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From Socialist Worker, No. 107, 1 February 1969, p. 1.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
THE RESIGNATION of Brian Faulkner and Billy Morgan from the Tory cabinet in Northern Ireland is part of the Faulkner conspiracy to oust Prime Minister Terence O’Neill.
The power struggle, which is now out in the open, dates back to 1963 when O’Neill pipped Faulkner at the post for the leadership of the Unionist Party.
On Monday January 6, following the civil rights march from Belfast, while the barricades were up in Derry, Faulkner in fact won a majority in the parliamentary Unionist Party. O’Neill was saved by two factors:
First, the anti-O’Neillites, although they could agree on Faulkner as Prime Minister and on the policy to be pursued – putting the boot in on the civil rights movement – could not agree on the members of the new cabinet.
Second and more important, Harold Wilson vetoed the move and made it clear that any attempt to ditch O’Neill or to use mass repression before the basic demands of the civil rights movement had been granted would lead to British intervention.
Faulkner, by far the most capable of the Unionist leaders, knows that the British government no longer has any need to boost the Northern Ireland regime which it sees as an embarrassment to its attempts to reintegrate the economy of Southern Ireland with Britain as part of the plans for entering the Common Market.
The Unionist Party knows that if the civil rights campaign is not brought to heel soon there is every danger that it will rapidly go beyond the boundaries laid down for it by the present middle-class leadership and transform itself into a movement capable of threatening the very existence of Ulster unionism.
So Faulkner resigned,stat- ing that his difference with O’Neill is on the question of one man, one vote and the need for strong government.
He hopes that with this line, Westminster will allow him to replace O’Neill.
Then, as a known strong man who holds the confidence of the extreme right of the Unionist Party, he could hope to unite the party, grant one man, one vote and ruthlessly crack down on a divided civil rights movement.
The irresponsible ‘moderate’ leaders of the civil rights movement will use O’Neill’s troubles as yet another excuse to call a truce with Toryism.
Inis danger must be countered by a programme to keep the civil rights movement on the streets.
The class content of the civil rights demands must be made clear and the movement must acquire its own means of publicity to end the need of relying on the Tory press, whether Green or Orange.
Last updated: 15 January 2021