‘Harold Wilson and Irish Unity’ by Donal Lavery

Having not been born when the late Labour Prime Minister was in office, I was pleased to discover that he was elected to a constituency with more Irish than anywhere else in England. Meeting someone on holiday who worked for Huyton Labour club, they spoke fondly of the former Premier and his goals in politics. Jeremy Corbyn’s current cat is called after him.
Being a real Labour man and a genuine socialist, Wilson recognised the enormous contribution which the Irish had made to the Labour Movement in Britain. Still holding one of the highest marks for economics at Oxford, he was elected in 1964 and 1966 with undoubtedly one of the most radical, socialist manifestos in the western world. Popularising the Gannex raincoat and pipe, the Beatles sang his praises, recommending that this kindly little man be given an honour for services to the nation (he resigned from Attlee’s government over prescription charges).

We know that he allowed for the return to Ireland of Roger Casement’s remains when it had been refused by successive Tory prime ministers. And we also know that it was Wilson who sent the British Army into the North of Ireland in 1969, with the good intention of protecting Catholic communities from the Loyalist mobs burning them out. But in 1970, the Government at Westminster unfortunately changed hands and all hell broke loose when the Conservatives allowed the discredited Unionist Government at Stormont powers over the British Armed Forces – with Bloody Sunday, Internment and the Falls Curfew worsening the precarious situation immensely.

Wilson was back in 1974, at the height of the Troubles and with no majority in parliament. The Ulster Worker’s Strike had brought down the power sharing Sunningdale Executive, and furious with the Unionist/Loyalist actions, Wilson made a broadcast denouncing them as “spongers”, asking the pertinent question “Who do these people think they are?!” (In their subversion of democratic methods). But what did Wilson really think would solve the situation in Ireland?

Privately, he told friends and journalists that a right-wing smear campaign was being waged against him, deriving mainly from the North of Ireland. This was confirmed by Colin Wallace. British military figures were courting their own private paramilitaries, to thwart any moves towards democratic socialism; they encouraged Lord Mountbatten (who believed in Irish unity) to overthrow the Labour Government in a coup d’etat, replacing it with a fascist dictatorship run by peers and generals. The effect was to intimidate Wilson from implementing the radical policies decided upon in Labour manifesto’s (composed mainly by Tony Benn). Indeed, Peter Wright, the former MI5 Assistant Director was later to brag about these activities by the spooks against Wilson, with the Prime Minister knowing all too well that attempts were being made to recruit as many Labour MPs as possible (Thatcher tried to prevent Wright from publishing the book in which he detailed how treason had been committed).

Wilson, as a result of the conspiracy against him, kept to himself a 16-point plan he formulated to provide for a reunited Ireland, as well as Britain subsidising the transition, including establishing an NHS and welfare system throughout Ireland which was akin to the British model (increasing living standards accordingly).

BBC journalists uncovered in 2008 a “Doomsday” plan of Wilson’s from the time of the UWC strike in 1974, to withdraw all the British forces from Ireland, forcing the Unionists to come to some arrangement with their Nationalist neighbours, North and South, on a reunification process. Wilson knew all too well that “Northern Ireland” could not function economically as an independent entity and would have the poor living standards of Argentina, if the Unionists tried to facilitate a “sovereign little Ulster”.
However, Garret FitzGerald (the then Irish Foreign Minister) and the right- wing coalition in the Free State (Fine Gael and Labour) stated their horrors over this plan to Wilson directly, involving Henry Kissinger – Garret outlined that the Free State would not have the resources militarily to fend off a revolution by armed republicans and loyalists, jeopardising the capitalist system in Ireland at a time of America’s “containment” policy towards Leftist movements.

Wilson resigned in 1976 and the plan was shelved. He disappeared from public life, with an awareness that he had failed to fulfil much of his socialist ambitions over the actions of the intelligence services and British Establishment. What all this goes to show is that the Free State ruling clique harbour the same anti-left wing inclinations as British Military Intelligence. These “Redmondites” are more than willing to betray Nationalists in the North for the sole purpose of preserving inequalities on this island.

But the aim for Nationalists and the Left now must be to fundamentally alter the Irish Free State, making it a real Republic which is fully inclusive of Protestants and diversity. The price of Sinn Fein entering any prospective future coalition must essentially be, at minimum, a left-wing economic policy and the facilitation of a border poll or referendum in the South. Recent studies have shown that up to 80% of people there desire a reunited Ireland, and in the event of such a result this would place enormous pressure on the British Government to call a vote in the North on the issue (with the vote having to be called again and again every six years – as stipulated in the peace agreements). It might not happen the first time around but we will definitely score the winning goal with six years of increased planning and concentration towards the second such vote. But if a vast majority of people on the island express their desire for unity, wherever they may live, then surely there is a democratic principle to attend to this conclusion? If not, a European Court of Human Rights case may follow, which even after a Brexit will still have to be upheld if the UK wants continued access to the Single Market. Remember the wise words “We only have to be lucky once. You have to keep being lucky every time!”