The opening of the "all-party peace talks" on June 10th and the first sessions of the newly-elected Northern Ireland Forum which took place later the same week followed identical and entirely predictable patterns.
The British and Irish governments barred Sinn Fein from the talks on the grounds that the IRA had failed to declare a ceasefire - but no doubt they would have found another excuse had the ceasefire held up to that date, just as they had in the preceding 17 months. Then, the 17 Sinn Fein representatives elected to the Forum refused to take their seats in what they described as just another instrument of Unionist domination - but why they condoned the setting up of this instrument in the first place, by standing candidates in the election, still remains to be explained!
The Unionist politicians, who are in a majority in both assemblies, were thus deprived of the possibility to protest against having to sit next to confirmed "terrorists". So they immediately got stuck into the pursuit of their other favourite hobby horses.
As a result, the talks agenda is set to be confined, for the foreseable future in any case, to only two items: on the one hand the extent of the powers given to the London-appointed chairman for the talks, the former US senator George Mitchell, who the Unionists accuse vehemently of being a mere Trojan horse for the Republicans; and on the other hand, of course, the issue of the decommissioning of weapons. Meanwhile the Forum will devote its next sessions to the extremely delicate and very urgent matter of choosing a replacement for the interim chairman appointed by Major, the UUP representative and former chairman of the Institute of Directors, John Gorman, whose main failing, in the DUP's view, is to have been born a Catholic!
Thus they will pretend to be carrying on with their "peace process", demonstrating more and more blatantly how totally divorced from the realities of Northern Ireland it is and revealing more and more its true nature - that of a closed arena designed to allow the politicians to pursue their power games away from any outside pressure while the population is left to wait outside in the cold, hoping for the best.
That this "peace process" is now drifting more and more into farce only reflects the incapacity of the governments, particularly of the British government of course, to impose any discipline on the Unionist political establishment or to force any concessions out of them. Being unwilling to take the risk of undermining his government's position in the British Parliament by losing the support of the Unionist MPs, or his own position as Tory party leader by giving ammunition to his right-wing rivals, Major is stuck in a position of impotence for the time being. And this is likely to remain the case until next year's general election in Britain. In the meantime, the only thing the governments seem set to do is to preserve the appearance of an on-going "peace process" so that, in due time, there is a framework available for another attempt in a more conducive context, or so they hope...
But, of course, playing for time as the governments are now forced to do has its own dangers. There is no guarantee that they can sustain indefinitely the credibility of their "peace process" among the population of Northern Ireland, particularly among its poorest layers. The speed at which the new institutions have already exposed their sterility and turned into a politicking farce is threatening the governments' waiting game. And in fact, as paradoxical as this may seem, if it was not for the Republicans' way of conducting their own power game, in particular their apparent refusal to play by the rules laid down by the governments, Major's and Bruton's strategy would be already dead.
The Republicans bail out the "peace process"
Yes, paradoxically, it was the ending of the ceasefire by the IRA in February which allowed Major to make a number of concessions to the Republicans without provoking a confrontation with the Unionist politicians. Since there was no longer any question of allowing Sinn Fein into the talks, in the absence of a ceasefire, Major was able to impose the principle of all-party talks in which the protagonists would all be equally represented. Likewise he was able to set a date for the beginning of the talks and to alter the electoral rules for the Forum so as to reduce slightly the weight of the main Unionist parties. And finally Major removed the decommissioning of weapons as a pre-condition to Sinn Fein's participation in the talks - something which would have been unthinkable while the IRA ceasefire still held. Of course, these moves were more symbolic than real and there was always the possibility of the Unionists withdrawing their agreement at some point in the future. But at least this allowed Major to get the process moving out of the 17- month old deadlock.
Thus a kind of division of labour between the Republican leadership and Major began to take shape. While the former slammed their fists on the table (with the Docklands bomb) to demand a speeding up of the negotiations, the latter used the "unruly" behaviour of the Republicans and the fact that it excluded them anyway to justify making fresh moves.
The episode of the Forum election provides another example of this division of labour. This was, in most respects, a very strange election as no-one knew exactly what this Forum was for. It was to have no decision-making powers (otherwise the Unionists would have boycotted it) and it was not meant to be the future framework of the all-party talks (which would have been unacceptable for all protagonists except the two main Unionist parties). Even the fact that only those parties represented in the Forum would be allowed in the all-party talks was never quite clearly spelt out before the election.
In fact, for the British government, the only purpose of the Forum was that it provided them with a pretext to organise an election around the issue of the "peace process" itself. They could not organise a referendum over it because there was nothing for voters to approve. But Major needed to generate some new credibility for the "peace process", both for domestic reasons, in order to show the British public that things were moving in Northern Ireland with the backing of the population, but also in order to refurbish the image of the "peace process" in Northern Ireland itself, and to be able, later on, to turn to the population in the name of the "mandate" given to the Forum and to the British government. In that sense, the Forum election was little more than a disguised referendum to legitimise the "peace process". No matter which candidate people chose to vote for, their vote would be interpreted as an endorsement of the "peace process".
For a while the Republicans toyed with the idea of boycotting the Forum election. Then, suddenly, and without even bothering to justify this U- turn to their supporters, they decided to stand full slates in all constituencies. But by doing this, they gave to this election precisely the character that Major wanted it to have. Without Sinn Fein's participation, the Forum election would have been exposed for what it was - a politicians' trick in which the voters had no means of expressing their real opinions. But thanks to Sinn Fein's participation, Major was able to claim the legitimacy he wanted for his process - even though one voter in three chose to abstain.
After the Manchester bomb
At the time of writing no organisation had yet claimed responsibility for the Manchester bombing on June 15th. And once again, just like after the Docklands bomb, there are widespread speculation as to whether this could reflect a split within the Republican movement.
