‘General Election 2017: End-Game for Partition’ by Donal Lavery

As a child, I didn’t much like roller-coasters, but that election was genuinely the true exception. Looking at the results, I still can’t believe how many people have voted with their heads to shed a failed political class in the North and put their trust in Irish republicanism. There have been absolutely stunning results throughout the land, with Elisha McCallion snatching victory from the jaws of expected “defeat” in the SDLP heartland of Foyle. Michelle Gildernew recaptured the historic seat of Bobby Sands from Tom Elliot, and the people of South Down have now endorsed a candidate who actually represents their material class interests in Chris Hazzard. Anyone of the Sinn Fein MP’s could be a future Prime Minister or President of Ireland, galvanising a collective of talents in a strong team.

In North Belfast, the SDLP were nowhere even to be seen at the voting stations; There was a strong resentment in the air over Martin McAuley’s ploy and he should take note that people in North Belfast have a very long memory! John Finucane was robbed of what would have been otherwise certain victory, by the SDLP and the Green Party, who both knew they had absolutely no chance of winning the seat yet split the progressive vote partly over Mr Eastwood’s vanity project of not engaging in pacts – which has now destroyed his party. Both NB candidates claimed to be “LGBT activists” yet they have now helped re-elect an MP who would deny them their basic right to marry, which they are never done protesting about. You really have to wonder what “agenda” these individuals are working to.

But the most important thing to come out of this election is this: the “Vichy” collaborator era of weak “Irish” MPs squirming on the decks of the British Parliament, is well and truly over. This is a moment, just like during 1938 in Britain, when the Irish people have woken up from their daze and are now energised and determined to fight for the reunification and existence of their nation. There can be no question about it in whatever the context, Sinn Fein are the undisputed, authoritative voice of the Irish people in the North, at home and abroad.

Ultimately, Eastwood and the UUP made this an election about the “centre ground” in politics. And as Margaret Thatcher once famously opined, “those in the centre ground tend to get run over by the traffic from the left and the right.” For there has been a clear and seismic ideological shift towards the kind of radical politics envisaged against the brunt and backdrop of firing squads during 1916; namely, the rebirth of old Ireland. We are on the cusp of something remarkable, where a sovereign people have exercised their revolutionary right to overthrow an old order and form anew.

As for the overall result for the British Parliament, I say this; Mrs. May will be hanging on by the skin of her teeth, with no majority, internal fighting  and quite unable to ram through the worst excesses of right wing Conservative policy. Remember that it was a Tory government under John Major, that was also dependent on Unionist votes, which betrayed them when it initiated the peace process and the Downing Street Declaration. It was a Tory government which betrayed them when it introduced “special category status” in the jails, then reintroduced it. It was a Tory government which betrayed them when it abolished Stormont in the 70’s to bring in Direct Rule. It was a Tory government which betrayed them when it signed Sunningdale and the Anglo-Irish Agreement. And it was a Tory government which destroyed their hold on local government by establishing the Housing Executive. So time after time, the Unionists have placed their trust in mainly English parliamentarians, the “Tory intrigues” as Carson lamented, who have been all too willing to sell them and “Ulster” down the river, out of sheer political expediency. They won’t be “King-Makers”, but pawns on a chess board to keep the Conservative Party in power – which Carson also warned of. For the DUP, it will be simply be parliamentary office without real power; giving them the illusion that they are involved in the governance of a state which inevitably wants rid of them.

But the question on everyone’s minds is this: What next? Well, just like in 1974, there is likely to be another election soon, for one of the parties to gain a majority to fully implement their Brexit arrangements. And that’s a good thing, because Jeremy Corbyn and Labour’s performance throughout this campaign has proven the pundits wrong by contesting the mainstream claim that people don’t want radical politics on the statute book. A real Labour government is on the horizon. Whatever your fears surrounding the circumstances at the present time, no amount of DUP votes can alter the Good Friday and Saint Andrew’s Agreements, as both are internationally established Treaties between two sovereign states. So, Michelle O’Neill is an extremely strong position, knowing that there can be no Assembly if there is no Sinn Fein presence affording it legitimacy. And conclusively,  the Unionists know that with the rising tide of republican sympathies, their days are well and truly numbered.