Big House Nationalism

By AM Sunday, July 14, 2024

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Muiris Ó Súilleabháin ✍ It could be argued, with some merit, that the British parliamentary election of 2024, finally saw Big House Nationalism overtake Big House Unionism as the dominant political force in the north of Ireland.

That Big House Nationalism as now exemplified by New Sinn Féin presented the electorate with a party manifesto, painfully devoid of substance or policy. Treating their electorate with such disdain, was an indicator that the election was to be fought along tribal lines. A calculated risk was taken by the new kitchen cabinet, that the vote for us or you will get them policy was the one that would resonate best with those who bothered to vote in an election with the lowest recorded turnout.

A few weeks previous, the election in the 26 had been a disaster for Southern Sinn Féin. Mary Lou, Pearse and Eoin saw their populist political posturing and smugness overwhelmingly rejected by the vast majority of the electorate. Decimation was only prevented, and the southern leadership saved (for now) by the vote transfers of Aontu, the far right, and various socialist parties.

FF/FG and the media, surgically dissected the policies of SSF, as not costed, not worked out, remarkably centrist and similar to FF/FG policy. FF/FG also publicly highlighted the abysmal failure of NSF in the north to make any substantial progress on the issues they claimed that they alone could solve in the south.

NSF will have been delighted that their political opponents and the media chose to make this election a sectarian head count. Pat Cullen was harassed about her views on historical IRA actions rather than facing scrutiny about the glaring contradictions of her standing for a party that actively cut nurses pay and refused health workers a pay rise when they held the Stormont Ministries responsible i.e. Health (O’Neill) and Finance (O’Muilleoir).

NSF will be actually aware, privately, that their recent “success” (managing to retain the same number of seats and the same percentage of votes) was a byproduct of Unionist disunity rather than the “seismic shift” towards reunification that some dubious commentators are portraying.

With a refreshed mandate not to be the DUP, Northern Sinn Féin, have promised (again) that they will “continue” to put the rights of workers and families to the fore front as they govern the north of Ireland. The northern leadership of Michelle, Conor and John have already recommitted to ask the British Exchequer (nicely) for more money for public service reform and payrises in the north.

Michelle and Mary Lou have also asked for a not inconsiderable bung on the side to allow the First Minister to deliver what her party`s Finance & Economy Ministers could not deliver, a new football pitch in West Belfast.

I live in hope for the day when the media and voters will begin to challenge NSF on actual delivery and outcomes rather than buying into the busted flush of border poll mania. A forensic examination of what they have achieved in the north since they entered Government 26 years ago could provide the baseline for a credible challenge to their hegemony.

There is now an entire generation in the north who have not lived under Westminster direct rule, and for most people Unionist misrule is a historical memory. Conditions in the north are now directly comparable, in relative terms, to the conditions that gave birth to the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

20% of the population are leaving school with literacy levels that are not considered functional.

In figures that dwarf the South in per capita terms, 55,000 people presented as homeless, including a shocking 4,500 children in 23/24.

Absolute child poverty rates in West Belfast remain the highest in the UK and at 21% are comparable to post invasion Iraq.

27% of the northern population are economically inactive which is primarily linked to disability and illness surpassing unemployment rates in both Gaza and Sudan.

The differential in life expectancy between the richest and the poorest in the north has grown to a striking 14 years and the number of people reporting poor or bad health has risen by 50% since the 2011 census.

Waiting lists for cancer treatments have increased to the extent that international targets, (that will save your life) are not being met.

83,000 people are dependent upon foodbanks, and the opening of new foodbanks are viewed as nothing more than good photo opportunities for progressive Ministers.

This is a snapshot of life in the north in 2024. It demonstrates how the people of the North are being failed, not by the “Brits” or Big House Unionism but by the parties that have led the north for the last 26 years. This includes the progressive party of change NSF, which has held executive powers in all the ministries responsible, but has singularly failed to bring about any progressive change in 26 years.

A deeper delve, beyond this snapshot of post GFA NI, would clearly show that he peace dividend has bypassed most working-class communities across the north. Inequalities remain clustered in the same areas (primarily in Belfast and Derry) as they were in 1969. The issues remain the same.

Big House Nationalism has failed us all, while heavy on rhetoric, New Sinn Féin have failed to address in any meaningful way the systemic and endemic inequalities that still pervade across our society: Meet the new boss same as the old boss.

Mountains of “peace money” from the states and the EU, which should have been used to address these critical issues effectively, was squandered on vanity projects whose sole purpose was to keep certain republicans on board the peace train.

NSF Ministers in the north continue to copiously fund community and voluntary organisations who make no or minimal impact upon their communities and provide nothing but an employability programme for the loyal soldiers of a long-forgotten war and their extended families.

Public money was sacrificed to “solidify” the “peace process” and this obscenity continues in 2024, thirty years after the first sos. NSF, funded indirectly by the British, maintain a frightening level of coercive control over their communities preventing a radical alternative emerging in the north. Community groups and the ubiquitous community workers serve the “movement” in much the same way as the “Committees for the Defence of the Revolution” serve the Cuban establishment.

When I raised these matters with the NSF canvasser at my door recently, I was blandly told that a vote for NSF was a vote for change. As the NSF canvas teams left in their top of the range cars, I pondered that change should have and could have started 26 years ago. I see no appetite or capacity within NSF to change anything.

Why would they change or want to change the status quo when the “movement” and its activists are the sole beneficiaries of the “peace process gravy train.”

This is a subject that I hope to explore in greater detail in my next article.

The hysteria that NSF and their proxies have created about a border poll and the questionable significance of a football pitch in West Belfast are deflections. Distractions designed to keep the troops busy and happy and to fool the base into believing the myth of movement towards the republic.

A border poll which has been on the statute books for 50+ years, will not bring The Republic. In the remote chance that the British call one, there is an even more distant probability that it will be successful. The recent election results north and south are the clearest indicators in some time that it is not on the agenda of either Government. Why would it be, when the great and the good of “Irelands Future” as embodied by Brian Feeney couldn’t even fill a medium sized concert venue in Belfast despite a national mobilisation by New SF.

Starmer came north in the first few days of his term to underpin that the British approach will be consistent under his tutelage. The bipartisan approach to the north that has existed in the UK since 1922 will continue. With a majority of 174 and at least three terms in his sights, Starmer has no need (or appetite) to appease the 7 abstentionist MPs from NSF. The notion that they (NSF) could “pile the pressure” on the UK establishment to accede to a polite request for a border poll is as preposterous as it sounds.

Likewise, building a new football pitch in West Belfast won’t eradicate the endemic child poverty in that area. “Families and workers” (© NSF) will still be dependent upon foodbanks and the number of children requiring free school meals will continue to increase.

How anyone could argue that Albania versus Georgia in Andytown will generate prosperity for Belfast is beyond slapstick. It will, for a few days, increase the profits for pubs, clubs, hotels and taxis etc in the vicinity of Casement, (cui bono? ). If it happens, it will be sold to us as a victory for NSF (over Unionism) and presented as a triumph for the progressive politics and change that we were promised.

I have no doubt the Wolf Tones will sell out the opening concert and that the “peoples” paper and Feile will instruct us all that the building of Casement is a vicarious victory for the bold IRA. Danny and Gerry might even get a stand named after them.

Children will still be hungry families and workers will continue to struggle and the poor will still be the poor.

⏩Muiris Ó Súilleabháin was a member of the Republican Movement until he retired in 2006 after 20 years of service. Fiche bhliain ag fás.