|
(Continued from page 34)
Tony Benn: it's time to leave Ireland
Tony Benn's views on Ireland are symptomatic of the Labour leadership's.
The Morning Star 27 August 1988 carried this report. . 'It's time to leave
Ireland - or the violence will never end, Labour leadership contender told
a huge Glasgow rally last night,' ran the headline. "Tony Benn repeated
the proposal he made in a Private Member's Bill earlier this year for
Britain to set an early deadline for ending its jurisdiction in the North"
'The US and British governments wanted the Irish Republic within NATO, and
if it joined, Britain "would be out of the North in a week".'
The UK could not make such a decision unilaterally. If Benn's allegation
was true it would mean Britain was in Northern Ireland as an agent, a
bargaining counter, of NATO. In which case, why does not NATO pay the
bills. Ironically, it destroyed the 'Left's' argument that Britain was in
Northern Ireland to defend itself.
Labour policy, 1988: a dual strategy for Irish Unification
Labour's policy document issued in September 1988 by Labour's Front Bench
Northern Ireland Team in the House of Commons, Kevin McNamara MP, Jim
Marshall MP, and Marjorie Mowlam MP, with an Introduction by Neil Kinnock
was entitled: "Towards a United Ireland. Reform and Harmonisation: A Dual
Strategy for Irish Unification". This policy was later to be secretly rubbished by its main architect, Kevin McNamara, for which John Smith "Read him the Riot Act" according to a report in the Daily Mail, 7 July 1993.
McNamara's options
On the 29 June 1993 Patrick Wintour in the Guardian published the contents
of a leaked document produced by Kevin McNamara's office, "Options for a
Labour Government". Asked by Wintour to comment on the document, "Mr
McNamara refused to discuss the document last night save to confirm its
authenticity and complain that it was intended to have a highly restricted
circulation".
Briefly, 'Options' argued that the Labour Party policy of reform to bring
about a united Ireland would not work. Labour Party policy, it argued,
could not achieve a united Ireland "with the consent of a majority in the
region". It went on to say that the policy of reform "would take time and
might have the unintended effect of reconciling Catholics to Northern
Ireland's present status as a part of the UK". Pages 29/30. A Labour
|
|
