10 April 1997 Edition
Labour's Unionists
Eoin O Broin examines the British Labour Party's shift from unity-by-consent
With only weeks to go before the British general election, and a Labour victory looking imminent, there is much speculation about what Tony Blair will do in Ireland.
Recent performances on the Prevention of Terrorism Act, Walworth Road's boycott of any dealings between Labour representatives and Sinn Féin, and Tony Blair's uncritical support for the Tories' approach to the peace process, have caused much concern from observers on both sides of the Irish Sea.
Are Labour simply playing safe to secure an election victory, after which they will return more robustly to their ``unity by consent'' position? Or does New Labour mean that as with so much of the traditional Labour agenda, ``unity'' is being replaced by the Unionist veto?
Writing in An Phoblacht some months ago, Labour councillor for Oswestry and Deputy leader of the party's Agreed Ireland Forum, Steve Jones, reassured readers that ``in spite of the errors of judgments that have dogged Labour in recent months, our policy of unity by consent remains intact, and intellectually unchallenged within the party''. Jones went on to say that ``seismic shifts'' in policy are unlikely irrespective of the result of the forthcoming election.
However, Jones comments sit uneasily alongside those made by other Labour Party representatives. Writing in the Ulster Review, the Ulster Unionist Party journal, Labour MP for Vauxhall in London, Kate Hoey, told her unionist readership, ``more and more within the Labour Party recognise that the `Unity by Consent' policy is out-dated and contradictory and I believe it is only a question of time before it is dropped. It is time for New Labour to help build a New Union.''
In a similar vein Andrew MacKinlay, Labour MP for Thurrock told Unionists that they had ``no grounds to fear a Labour government. Tony Blair has made it clear that Labour will not seek to become persuaders but has stated that Northern Ireland's existing relationship with Britain will endure so long as the greater majority want it''. MacKinlay was speaking to the recently set-up Unionist Labour Group, a discussion group within the UUP, designed to prepare the party for the possibility of a Labour administration. Both his message and Hoey's is that unity by consent is on the way out, and any future Labour government will copperfasten the unionist veto while using its user friendly language of ``consent''.
So who is Kate Hoey and how much influence does she have within New Labour? 6 County-born Hoey, a Campaign for Labour Representation stalwart and formerly a member of the anti-imperialist International Marxist Group, spent much of her earlier career campaigning for a united Ireland. The journey she has travelled since those heady days of pro-republicanism is quite astonishing.
In 1992 she set up Democracy Now (DN), an internal Labour Party pressure group who have been described by the Campaign for Labour Representation as ``working to a narrow Unionist agenda...as a means of undermining the party's commitment to Irish unity by consent''. While Hoey initially rebutted CLR's accusations DN's membership and subsequent actions and words confirmed the Campaign's suspicions.
Among the notable figures who have become involved in DN is Harry Barnes MP who is also a leading member of the anti-republican New Consensus group. Writing in Fortnight magazine in April 1990 Barnes said that the Six Counties needs an ``internal solution'' and called on his readers to ``accept the existence of the border''.
Another key DN player is David Montgomery, head of the Mirror Group of newspapers. Montgomery has financed DN public meetings and publicly supported the aims of the group.''
While editor of Today, he ran a vitriolic `Don't Buy the Mirror' campaign in loyalist areas of Belfast in protest at the paper's editorial line on Ireland. He also teamed up with the right wing ``Friends of the Union'' group in their unsuccessful attempt during the 1980's to buy the unionist paper, the Ulster News Letter.''
Alongside Labour politicians and media moguls sit an array of other figures with even less savoury pasts. James Winston, formerly of the British Army is currently Secretary of DN. In the Irish Post newspaper in February 1993 Winston is pictured at a counter-demonstration to a Bloody Sunday commemoration rally at London. Winston is followed by John Cobain, who was a DN delegate at the Labour Party conference in 1994. During the Anglo Irish Agreement, Cobain was arrested in Dublin by the Gardai while on a UDA poster mission.
Also closer to home are Erskine Holmes and Boyd Black. Holmes has been a longtime campaigner for Labour representation in the North and made no secret of his anti-republican and pro-union views. Equally, Black, formerly with the Irish Communist Organisation has been a key figure in developing the ``two nationist'' explanation of the war in Ireland, a theory which completely excludes the British state from all but a minor role in the conflict.
While this list of activists who form the core of DN may be of concern to some, Kate Hoey's support for none other than UK Unionist Robert McCartney and UUP leader David Trimble has caused widespread dismay throughout sections of the Labour Party.
