently successful Left elec- the ‘other side’ was to blame. Still more toral vechicle in Belfast for decades. Cru- had become disillusioned and disaffected cial to this was the abandonment of the with politics here. But where a practical well-worn strategy on the left to ‘fly the lead was given on the ground-as has been flag’: whereby candidates would stand in the pattern across Ireland and Europe- elections without the slightest intention of people could shift to the left. actually winning a seat. People Before Profit, instead, was built on a ruthless long term commitment to actually rooting a left West Belfast: A Case Study in in the constituency before, during, and af- Building a Left in the North ter elections. Gerry Carroll launched his campaign for There is an old anarchist objection local council in November of 2013, though to the Left involving itself in electoral this was not the first time that either he politics: ‘You should have put all those or People Before Profit had engaged in resources into ground-level struggles and an electoral run in the west of the city. campaigns’. But this ignores one obvious PBP first stood in West Belfast in 2007, lesson of Gerry’s campaign: it was the very polling 774 votes (2.3 percent)-a result act of standing in the elections that af- that, though far from earth shattering, forded us a platform to build campaigns. nevertheless did signal a break from the Why is this the case? In short, elec- usual one or two hundred votes that the tions legitimise activism for ordinary peo- Left had until then become accustomed to. ple. Taught that politics is a specialised Gerry Carroll then built on this achiev- arena for specialised people, most folk sim- ment in 2011, polling 1,661 votes (4.8 per- ply do not think that they have the means cent) in the Assembly elections before im- to involve themselves in politics. Of course proving on this performance (in a greatly the surest and fastest way to overcome this reduced turnout) in the Westminster by- divide is through mass agitation. But in election, with 1751 votes (7.6 percent). the absence of this, elections can provide Truth be told, the wider Left refused to the Left with a means to relate to large acknowledge the significance of these re- numbers of people outside the organised sults, either for sectarian reasons, or for Left who it can then pull into activism. lack of confidence that class politics could These rising electoral fortunes of the genuinely take hold in the North. These group were reflective of a growing acknowl- votes, they declared, were the result of a edgment of our campaigning work in West ‘fluke’, ‘a protest vote’, or some machi- Belfast. Here the record speaks for itself. avelian ‘pact’ arranged between the SWP We were the driving force in that corner and anti-Agreement republicans. But of the city during the anti-water charges facts are stubborn things. Whether other campaign, organising large public meetings sections of the Left were willing to ac- in various localities. We organised a cam- knowledge it or not, People Before Profit paign against an Assembly imposed ‘park-

46 ing tax’ on residents, with meetings in ex- Park was to be the party’s centrepiece in cess of a hundred people on the lower Falls its private sector-led, tourism-driven, ‘re- Road. We founded and worked within the generation’ of West Belfast. Tensions in- campaign to stop the old Andersonstown evitably emerged. For the first time in RUC Barracks site from being handed over as long as people could remember hun- to private developers, securing a significant dreds of residents marched to the Sinn F´ein victory when the Department of Social De- headquarters in Andersonstown to protest. velopment was forced to back down. We The sole political representative invited to ran a successful campaign to stop cuts to speak was Gerry Carroll. youth services and a hard-fought but ul- In effect, the neoliberal vision for West timately unsuccessful campaign to save a Belfast was coming unstuck. The flip side local library. of this vision, austerity and public sec- This rise in community agitation con- tor cuts, was also being felt in the con- tinued apace in the run up to the elec- stituency. A plan by Belfast City Coun- tion. First was the emergence of a resident- cil to effectively privatise leisure facilities led campaign against the development of in Belfast was met by widespread derision. Casement Park. At first objections were In the west of the city People Before Profit only minor: no one opposed the redevelop- organised large public meetings, with one ment per se, only certain aspects dealing attended by over 100 people and a well- with height, capacity and planning. But attended protest that marched to the head- faced by the deceitful tactics of planners quarters of the SDLP (in the end, and un- and the complicity of local politicians in der pressure from the trade unions and pushing the plan through, residents were their own constituents, SF did not back 7 forced to stage a series of large, high pro- the privatisation). Deteriorating condi- file protests to attempt to stop the devel- tions at the local Royal Victoria Hospital opment. The GAA is deeply rooted in also became a focus for anger over the cuts. West Belfast, and the plan created divi- After the closure of the A&E at City Hos- sions among its own supporters that will pital, there were two major crises declared outlast the new project. As Joe Brolly has in the Royal: hundreds of patients were be- attested, tensions are emerging within the ing left on waiting beds for over 24 hours, Association between its ‘guiding principles and it emerged that at least five needless [of] altruism, volunteerism and participa- deaths were being investigated in relation tion’ and the creeping agenda of ‘capital- to the crisis. People Before Profit dis- ism’ and ‘commerce’ which is ‘consuming tributed thousands of newsletters around [the organisation] piece by piece’.6 It was the constituency pointing out the obvious: this ‘Corporate GAA’ that residents ob- cuts were costing lives. jected to, not the grassroots organisation One final example will illustrate the ex- on the ground. There were political impli- tent to which people were breaking from cations too. Sinn F´ein,a party that has traditional allegiances. The decision by long made much of its support for resident Foras Na Gaeilge-the organisation set up groups, backed the Corporate GAA over by the Belfast Agreement to promote the the development (as did the SDLP). It is Irish language-to cut the number of Irish not difficult to understand why: Casement language groups it funds in Ireland from 6Joe Brolly, The dying embers of the GAA, http://gaeliclife.com/2014/06/joe-brolly-the- dying-embers-of-the-gaa/ 7See the excellent report by Trade Union TV

