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From Socialist Worker, No. 105, 18 January 1969, p. 1.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
TENS OF THOUSANDS of Ulstermen and women voted to return the civil rights campaign to the streets. This is one clear message from Northern Ireland’s snap coupon election.
A massive attempt to swing the ‘white negroes’ of John Bull’s other island behind the half-a-loaf policy of Tory Premier O’Neill failed. Catholic working people refused to follow the lead of the Catholic upper class.
Not only has O’Neill-style Tory Unionism failed to win the Catholic vote, but the beginning of the end for the Green Tory Nationalists is in sight – with the start of a swing to the Left – the real Left.
Eight People’s Democracy candidates polled over 20,000 votes between them while four other candidates known to support the PD Manifesto totalled a further 13,000 votes.
The swing to the Left is confirmed by results from the last two constituencies. In South Down PDs Fergus Wood polled 4,610, less than 250 short of victory.
In neighbouring South Armagh, Newry PD member Paddy O’Hanlon, standing as an Independent, won the seat from Green Tory, Eddie Richardson.
It was a major breakthrough for the Irish Left, the more so when one understands the handicaps.
A snap election left only 10 days to raise cash before the close of nominations.
PD is not a political party and most of its members had never taken part in an election before. The bulk of PD’s support comes from the youth who have no vote.
The election was based on the old register. More than 20,000 young people over 21 had no vote.
Many electors had never voted in Stormont elections before. PD candidates were unable to enter some areas to put their case to the people.
A vicious slander campaign – especially in Derry – reached an all-time low even for an Irish election.
There was tacit unity between the Orange and Green Tories to ‘smash the Reds’. The agreement was highlighted in South Fermanagh where the Orange Order was used to rally support for Nationalist John Carran, who has a deal with the Unionists to keep the civil rights campaign out of his area.
Tribune published a PD appeal for funds on page two last week. On the back page their Irish correspondent, Andrew Boyd, claimed falsely that PD had ample funds.
Boyd in the same article, written after nomination closed with no Unionist candidate in Foyle, accused Eamonn McCann of splitting the anti-Unionist vote and leaving ‘enough room for a Unionist to canter through’.
Not to be outdone, the ex-stalinist political correspondent of the pinky Irish Times, alleged that the Left wanted O’Neill out to put the ultra-right in power.
The Unionist Party Manifesto culled a paragraph from the Republican Proclamation of 1916 and a leading Unionist claimed that James Connolly would have supported O’Neill.
Against these odds, despite some serious political and organisational mistakes, People’s Democracy won tens of thousands to a programme of militant struggle on the streets, for full civil and social rights new. It is a record to be proud of.
Last updated: 15 January 2021