During McCartney's electoral campaign in 1995 Hoey not only publicly endorsed his candidature, but joined the soon-to-be MP on the campaign trail. Indeed the Belfast News Letter of 15 June 1995 carried a large photograph of Hoey pinning a rosette onto McCartney's lapel during the canvass. Private Eye magazine were also aware of the connection, writing in their edition of 30 June 1995, ``Who was walking down the aisle of the House of Commons arm and arm with Robert ``Cream Bun'' McCartney, the new Unionist MP for North Down? It looked rather like Kate Hoey...''
Hoey was also one of the first to welcome the victory of David Trimble as head of the UUP. Despite Trimble's role in the siege of Drumcree in 1995, which was to play a central part to play in his election, Hoey had this to say about the so called moderniser; ``Trimble's election as leader of the Unionist party and his determination to go on the offensive in promoting the case of the union is welcome...The growth in numbers and influence of the Young Unionists is important. The pro Union voice has to cast out the negativeness and reaction and forage a fully involved future generation of young Ulster men and women''.
While much was made of both Trimble and McCartney as possibly being the ones to break the mould of Orange supremacist thinking within Unionism, the initial enthusiasm petered out following McCartney's ideological marriage with Paisley's DUP and Trimble's post Drumcree return to traditional Unionism. As for the importance of the young Unionists, Hoey is right to see Trimble's success as indebted to the ``young Turks'' but as Ed Moloney pointed out in an article in the Sunday Tribune, ``Their politics are distinctly, and for some disturbingly right wing''.
While Steve Jones may believe that the influence of Democracy Now is marginal within the Labour party, their overtures towards Unionism in the Six Counties would not be happening if the Labour leadership saw it as a problem. Jones is probably right that the current bipartisan approach is as much to do with pre-election caution as shifts in policy, a weak Labour victory, or hung parliament would mean that Labour may have to court Unionist support to stay in power. It is highly likely that the Labour spin doctors in Walworth Road, who never miss a thing, are aware of this possible scenario and are allowing Hoey and Democracy Now free reign to cultivate political links which may come in useful in the future. And the frightening thing is that this is the best case scenario. The worst is that, as with so much of its traditional policy agenda, Labour is moving into Tory territory on the Six Counties. The result however, would not be of the kind sought by Democracy Now. It would be a case of New Labour, Old Union. But then maybe that's what they want after all?
With only weeks to go before the British general election, and a Labour victory looking imminent, there is much speculation about what Tony Blair will do in Ireland.
Recent performances on the Prevention of Terrorism Act, Walworth Road's boycott of any dealings between Labour representatives and Sinn Féin, and Tony Blair's uncritical support for the Tories' approach to the peace process, have caused much concern from observers on both sides of the Irish Sea.
Are Labour simply playing safe to secure an election victory, after which they will return more robustly to their ``unity by consent'' position? Or does New Labour mean that as with so much of the traditional Labour agenda, ``unity'' is being replaced by the Unionist veto?
Writing in An Phoblacht some months ago, Labour councillor for Oswestry and Deputy leader of the party's Agreed Ireland Forum, Steve Jones, reassured readers that ``in spite of the errors of judgments that have dogged Labour in recent months, our policy of unity by consent remains intact, and intellectually unchallenged within the party''. Jones went on to say that ``seismic shifts'' in policy are unlikely irrespective of the result of the forthcoming election.
However, Jones comments sit uneasily alongside those made by other Labour Party representatives. Writing in the Ulster Review, the Ulster Unionist Party journal, Labour MP for Vauxhall in London, Kate Hoey, told her unionist readership, ``more and more within the Labour Party recognise that the `Unity by Consent' policy is out-dated and contradictory and I believe it is only a question of time before it is dropped. It is time for New Labour to help build a New Union.''
In a similar vein Andrew MacKinlay, Labour MP for Thurrock told Unionists that they had ``no grounds to fear a Labour government. Tony Blair has made it clear that Labour will not seek to become persuaders but has stated that Northern Ireland's existing relationship with Britain will endure so long as the greater majority want it''. MacKinlay was speaking to the recently set-up Unionist Labour Group, a discussion group within the UUP, designed to prepare the party for the possibility of a Labour administration. Both his message and Hoey's is that unity by consent is on the way out, and any future Labour government will copperfasten the unionist veto while using its user friendly language of ``consent''.
So who is Kate Hoey and how much influence does she have within New Labour? 6 County-born Hoey, a Campaign for Labour Representation stalwart and formerly a member of the anti-imperialist International Marxist Group, spent much of her earlier career campaigning for a united Ireland. The journey she has travelled since those heady days of pro-republicanism is quite astonishing.
