Building Cross-Community Campaigns after the election

I would like to use this opportunity to thank all those who supported my recent and unsuccessful election campaign to Fermanagh District Council for the Enniskillen Ward. It was a great effort which brought together activists from across the county with support from Socialists from across Northern Ireland and as far away as Limerick and Dublin.

The mainstream parties were successful in preventing this election being fought on the issues and obscured the extent and seriousness of the coming cuts public services; an onslaught that will be deeper than anything experienced since 1924. Instead, they chose to fight this election on the same-old grounds of sectarian identity politics leading to an increased polarisation in the vote which resulted in more support for the DUP and Sinn Fein across the county with a loss of support for the UUP and SDLP.

Indeed, this campaign was fought against the backdrop of the 'tribal' headcount that characterised the previous Westminster run-off between Michelle Gildernew (Sinn Féin) and Rodney Connor (United Unionist). The tensions boiled over at the Assembly count in Omagh in the behaviour of unionists and republicans culminating in Tom Elliott, the leader of the UUP, calling heckling members of Sinn Féin 'scum' from the podium and referring to the tricolour as a 'foreign flag'.

Fighting for Every Vote

In that cauldron of sectarian hatred, it was never going to be easy to offer a radical, anti-sectarian alternative. We were fighting the campaign without a social base and without any immediate connection with local communities.

Despite and possibly because of this we fought the hardest campaign of any party in Enniskillen - a fact remarked upon by many of our opponents (both the DUP and Sinn Féin 'upped' their game in response to our campaign).

We knocked thousands of doors across Enniskillen and unlike any election campaign for the past 40 years we canvassed every estate in the town and all the outlying village centres. We canvassed in every area regardless of whether a union flag or a tricolour was hanging from the lamp-post and for the most part we were met with an open, honest engagement and received a positive response.

Unlike every other party who campaigned on the basis of 'maximising OUR representation', at every door we brought an inherently political message. We engaged people on what was happening. We discussed how we could challenge the right-wing agenda that will see local public services devastated in our County at a time when the private sector economy here is on life-support.

At times, it was not easy as we were bringing a very different message to that propounded by all the other parties. We stood openly and unashamedly as socialists and spoke to people about the possibility of democratising the ownership and control of the economy as a way to pay for public services.

On many doors we struggled to gain a hearing from households who were simply sick of the lies of politicians who 'tell you anything' to get a vote every four years. On one memorable door one of our canvassers was told that if he was a 'Banker or a Politician' he should go away - this was not the only occasion but reflected many people's understanding of the empty promises of a political class who were implementing cuts to pay for the banking crisis.

We also struggled through our perceived novelty and our lack of a base in the town. We don't run constituency services and were relying on people grasping the seriousness of the crisis facing us and agreeing with our position of 'fighting back' on a cross-community basis at a time when our political opponents tell us that there is 'no alternative' to the Tory-Stormont cuts.

Results and Prospects

Turnout in Enniskillen was poor as usual with turnout in the more deprived areas falling to below 50%. As such, the 248 who gave us a number one preference vote was a respectable beginning to our work in the county. After the votes of other candidates such as the Green Party Alliance and another independent were redistributed we stood at 280 votes but this was not enough to catch up with the lowest polling Sinn Féin candidate (on 375) and we lost out.

In addition to this vote, we have built the rudiments of a party branch in Enniskillen and this will be critical in developing grassroots and cross-community politics in the County. We have made many contacts with nurses and workers in many estates around the town.

We look forward to further engaging with these contacts we made over the course of the campaign. The Socialist Party will increase our activity in Fermanagh as we grow stronger. The campaign  for the next council election starts here.

We remain steadfast and committed to the building of cross-community opposition to defend public services and demand a scheme of public works which will create local employment and develop the productive capacity of our society (in public ownership).

Given the sectarian divisions, there is massive alienation of a large section of people from the political process and politicians, in particular. We recognise that we have work to do to make the case for people to get registered and vote for a fighting alternative. We also need to build the Stop the Cuts Alliance locally involving the layer of advanced workers we have encountered in our campaign. That is the task facing the Socialist Party in Fermanagh in the months and years to come.

Assembly Cuts Agenda will Devastate Fermanagh

This is a full, unedited version of the letter that was submitted to both the Fermanagh Herald and Impartial Reporter (and which has been published in both).