47 19 to just 6 had a disproportionate effect and the intervention of the radical Left was on the North. None of the 6 organisations crucial to this. We had created a poll of at- would be based in the North, and 4 groups- traction where anyone with an issue would 3 of which were based in West Belfast-lost approach us to help them with campaigns. their funding entirely. This funding model Where workers or residents acted we as- had the backing of Sinn F´ein. Although sisted and encouraged them. Where issues the Irish language community in the North existed but no lead was given we stepped and Sinn Fein have never been synonymous in to organise agitation. And through our (as Unionists would have us believe), there local literature we drew the dots together was always an important connection be- and put them into the wider context of aus- tween the two: Irish language enthusiasts terity in the North. assumed that the party would forthrightly Sinn F´ein responded to emerging promote and defend its interests. But as protests over a range of issues by blaming Connolly long ago argued, the ‘language them on the activities of ‘micro groups’- question’ in Ireland is an economic ques- their catchall term for small ‘dissident’ re- tion. Sinn F´ein’sadoption of neoliberal publican groupings. This was a familiar economics did not sit well with a largely strategy for Sinn F´ein: to publicly de- state-funded Irish language sector. Peo- nounce any opposition to them as being ple Before Profit produced local leaflets as the work of ‘dissidents’. Whilst bitter ex- Gaeilge to agitate against these cuts and asperation over Sinn F´ein’saccommoda- joined the protests. tion with the establishment exists through- These protests all attest to the grow- out nationalist working class areas, there is ing tension between SF’s neoliberal project little appetite for a return to armed strug- and its mainly working class base in na- gle. Contrary to the claims of republi- tionalist areas. As cracks in the party’s can groups, small scale armed actions have hegemonic control appeared, the political worked to strengthen the establishment in culture of West Belfast began to shift. the North rather than destabilise it. It has For decades, West Belfast has been the aided SF in deflecting criticism in nation- citadel of Sinn Fein’s electoral advance- alist areas by allowing them to argue that ment. It was here that won voters have no choice but to either support the party’s first Westminster seat in 1983 the Stormont regime or accept a return to (Bobby Sands was previously elected as an armed conflict and the return to misery Anti H-Block candidate). And save for that entails. In most cases people have a brief interlude in 1992, the Party’s ad- chosen the former. In this way the con- vancement has progressed unchecked ever tinuation of armed struggle by anti-GFA since. The term ‘electoral machine’ has republicans has been a gift to SF. long been associated with Sinn F´einbut People Before Profit, however, could it is particularly apt in West Belfast. Each not be so easily dismissed as ‘dissident’. polling station is manned by dozens of We made clear that there was an alterna- Sinn F´ein volunteers. Every available tive to the false choice of either supporting inch of non-commercial property becomes the establishment or returning to armed colonised with SF election posters. struggle. Through years of campaigning But the protests of local residents, we built up a broad coalition of activists in workers, and Irish language speakers had West Belfast who would come to organise broken the mould and reset the parame- Gerry’s election campaign. This included ters for accepted politics in West Belfast, seasoned activists, both from the radical

