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Count the Catholics Kelly: Sinn Fein’s sectarian ploy exposed 
 
The angry response to their sectarian ploy in the Westminster election took Sinn Fein by surprise. In the North    Belfast constituency they printed a bar graph based on the 2011 census in the area. It was labeled: “Protestant - 45.67%; Catholic - 46.96%. Make the change, Make history”.
 
From the point of view of Sinn Fein, this was just another ploy from a party of spindoctors and tallymen. It was part of the rough and tumble of just another electoral campaign. They are mistaken. This is the resolution of a long standing contradiction, a historic moment when the mask falls completely and Sinn Fein nua is exposed.
 
Contradiction 
 
The contradiction stretches back to the beginning of the peace process. Republicanism had traditionally balanced between socialism and capitalism. Under the pressure of defeat it entered a "nationalist family" with Irish capital and embraced a settlement that enshrined British rule and a local administration based on sectarian rights.
 
This opened a new contradiction between their constant jockeying for confessional rights in the corridors of power and an historic base that believed in the broadly democratic and left-facing policies of the past.
 
Credibility
 
The solution was simple. Push former IRA figures to the fore and use their credibility to reassure supporters. Constantly remember to always have two stories - one for the loyal follower, the other for your partners in government.
 
But everything changes with time. The credibility of the IRA figures declines. When there is no change in the    nationalist areas, which experience levels of deprivation that have stayed the same over four decades, people move back from the party, which itself becomes insulated by a layer of paid functionaries. The majority of time is taken up by interacting with other capitalist politicians, businesspeople and governments. The middle class flood into Sinn Fein and are unaware that any left wing gobbledygook has to be dispensed.

 However there are more immediate and material reasons for the collapse of this Janus-faced policy. This election has taken place in the shadow of the Stormont House Agreement. Sinn Fein have hesitated over one section and been savagely attacked by the Unionists, the British,   Dublin and the US administration. The attacks have stopped during the election campaign, but Sinn Fein has been told that the British will close down the local administration if they do not agree the full package.
 
The battle is not about blocking the Stormont House agreement. Rather it is about finding a way to preserve their claims to be an anti-austerity party. Sinn Fein unreservedly support 99% of the austerity budget and have signed up to the political aspects of Stormont House, which absolve the unionists from any requirement to row back on sectarian triumphalism or to implement outstanding elements of the Good Friday agreement.
 
The Westminster election will be followed by a political and economic offensive against the workers, with Sinn Fein lined up with the bosses. Under these circumstances it is hardly surprising that they play the Catholic card and rely on sectarian rivalry to hold their vote.
 
Rough and ready
 
The party hope to pass off this sectarian appeal as a one-off incident, part of the rough and ready tactics used in an electoral struggle. They are mistaken. In fact they have a great deal of form in this area. The initial shot in the     election campaign was a unity offensive aimed at the SDLP to ensure a single Catholic candidate in each     electoral area. The SDLP refused, not out of any principle, but because they did not want to be swallowed up by the larger party and in the end held their own with 3 seats. The Sinn Fein election material in the West Belfast constituency carried a shy graphic of a Sinn Fein protest to “Save St. Mary’s,” referring to a campaign some months ago to prevent the amalgamation of the local catholic teacher training facility with Stranmillis college – a campaign based on asserting sectarian rights to a separate educational system.
 
The biggest fall in votes – mopped up by People Before Profit candidate Gerry Carroll – was in the West Belfast constituency. The Good Friday Agreement initially contained provision for shared sporting facilities. The   unionists refused to implement the deal and Sinn Fein then agreed to the money being divided in a sectarian carve-up. It was earmarked for West Belfast’s GAA facility at Casement Park. Sinn Fein and the GAA tried to ram through the development in the face of local opposition and tales are now emerging of massive corruption, the ripping up of planning regulations and dismissal of major health and safety concerns.
 
By playing the Green card the Shinners play to their    middle class support. Their main concern is to get their share of privilege. The traditional working class supporters get nothing and see the slogan of the "unity of Catholic, Protestant and dissenter" central to the traditional republican programme, swept away. 
 
Confessional party
 
However it is not only nationalist workers who are betrayed. In the name of “equality of the two traditions” Protestant workers are handed over to utterly reactionary loyalist gangs. Divisions in the working class are  presented as not political but cultural. When Gerry Kelly called on North Belfast Catholics to vote for him, he was in effect inviting Protestants to vote for Nigel Dodds of the DUP.
 
Sinn Fein is a capitalist confessional party. They sell sectarian division to the workers because they have nothing else to sell. All the promises of democracy and prosperity claimed for the Northern settlement have come to nothing. The task before us is one of constructing an alternative based on democracy and socialism and built on the power of an independent and united working class.

 


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