Northern Ireland Ministers - Agreed on Need for Devastating Cuts

The cuts outlined in the draft Executive Budget and agreed by all the Assembly Parties will devastate Fermanagh and have particularly severe consequences for deprived communities, those who have lost their jobs or forced to work part-time. Yet the same politicians who have signed off on these cuts will feel no qualms about canvassing the communities that these cuts target in the weeks to come.

The Assembly parties realise that their cuts are simply unjustifiable and that is why this draft budget fails to identify what specific actions will be necessary to deliver it. They are trying to get through these elections before people know what is happening.

There is an alternative to these cuts. The Assembly could agree a ‘needs-based’ budget and work with the Stop the Cuts Campaign, local communities and the trade union movement to build opposition to the neo-Thatcherite agenda. There is plenty of wealth in society – it is estimated that £120 billion escapes the tax net through avoidance, evasion and loopholes. Billions are wasted year on year on nuclear deterrents and invading countries like Iraq and Afghanistan; billions more have been paid to bankers, bondholders and property speculators. Yet when it comes to basic services for ordinary people they tell us that the money is not there.

Martin McGuinness shares a joke with David Camerson

A QUB Professor has estimated that these cuts will result in 38,000 job losses across the north. How is this supposed to help improve our economy and improve fiscal receipts? They will undermine not just the public sector but suck the lifeblood from small businesses and the private sector. These cuts only benefit the financial speculators and spivs of the stock-market.

These cuts will devastate the economy of Fermanagh which is already on the precipice. Across Fermanagh, communities face mass youth emigration, those who remain face a stagnant labour market and ever decreasing benefits. The viability of our schools will be ‘reviewed’ once again and more young students will be excluded from higher education. Our elderly will face even greater hardships as they struggle to obtain care services, being pushed to expensive private sector provision. Despite the denials of the Health Trust, these cuts are a sword of Damocles hanging over the public-sector status of the new Southwest Hospital. All our politicians can offer is verbal opposition to cuts while they administrate them in reality regardless of the cost.

Instead of implementing Tory cuts, our politicians should be building opposition to them alongside the community. We need to unite all those affected by these cuts not fall back to the politics of sectarian division. If history teaches us anything it is that only when people are united and campaign effectively that real change can be achieved. One has only to look at the inspirational protests in Egypt to see what real democracy looks like.

Irish Workers Protesting Cuts

We can fight and win against these cuts. Part of that is working to build a wider opposition bringing together trade unionists, community activists and those directly affected by the cuts; another part is to use these elections to elect genuine campaigners to fight the Assembly parties’ cuts, not implement them.

Fighting the ConDem Cuts!

The ConDem government’s comprehensive spending review represented a clear attack on working people of all colours and creeds. On the back of a collapse caused by the greed of bankers, speculators and financial spivs, working people are the only ones being forced to take the pain. Our services, our wages and our jobs are under threat. The impact in Fermanagh where small businesses are already balancing on a knife-edge is likely to be severe. These cuts could push the local economy past a critical point and wreak structural damage that may never be reversed.

At the very least, these cuts will devastate working people pushing many onto lengthening dole queues as the job losses mount where they will be faced with slashed benefits. In a world where we are told education is critical to building a ‘knowledge-based’ economy, young people from working class backgrounds have effectively been shut out of universities through moves to increase fees and the interest they pay on student loans.

At the same time, the Government is supportive of moves to start the printing presses rolling to ensure the profits of the banks and super-rich continue to grow. The consequence of such monetary policy will be imported inflation on household essentials at a time when workers’ wages are being pushed down.

From every conceivable angle workers (those who through their labour create all the wealth in society) are being squeezed ever harder to safeguard the profits of big business. There is a global race to the bottom which will continue until collective action puts a stop to it.

Unfortunately, we cannot rely on our local politicians who even before the economic crisis implemented harsh 3% year-on-year cuts for the last three years. As they implement the new wave of cuts despite their choreographed words of ‘anger’ no doubt their slick PR machines will ensure that they are photographed by the local press at the front row of all the protests.

Instead, what’s needed is to build a grassroots opposition to the current wave of cuts and those that will inevitably follow them. Any politician from the mainstream parties who is genuine about opposing the cuts should resign their party membership and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the communities against them; that is the only honourable position. Building a cross-community opposition involving workers, communities and the youth is the only appropriate answer to the cuts.

What Price Education?



Blue Dots are Schools identified as threatened under the rules
Photo: Impartial Reporter



A recent report highlighted in the Impartial Reporter identified that 81% of Fermanagh's secondary schools (13 out of 16) and 47% of our primary schools (25 of 44) have enrollments below that necessary to meet Departmental guidelines.

