The storming and destruction of Paris Bastille in 1789 created a rift between those who approved and those who disapproved.
In Ireland those who approved, such as Theobald Wolfe Tone called themselves Democrats. They believed Democracy was a universal good and that it should be applied in Ireland- a country with a long history.Some English and Scots also favoured democracy, to the horror of their rulers, and to nip it in the bud a so-called United Kingdom was established in 1801. There was no referendum in either island, and any idea of an exit was barred by armed force.
Those who since Tone’s time sought an Irish exit from the strait-jacket of the so-called United Kingdom were and remain democrats.
For more than a century after Tone’s death in British Military custody in 1798 those opposed to his aims never considered themselves democrats. For example, Lord Salisbury, Prime Minister in 1898 was reputed to a disdain for mobs, amongst whom he considered The House Of Commons.
His nephew, Arthur Balfour, who sat in the Commons and succeeded him as Prime Minister in 1902, was no more of a believer in ” Government of the People,by the People, for the People.”
In 1906 the Liberals won a landslide electoral victory over Balfour’s Conservatives, leaving the latter party with about a quarter of the seats in the Commons, and taking Balfour’s own seat.
Unperturbed, Balfour made a speech in Nottingham declaring that the Conservatives, in or out of office,
should continue to “run the affairs of this great Empire.”
Not only need the Conservatives pay no attention to the wishes of Indians and Africans in the Empire, but
the wishes of Freeborn Englishmen counted for nothing in their conduct of affairs.
The secret of Balfour’s Sang Froid was the permanent Conservative Majority in the House of Lords, which
could veto any Bill forever, except a Money Bill.
When the Liberal Government threatened to create enough non-Conservative Peers to circumvent a Lords’
Veto the Conservatives established the Paramilitary Ulster Volunteer force to defy Parliament. The chief
inspiration of this “Freikorps” , Sir Edward Carson was described by one of his followers as “the Leader of
the First Fascist Movement in Europe” in 1934, and his Obituary in the Unionist Irish Times the following
year regretted that Carson, born 1854, had not been born 40 years later , for he might have been another
Mussolini, or even a Hitler.”
In all General Elections following the passing of the Ballot Act of 1872, Ireland returned a majority of candidates pledged to loosen Westminster’s grip on Ireland, until in 1918 Ireland returned a majority to sever that control. Subsequent elections, Parliamentary, Municipal, County Council and other local authority elections, confirmed that choice.
That choice was never considered valid by most British Politicians, the British Judiciary, Bench of Bishops,
or Academics. It has been forgotten, even in Ireland by those who share those Britons’ attitudes and principles.
Such persons have been, and remain today, Enemies of Democracy.
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