48 Left and other political traditions, as well A New Left in Belfast: as scores of new activists, some of whom Prospects and Pitfalls were involved in politics for the first time. The backbone of the campaign was made Gerry Carroll took his seat on Belfast up by a small but dedicated group of peo- City Council relatively comfortably. He ple from the SWP who brought both ide- will be the first socialist on the coucil for ological coherence and practical know-how decades. It would be hard to understate to the election. The interrelation between the significance of this result. Histori- these two poles-the solid socialist core and cally, the electoral fortunes of the Left in the divergent many-was crucial to the suc- West Belfast, and the North more gener- cess of the campaign. ally, have hardly been overwhelming. Even the greatest of all Irish socialists, James In a welcome departure from previous Connolly, failed to win a seat when he practice both Unite and the Fire Bridades stood in the West. The same can be said Union backed Gerry’s campaign. He also of Tommy Geehan, the leader of the great had the backing of pockets of union ac- Outdoor Relief Strike of 1932, who stood tivists in the Royal Victoria Hospital and in the neigbhouring Court ward and failed in the local leisure centres, along with the to get in. Of course this is not to say that support of prominent community activists. the Left has never had an electoral foot- His campaign was big, visible and rooted ing in the West. In the 1980s-on the back in the area. A candidate with a record of of the hunger strikes-Peoples’ Democracy campaigning backed by trade unions and secured two seats. The party was wiped with the support of the radical Left proved out electorally, however, when Sinn F´ein to be formidable force. dropped its policy of abstentionism. And One final point needs to be made with the Northen Ireland Labour Party, or vari- regards to the significance of this victory. ants of it, were the main voice of opposition Carroll’s result is particularly remarkable in the area for many decades before the given the ‘Adams Effect’ in the elections. Troubles buried Labourism in the North. When Adams was arrested in relation to What then are the measures of possi- the McConville murder there was a signifi- bility in this new situation? Undoubtedly, cant surge in Sinn F´einactivity across the the customary qualification remains: this city. SF canvass teams swelled in size fol- is a single council seat and there is more, lowing the arrest: where there were 7 or 8 much more, to be done. But even the most people out on canvass, teams after the ar- hardened of miserabilists must recognise rest were made up of 40 or 50 canvassers. that a significant opportunity now presents Three rallies were held in West Belfast in a itself. A space has been opened which al- matter of days, with at least one number- lows the Left to sink real roots in working ing over a thousand. And the effect was class communities. Within days of his elec- felt on the doorstep too. Disillusioned SF tion Carroll was contacted by residents and voters felt an obligation to return to the workers about the closure of a local post of- flock now that their leader was under at- fice: a protest was swiftly organised with tack from familiar ‘dark forces’. Had the the backing of the sacked workers and the Adams arrest never happened it is quite local community. Just the next week we likely that the turnout would have been were spearheading a campaign against the lower and Carroll would have comfortably racism of Peter Robinson, with thousands topped the poll. of people marching in the streets against

49 racist attacks and Islamophobia. A new and ‘moving on from the past’. Organi- Left in Belfast is far from fully formed: but sationally this political tendency has been the contours are clearly emerging. most associated with the Alliance Party For now Carroll’s victory remains a lo- and newer formations like NI21. calised phenomenon. But in the wider The material basis of this politics ex- battle for class politics in the North we ists in two places. Firstly it represents a have built a significant bridgehead in West middle class yearning for an end to riot- Belfast. Here we can further root socialist ing and instability-the conditions where, politics and pose a challenge to national- ostensibly, tourism, trade and ‘prosperity’ ism within its very heartlands. And there can take off. This trend can be seen in the is more to be gained in electoral terms: a ‘Take Back the City’ initiative held up in seat in the 2016 Assembly beckons. But we the media as a proper response to the loy- must also breakout into other areas, both alist flag protest: people were encouraged ‘Nationalist’ and ‘Unionist’. As Gerry told to shop or dine in city centre businesses to Socialist Worker: improve the economy. The main support- ers of this approach to sectarianism-the The conditions that brought Alliance Party and the now deeply dam- people out to vote for change aged NI21-are in reality to the right of in Black Mountain ward exist even the DUP on economic questions. Al- in every working-class commu- liance was in favour of water charges and nity, and on both sides of the opposed to the cap on tuition fees, whilst sectarian divide. We are proud NI21 declared that if it were elected to to have worked side-by-side Europe it would join the European Peo- with people on the Shankill ples’ Party, the grouping that included and in the Village areas. We Fine Gael. This politics is also by de- will seize every opportunity to fault Unionist. Compare the fawning over unite ordinary people against NI21 rep Tina McKenzie after she declared the elite who benefit from our her support for the Union despite her Na- continued division.8 tionalist background, with the visceral re- In building a rejuvenated Left in sponse to the declaration by Alliance’s Belfast, however, we will be faced by many Anna Lo that she favours a United Ireland. potential pitfalls. As has already been out- This liberalism dominates elsewhere in lined in this journal,9 any Left in the North society in the North. It is prevalent in the must avoid the pulls of the two main po- large, state-funded NGO sector, where a litical blocs, Unionism and Nationalism. condition for funding is that ‘politics must But today perhaps the biggest pull of all stay out’. This means that challenging sec- is that of middle-class liberalism. Here we tarianism, and the organisations that es- are encouraged to avoid all questions re- pouse it, is out of bounds. It also exists lated to sectarianism-as divisions between within sections of the trade unions, and Catholics and Protestants are somehow particularly within the bureaucracy, who innate-and to confine ourselves to vague refuse to oppose loyalist reaction and fall platitudes about ‘learning from each other’ over themselves to heap praise on groups 8http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/38203/Newly+elected+socialist+in+West+Belfast+ says,+%E2%80%9CPeople+are+fed+up+with+the+status+quo.%E2%80%9D 9Brian Kelly, ‘: The Left, Sectarian Resurgence and the National Question Today’, Irish Marxist Review 8