The Departmental guidelines stipulate that rural primary schools should have at least 105 pupils and secondary schools an enrolment of over 500 aged between 11 and 16. Such guidelines are clearly prejudicial to rural communities and seek to accelerate the erosion of education of rural children in schools located close to their home.

Nowhere in the North of Ireland will the impact of the potential closures be greater than in West Fermanagh. The area stretches a distance of almost 40 miles in length and has only one secondary school, Brollagh, located between Belleek and Garrison. This school will never meet the enrolment criteria set out by the Department but that doesn't stop it offering children the highest quality education.

With the Department's blessing, the Catholic Council for Maintained Schools initiated a 'review' of Brollagh's future about 5 years ago and in the face of a strong local campaign the move to close the school was postphoned. The campaigners remain focussed on defending their school and understand that the fight is not over and that the Department and its agencies will return to try once again to close their school.

What made the Brollagh case particularly outrageous was the fact that the local community had originally funded the building of the school themselves as the Department did not offer 100% funding to maintained schools (unlike those of the state sector) when it was built. As such, the community in the area feels a strong sense of ownership over the school and it is used outside school hours for a wide variety of social and sporting activities.

The Impact of 'Rationalisation' in Fermanagh

The Department's policies are likely to see all rural secondary schools outside Enniskillen close. Children from as far away as Belleek and Roslea will be forced to travel upwards to an hour to schools located in the county town. And as anyone who has ever visited Fermanagh knows, our county town has serious congestion problems.

The approach taken to apply minimum enrolments which are more appropriate to urban areas to rural ones will centralise schooling in Enniskillen thereby further aggravating the traffic congestion in the town. Children's well-being seems to be the last thing considered as they will be forced to travel long distances leaving homes early in the morning to go to schools which are arguably no better than those which were originally in rural areas.

The Impact on Rural Communities

As bad as the Department's rulings will be for children attending secondary schools, the impact of a closure of 47% of primary schools would devastate rural communities across the county.

The social fabric of local communities rests on the pillars of the local church, the football or soccer club, the school, local shops and the village pub. The loss of a village's primary school can be devastating as the social hub disappears for parents who interact after leaving their children in the morning and who chat when collecting them. When a primary school closes it is normal for playgroups and afterschools to follow suit as parents like to leave children off at one place.

There will be huge resistance to any moves to close village primary schools yet this is precisely what is threatening our communities. But it must be remembered that the rules stipulating minimum enrolment targets were set before the latest wave of cutbacks - how much more pressure will be exerted in this 'era of austerity'.

Young people across Fermanagh are finding the doors to third-level education being shut in their faces as they face a massive hike in fees and a concurrent increase in student loan interest rates. The County's higher educational institution, Fermanagh College, was subsumed as one campus of the Omagh-focussed Southwest College with a significant downgrading of the management jobs offered in Enniskillen and there has been a dramatic reduction in the provision of educational courses held in rural villages. In this context, the assault on rural primary and secondary education reflects just the latest failure of politicians in Stormont to understand the realities of rural life and to appreciate the growing anger among the communities in Fermanagh.

Absence of Planning - Survival of the Fittest

The Minister for Education, Caitriona Ruane, has become a byword for a political class which has lost the run of itself. They seek election every four years but are invisible for the remainder, that is absenting their propensity to be found at the front row of photo-opportunities in the local press at every governmental announcement.

There is no political leadership representing the interests of local communities. The absence of agreement in the Stormont Executive caused by the negotiated mutual-veto held by both the DUP and Sinn Féin has resulted in a situation where schools are left to fend for themselves and their students in the absence of clarity on the way forwards.

In this situation, schools located in populated and wealthy areas will be safe but those located in rural and poorer areas will find themselves facing the 'axe' of budget deficits. Politicians who are too astute to be associated with mass school closures choose a gradual and chaotic demise of rural education as school after school will close due to budgetary pressures and the decline in the numbers of families able to find sufficient employment to live in rural areas.

The excuse is that bigger schools will offer children more 'choice' of subjects offered - mirroring the false 'consumer' choice afforded by the market. But rural families do not want 'choice' they want decent education in the core subjects which is provided locally so that their children don't go to school already tired from long journeys. They want schools which are close to home and which retain some of the calm tranquility of rural life.

If parents in Fermanagh want to save rural education, it is time to act and get organised. As a start we need to link campaigns trying to save different schools to prevent the politicians from playing one against another or one sector against the other. Only when the right to and the value of rural education is recognised can we be confident of a future for rural communities.

All out to send a message: No to Cuts!