With the agreement reached at Sunningdale, the final stages of the new British settlement for Ireland have been reached. Powers have been devolved upon the Assembly Executive, To put the agreement in perspective, however, It is necessary to go back to the local government clections last May, which were supposed to create a new political centre on which the settlement would rest. But Instead, the voting conformed by and large to the old sectarian pattern, and commentators wept over the corpses of the Alliance and Northern Ireland Labour Parties.
In the Assembly cloctions in June the sectarian pattern re-asserted itself even more firmly. Cathnues and prot estants voted to keep eech orher out. Parados cally this assisted Whitelaw. The established politicians on either side, who had the best chance of winning, thus attracted a higher proportion of the votes. Thus the Faulknet Unionists and the SDLP omerged with inote wats than they could otherwise have expected, and the scales were tipped towards an agroement. DUCKS THE ISSUE A solution to the most difficult problem at Sunning dale the constitutional status of Nortbern Irelandwas neatly avoided. Paragraph five of the Sunningdale conmunique reads as Tallows:
*5. The Irish Government fully accepted and semaly decared mat there could be no change ta the status of Northers Ireland until a majority of the people of Northern Ireland desired a change in that The British Government solemnly declared that it was, and would remain, its policy to support the wishes of the majority of the people of Northern Ireland. The present statur of Northern Ireland is future, the majority of the people of Norther Ireland should indicate a wish to become part of a United Ireland, the British Government would support that wish." (emphasis added).
When Jack Lynch grumbied in the Dail that the sentence we have emphasised means that the South's dated, he was brightly told that the Irish and British statoments had to be read as parallel': taking no neecedence over cach other. fLe vod can choose the interpretation you like), Neverthless, no interpretation can duck the fact that it registers with the United Nations the right of a minority of the Irish people to maintain partition.
On almost every other point of controversy, discus tom was postponed. The only real function for the Council of Indand will be tlie co-ordinstion of repres aun, hut even here they were anabie to settle the en tradition question.
PROVOS NOT BEATEN The nature of the agreement was determined by the fact that the original peckupe, us outlined in Whitelaw's Geten Paper, was premised on the military defcat of he Provisional IRA. Operation Motorman was to be he key point of chis miitary strategy. But the Proves were not beaten. The military effort in the North, and the chronic political crisis there, began to be reflected in demoralisation in the urmsy, and duffection at home. So the deal had to be brought coils for British politics.
Is purpose therefore is to hold the line while the Proves are smashed, and the conditions for the The mining town of Barasley in Yorkshire was 1 л The twin campaigns in defence of Irish political prisoners and to force the withdrawal of British troops from Ireland. continued in London this week. On Saturday morning, North London Troops Dut Movement placed a twenty strong picket on the Parkhurst Roed Army Recruiting Office. This picket had the public support of local public repreThroughout that same night, a predominantly women's vigil took place outside Brixton Prison, where Dolours and Marion Price, two of the Republioin prisoners sentenced to fife imprisonment at Winchester are being force-fed.
On Sunday afternoon, 250 peaple marched in a imposition of'a mare long-term solution are created. That is why the major problems were ignored. STATE STRUCTURE There were few concessions in the agreement for time: inhahitants of the ghettoes of Belfast and Derry and the catholic dominated border towns, who bave been the social buse of the Republican resistance. Specitically there is nu move towards reforin of the sectarian state structure in the North The SDLP did not even press its shabby compromise on policing It & this which will provoke tie sharpest conflicts in the coming period, and will prevent the de-mobilisation of the Provo support, Day by day, subject to Army harassment, visiting the men behind the wire, auty of a sectarian pogrom, the ghette people will be made to know that in the North of Ireland they are still the wretched of the earth. It is from such springs of betterness that the Provisiona's have always drawn the strength tor their milliary campute The Provos are basing their stratep on the ussumption that they can retain their support, and carry un the military stragale long caough to provoke a breekdown in the settlement, and a political crisis which will force the British to sue for peace. But there is a greer danger that the minorily could become exhausted before such a pont is realised. Only an extension of the base of rosstance, which requires a guite different political 1 F ERRY MEALEY subsided it contusion.
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