‘Gerry Carroll & Brexit: The Vital Dilemma Facing West Belfast’ by Donal Lavery

For anyone who follows my scribblings, they will know that I don’t much fancy the European Union. As an individual-minded person, I much prefer the idea of sovereign, self-governing nation states – who decide their own tax, their own laws and their own agenda, in this world. Now that cannot be ruled out for Ireland; I know in my heart of hearts that the Irish people have no love for giving up democracy for the sake of European integration – ultimately, they do not believe it and one day, when the island becomes one single economic, social and political unit, they will vote with their heads and on their feet, to take back control of the levers of power governing their lives as a single Irish Nation. Until then, even the most ardent Eurosketpics here must accept that this is contentious ground. As a partitioned country, we have to consider the advantages (and they do exist) which being a part of this bigger bloc can and will have in the process of reunifying as a single unit within a Single Market of over half a billion people. When that happens, the Irish people may (and I predict will) opt for nation-state democracy – setting our own budget and priorities according the needs of the electorate. I for one want no more right than that of the great anti-colonial leaders, like Mr Nehru, Mr Mandela or Mr Kenyatta, to hire and fire the people who exercise power over our lives.

But let’s turn for a second to West Belfast – an area which is economically and socially deprived, having been routinely discriminated against by successive British Governments over decades of Direct Rule, and for years prior to that in the Orange State. I have family in the West and friends in the West. It has among the highest levels of child poverty and a collective trauma deriving from Crown death-squads having visited state murder campaigns against the residents of it. It needs a real republican government, to redistribute wealth across this island. Many of the people in that constituency owe them having been fairly selected for their own jobs to the interventions of European institutions, which outlawed discriminatory employment practices within the EU Single Market (to include Britain) – pressing sovereign UK Governments to end this revolting misery in the North of Ireland. Many victims of British-state collusion look to Europe for basic principles of justice. Naturally, most feel an affinity for the objectivity of the EU as an institution, despite its austerity agenda and not because of it. That’s an important point I want to come back on.

The other important point I want to outline is this. You cannot repatriate full economic and monetary powers, including rights over currency and spending limits, from the EU and back to a member state while remaining in the Single Market. For example, you cannot be in the Single Market and say you are going to nationalise the commanding heights of the economy with widespread public ownership – which is what People Before Profit have advocated from its inception. It is factually incorrect to lead people to believe that Single Market membership allows for this; You cannot be a ‘command (socialist) economy’ while in an overall continental ‘market (capitalist) economy’, it’s sheer nonsense. I point this out because Gerry Carroll, who stood on a pro-Brexit platform not so long ago, is now telling people that he wants to block a ‘’Tory hard-Brexit’’, which means leaving the Single Market – which is what would be necessary to assist with his apparent Marxist ideology. So now Mr Carroll, in all his noted wisdom, is asking people to vote for him and his party on the basis that they now seem to want to in some way remain in the Single Market (‘’light-Brexit’’), when doing so would mean that you could never financially intervene to nationalise industries or the commanding heights of the economy which he so advances. Who does he think he’s kidding?

Either this man does not have a clue what he’s talking about when it comes to economic issues or he has received a shock-therapy from the overwhelming result his constituency delivered in the referendum to Remain in the European Union and simply has done the electoral arithmetic which affords him his living. Or both. There are people, and I have no doubt that they will do the same when this is posted, who support People Before Profit and look for any opportunity to attack me as opposed to attacking my arguments in pointing out the inconsistencies which they themselves deal in. One individual in particular spends his entire time ‘’liking’’ other people’s personal attacks, however unerudite or rotten they may actually be, in the belief that he’s making ‘’friends’’ in so doing – such is the incompetence and malevolence of these ‘intrigues’. But let’s get something clear, this is NOT about me; I’m not standing for election in West Belfast. It’s a question of credibility on which one candidate is asking for votes. Instead of being true to his convictions, or at least a prisoner of them, voluntary or otherwise, a politcal ‘’chancer’’ is jumping off of a sinking ship he once recently was captaining.

In the General Election of 2017, Mr Carroll and PBP are asking you to vote for them so that they can swear an oath to the British Monarch (bless them) and take their seats on the ‘’green-benches’’ as a means of apparently working with Jeremy Corbyn – to block this ‘’Tory hard-Brexit’’ which they supported during the referendum campaign (to leave the Single Market). They stated, in no uncertain terms, that they would follow the example of Bernadette Devlin (who I happen to admire), by attending the British Parliament and speaking on these issues; Totally oblivious to the fact that Bernadette Devlin herself outlined, in her maiden speech no less, that ‘’There was never born an Englishman who understands the Irish people’’ – Yet Mr Carroll believes that his slendid voice and tactics will persuade English MP’s, in a place where he will make up not even 1% of the members, to ditch their own English interests (to control immigration and law-making outside the Single Market) and legislate according to the best-wishes of the Irish people in West Belfast.  

When he was re-elected at the last Assembly Election, his supporters were cheering as though it was some kind of success – Eamonn McCann’s political ‘’head’’ was rolling at their feet. Carroll’s number of votes was a fraction of his initial populist election victory at that very poll. And now, despite that proverbial boot to the political groin, he wants you to believe that his new-found stance on Brexit is a matter of principle over electoral expediency. Unless the whole of Ireland leaves the EU and negotiates a free-trade deal with the UK and the EU, which hasn’t any chance of happening (with a pro-EU Dublin Minority Government limping on for dear life in ‘’power’’), there is obviously going to be a detrimental impact to the North if it does not have ‘special status’ – where people can move, trade and live freely throughout Ireland. We are an island nation, with a service-sector economy that needs to trade tariff free, not some state-run Eastern European back-water satellite. Only a republican government for all of Ireland, with a critical mass of people, use of Irish land and national resources, can lift the children on the Falls Road out of the poverty which blights them.

Personally, I don’t like the European Union but I don’t trust Mrs May and the right-wing, jingoistic backbenchers who she remains a prisoner to, even more. So what you need to do come polling day, is send this man running by telling him and his party where to stick their policies. Instead of sending another ‘’chancer’’ to caucus in a House which has divided and oppressed this nation, where Irish MP’s can influence nothing, YOU need to get out in droves and deal the knock-out blow to him and these farcical ‘intrigues’, if you want your vote maximised and your voice heard. This is the issue which will shape all of our lives until this island reunifies, and the political brawl to settle it all. Every single vote cast needs to be a nail in the ailing political coffin of People Before Profit.