In any case, whoever was responsible for planting this bomb acted along the same fundamental lines as the leadership of the IRA who did claim responsibility for the Docklands bomb and so many other so-called "military actions" in the past, both in Britain and Ireland, where the victims have been ordinary people. Such actions reflect the policy of an apparatus which has only contempt for ordinary people and has no qualms about using them - in Britain or in Northern Ireland for that matter - as pawns, cannon-fodder or hostages, depending on what it sees as its tactical requirements. From this point of view, those who ordered the Manchester bombing are not different from the British politicians, police commissioners and army generals who have held the population of Northern Ireland hostage for the 27 years of the "Troubles". As far as the interests of the majority of the Northern Ireland population are concerned, particularly those of its working population, they belong to the same side of the barricade as the Unionist politicians and their British and Irish counterparts in government.
Whether Sinn Fein and the IRA leadership disown the Manchester bombing as they recently disowned the murder of a policeman in the Republic, or whether they endorse it, as they did for the Docklands bombing, will not make any difference - neither to the political nature of the Republican leadership, nor to the future developments of the "peace process" in Northern Ireland.
Like on previous occasions, this new bomb and the 206 people who were injured, will certainly be used by Major as an additional excuse for his politicking and playing for time - but had there be no bomb, he would still be playing the same game, anyway.
The only respect in which this new bomb may change things - and again regardless of who claims responsibility for it - is indicated by the latest statement made by Michael Howard, the British Home Secretary, who raised the possibility of a return to internment. Coming from such a fanatic of law and order as Howard, who is in addition, possibly one of Major's right-wing challengers for the leadership of the Tory party, this kind of statement is probably more hot air and demagogy than a real threat. And it is not the first time that a reference to a possible return to internment has been made, for the same reasons, in the past months.
But this demagogy does point to the possibility of a new tightening of the screw against the population of the ghettos of Northern Ireland, and not necessarily just in the Catholic areas or just in Northern Ireland. The Docklands bomb provided the RUC with a pretext for staging dawn raids, searches and arrests under the PTA against activists in the North, including against working class activists who not only had no connections with the Republicans, but were known for having defended time and again non-sectarian policies in their communities, often against the Republicans.
A tightening of the screw against the poor areas at this point could very well fit into Major's schemes. On the one hand he knows that he would be taking no risk as far as the paramilitaries are concerned - neither the Republicans, nor the loyalist groups, would risk rocking the boat of the "peace process" by encouraging a confrontation in the streets to defend the ghettos against police harassment. On the other hand, it would give Major a chance to make another gesture of appeasement and goodwill towards the Unionists. And besides, Major may think that this would help keep under control the resentment and anger which is growing in the ghettos over the absence of any tangible results or changes.
Those who planted the Manchester bomb will no doubt claim that they did it in the interest of the Catholic ghettos. But for the population of these ghettos, the only "benefit" will be the risk of increased repression in Northern Ireland and increased isolation from the British working class.
The absence of a proletarian perspective
The Forum election illustrates how much a proletarian perspective is needed in Northern Ireland today.
Discontent against the "peace process", the constant manoeuvering of the politicians and over the absence of any change in the material conditions of working people, is widespread across the communities. And yet, in the brief period of politicisation that preceded the election, when everyone was in the streets arguing politics, there was no audible voice expressing this discontent, let alone offering a perspective other than just abstaining or voting in the election.
On the left, there were those who, like Irish Militant Labour, chose to take part in the vote under the cover of the Labour list, which also included a host of left reformist figures. Their election platform did contain elements which were obviously aimed at appealing to the discontent in the ghettoes - but it did not go further than that and did not even try to expose the limits of the "peace process".
On the contrary, the Labour list argued that "the peace talks should be broadened to include social organisations such as trade unions and community associations", that "any new political arrangements and institutions agreed in the talks must be based on the best interest of the working class people", while at the same time stressing that it was "opposed to all violence and coercion from any quarter". But what did this amount to, if not to claim that, somehow, Major and the Unionist and SDLP politicians, might be prepared to take into account the demands of the working class out of pure goodwill? Yet, who can believe for one second that the Unionist establishment will make any concessions to the working class without a confrontation taking place, and one that makes them really fear for their privileges? Anyone who has lived through the past decades in Northern Ireland knows that bringing about change in society can only be achieved by imposing a new balance of forces - wasn't this the main lesson of the late 60s, when the eruption of the Civil Rights movement got things to move at last, forcing the privileged to make some concessions for the first time since the 30s? Failing to point to the need for a general political mobilisation of the working class, and to start building for it, across sectarian boundaries, so as to impose such a change in the relationship of forces, amounts to inviting the Northern Ireland workers to rely on the "peace process" and the goodwill of the politicians - in other words on an illusion!
As to the voices that called for a boycott of the election and of the "peace process" - those of the Irish Republican Socialist Party, of Republican Sinn Fein, of the Republican left around Bernadette McAliskey, in particular - their standpoint was only that of nationalism, harking back to the days when the Republicans would not have embarked on such compromises - as if the policy of armed struggle of the Republicans had not always been aimed at winning a seat on the bandwagon of a compromise.
It is the absence of a clear proletarian voice defending the idea of a political offensive of the Northern working class, in the streets and the workplaces, where its social weight is concentrated, in order to impose real changes in its conditions, including the departure of the British troops, and to dictate its own agenda for the future, which has allowed Major and his partners to get away with 22 months of a stage-managed process which can lead Northern Ireland nowhere. As everyone says these days, "it is time for change", but whether there will be any change at all for the mass of the population will depend on the emergence of such a voice and such a movement.