In 1992 she set up Democracy Now (DN), an internal Labour Party pressure group who have been described by the Campaign for Labour Representation as ``working to a narrow Unionist agenda...as a means of undermining the party's commitment to Irish unity by consent''. While Hoey initially rebutted CLR's accusations DN's membership and subsequent actions and words confirmed the Campaign's suspicions.
Among the notable figures who have become involved in DN is Harry Barnes MP who is also a leading member of the anti-republican New Consensus group. Writing in Fortnight magazine in April 1990 Barnes said that the Six Counties needs an ``internal solution'' and called on his readers to ``accept the existence of the border''.
Another key DN player is David Montgomery, head of the Mirror Group of newspapers. Montgomery has financed DN public meetings and publicly supported the aims of the group.''
While editor of Today, he ran a vitriolic `Don't Buy the Mirror' campaign in loyalist areas of Belfast in protest at the paper's editorial line on Ireland. He also teamed up with the right wing ``Friends of the Union'' group in their unsuccessful attempt during the 1980's to buy the unionist paper, the Ulster News Letter.''
Alongside Labour politicians and media moguls sit an array of other figures with even less savoury pasts. James Winston, formerly of the British Army is currently Secretary of DN. In the Irish Post newspaper in February 1993 Winston is pictured at a counter-demonstration to a Bloody Sunday commemoration rally at London. Winston is followed by John Cobain, who was a DN delegate at the Labour Party conference in 1994. During the Anglo Irish Agreement, Cobain was arrested in Dublin by the Gardai while on a UDA poster mission.
Also closer to home are Erskine Holmes and Boyd Black. Holmes has been a longtime campaigner for Labour representation in the North and made no secret of his anti-republican and pro-union views. Equally, Black, formerly with the Irish Communist Organisation has been a key figure in developing the ``two nationist'' explanation of the war in Ireland, a theory which completely excludes the British state from all but a minor role in the conflict.
While this list of activists who form the core of DN may be of concern to some, Kate Hoey's support for none other than UK Unionist Robert McCartney and UUP leader David Trimble has caused widespread dismay throughout sections of the Labour Party.
During McCartney's electoral campaign in 1995 Hoey not only publicly endorsed his candidature, but joined the soon-to-be MP on the campaign trail. Indeed the Belfast News Letter of 15 June 1995 carried a large photograph of Hoey pinning a rosette onto McCartney's lapel during the canvass. Private Eye magazine were also aware of the connection, writing in their edition of 30 June 1995, ``Who was walking down the aisle of the House of Commons arm and arm with Robert ``Cream Bun'' McCartney, the new Unionist MP for North Down? It looked rather like Kate Hoey...''
Hoey was also one of the first to welcome the victory of David Trimble as head of the UUP. Despite Trimble's role in the siege of Drumcree in 1995, which was to play a central part to play in his election, Hoey had this to say about the so called moderniser; ``Trimble's election as leader of the Unionist party and his determination to go on the offensive in promoting the case of the union is welcome...The growth in numbers and influence of the Young Unionists is important. The pro Union voice has to cast out the negativeness and reaction and forage a fully involved future generation of young Ulster men and women''.
While much was made of both Trimble and McCartney as possibly being the ones to break the mould of Orange supremacist thinking within Unionism, the initial enthusiasm petered out following McCartney's ideological marriage with Paisley's DUP and Trimble's post Drumcree return to traditional Unionism. As for the importance of the young Unionists, Hoey is right to see Trimble's success as indebted to the ``young Turks'' but as Ed Moloney pointed out in an article in the Sunday Tribune, ``Their politics are distinctly, and for some disturbingly right wing''.
While Steve Jones may believe that the influence of Democracy Now is marginal within the Labour party, their overtures towards Unionism in the Six Counties would not be happening if the Labour leadership saw it as a problem. Jones is probably right that the current bipartisan approach is as much to do with pre-election caution as shifts in policy, a weak Labour victory, or hung parliament would mean that Labour may have to court Unionist support to stay in power. It is highly likely that the Labour spin doctors in Walworth Road, who never miss a thing, are aware of this possible scenario and are allowing Hoey and Democracy Now free reign to cultivate political links which may come in useful in the future. And the frightening thing is that this is the best case scenario. The worst is that, as with so much of its traditional policy agenda, Labour is moving into Tory territory on the Six Counties. The result however, would not be of the kind sought by Democracy Now. It would be a case of New Labour, Old Union. But then maybe that's what they want after all?