50 like the PUP that are promoting it. Ulti- confine ourselves to either the parameters mately this kind of politics lets sectarian- of Green and Orange discourse or the be- ism off the hook. nign banality of ‘Northern Irish’ liberalism. Any Left that ignores the menace of This will necessitate an understanding that sectarianism is planting the seeds of its the very structures of the Northern state own demise. It is not sufficient, therefore, institutionalise sectarianism. Caught be- for the Left to be ‘non-sectarian’: it must tween an exasperation with the lack of be unequivocally anti-sectarian and be on progress in the North and a fear of return- constant lookout for every opportunity to ing to the ‘bad old days’ of the Troubles, root that politics in working-class resis- the working classes of the North have been tance. In doing so we must avoid adopting encouraged to see the structures of the the poltics of evasion that has so afflicted Northern state as a sort of bulwark against sections of the Left for decades. We can- the abyss of communal violence. But so- not be silent in the face of sectarian re- cialists cannot be beholden to this view. action, or hope that it will all blow over Be it the old ‘Norn Iron’ of the loyalists or on its own. Famously, in 1935, the right- the ‘New Northern Ireland’ of the Catholic wing Labourist and NILP MP for East and Protestant middle classes, the unas- Belfast Harry Midgely went AWOL during sailable truth remains: the Northern state the pogrom of 1935, when over a thousand is not the solution to sectarianism, but its families were burnt out of their homes, fail- irrevocable guarantor. ing to provide any substantive response to In building a new Left we will undoubt- loyalist reaction. Of course we cannot ex- edly come up against the ‘old mole’ of Irish pect our new councillor to hold the full politics: the National Question. Socialists weight of the Left’s response to sectarian- must be bold and confident in this regard. ism, but it might be advisable, at least, for Whilst the border will hardly be the car- the comrade to avoid booking holidays in dinal question on which the Left is built, July. socialists must set out to forge our own The kind of bury-your-head-in-the- paradigm on the question. We must re- sand approach adopted by the likes of discover the road less travelled in Irish pol- Harry Midgley is not an option for the Left itics: that of a principled Left which is ir- today. Socialist poltics cannot be akin to reconcilably opposed to sectarianism and a set of scales: where we put a little green fights for workers unity on a 32-county ba- on one side and a little orange on the other sis. Therein lays the promethean promise until we achive the correct balance. In- of a resurgent Left in Ireland: only it can stead, we must develop what George Or- have the potential for overcoming sectar- well dubbed the ‘power of facing unpleas- ian divisions in Ireland and building a so- ant facts’.10 We must oppose sectarianism ciety that all people, Protestant, Catholic in all its forms, all the while fighting for or non-believer, can have a stake in. Or the unity of working class people against to repeat a Lukcian adage: ‘The voyage is the real enemy at the top. And we cannot over, now the travel begins’.11

10George Orwell, Why I Write, 1946, http://orwell.ru/library/essays/wiw/english/e_wiw 11Gy¨orgyLuk´acs, The Theory of the Novel, 1920

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