A
prominent politician and wife of the First Minister is exposed as
having had an affair with a 19-year old and bribing him with the
finances for him to start his own business. No, it’s not the plot to a
bad TV drama or B movie; it’s the latest scandal to shatter confidence
in the leaders of Unionism in the North of Ireland. As if these events
couldn’t seem any more cynical the woman in question, Iris Robinson, is
a proud evangelical Christian moralist. In 2008 she called
homosexuality an “abomination” and claimed gay people needed saving and
could be turned around. Yet seemingly having an extramarital affair and
using political influence to further the interests of your lover is
perfectly acceptable!
Aside from being a farce in itself this development only further
demonstrates the massive gulf that exists between the leaders of the
Unionist parties and the protestant workers that vote for them. These
events follow on from the MPs’ expenses scandal which revealed that
politicians from across all the parties had their snouts in the trough.
It’s now clear that such attitudes prevail at Stormont and even at
local government level! Be it the Robinsons’ £30,000 MP’s expenses
claim for food or massive undisclosed backhanders to the tune of the
tens of thousands of pounds, it’s quite clear that whilst the working
class has to pay for the capitalist crisis in the form of unemployment
and public sector cuts some have never had it so good.
Unionism currently lies in crisis; the Ulster Unionist Party has
become little more than an annex of the Tories, whilst the DUP is now
on the rocks following Mrs. Robinson’s antics which could well topple
Peter Robinson from his position as First Minister. He has already been
forced to stand down for a six-week period as an inquiry decides
whether he knew of his wife’s activity or not. Regardless of its
result, many working class unionists will no doubt conclude that there
is no smoke without fire.
Alongside this we have the rise of the Traditional Unionist Voice,
standing to the right of the DUP. This party effectively opposes the
power sharing set up. Yet TUV offers no solution to the problems of the
working class. It is more concerned with entrenching sectarian
division, having referred to Irish as a “Leprechaun language” and
permitted its members to petition for the released of ex-UFF
paramilitary Torrens Knight, currently in jail for assaulting two women
in a bar.
We can only agree with Peter Tatchell’s view that Iris Robinson is a
“hypocrite” and “sad and two faced”. (BBC News, 7/1/10). Yet this does
not answer the question of the problems of protestant workers. Only a
clear break with the sectarian parties can grant this.
In truth there is a huge vacuum in working class political
representation in the North. Stormont, which is little more than a
glorified county council, represents a cul-de-sac for both protestant
and catholic workers. This impasse means that there are huge
contradictions building up on both sides. The arrival of the capitalist
crisis in the north – which was delayed for reasons we have explained
elsewhere ‑ means that particularly the class contradictions will begin
to emerge. We already know the scale of threatened public sector cuts
in the north; workers will be forced to struggle to defend their
livelihoods as they already have in the south. Fightback
stands for a mass non-sectarian party with a clear socialist programme,
based on the existing mass organisations of the working class, the
trade unions. Workers’ political representatives must take the wage of
the average skilled worker to insure they remain materially tied to the
class and represent our interests instead of joining the ranks of the
ruling class politicians laughing all the way to the next expenses
claim or dodgy deal.
