Jeremy Corbyn may have only one way forward in Ireland – cut the moderate Catholic SDLP adrift in Northern Ireland and align with the Irish Labour Party in the Republic to encourage the latter to join the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.
For decades since its formation in the 1970s, the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party was s used as the ‘sister party’ excuse by the British Labour leadership as to why the party could not organise – let alone contest elections – in Northern Ireland. But Sinn Fein has been delivering the same electoral pounding to the SDLP which the latter dished out to the equally moderate Irish Nationalist Party in the original Unionist-controlled Stormont Parliament.
While Sinn Fein remains united behind the leadership of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, the SDLP is poised to implode in a bitter leadership battle between the traditionalist wing headed by current leader and South Belfast MP Dr Alasdair McDonnell, and its socialist wing led by challenger and Foyle Assembly Member Colum Eastwood.
The result is immaterial as the SDLP looks to be on its way to electoral oblivion and may soon join other moderate nationalist parties in the dustbin of history – unless it merges with the Irish Labour Party within a year and develops an all-island ethos rather than limiting itself to Northern Ireland.
The Sinn Fein electoral roller coaster has slowed down a following a recent security report compiled by the police and MI5 that the Provisional IRA’s ruling body, the Army Council, not only still exists, but continues to run the republican movement.
While that comes as no surprise to nationalist and unionist parties in the north, it could seriously hamper Sinn Fein’s bid to become a minority government partner after next year’s Dail poll. Although it happened almost a century ago, there are still bitter feeling about the Irish Civil War when more anti-Treaty IRA men were executed by the pro-Treaty Free State forces than IRA members were killed in the earlier War of Independence against the British.
While Sinn Fein has branded itself as the main voice of anti-austerity in Ireland, many voters – especially in the Republic – still adhere to the stereotypical image of the party as an Irish communist party under another name.
Corbyn needs to take the gloves off and allow Labour to fight elections as the only viable alternative to Sinn Fein in the nationalist community, just as he will face the same battle in Scotland against a rampaging SNP at the next Holyrood election.
Labour stands little chance of making inroads among Unionists as the battle for the hearts and minds of the pro-Union electorate will be between the Democratic Unionist Party and the rival Ulster Unionists.
The tactic should be to build the pillars of lasting socialism one community pillar at a time. Ireland’s political cemetery is crammed with the gravestones of left-wing parties, movements and campaigns which have crashed and burned.
In his earlier days as a Westminster MP, Corbyn courted controversy because of his close relations with Sinn Fein, especially as the IRA’s campaign of terror was still being unleashed.
If the Labour leader is smart, he doesn’t have to abandon his dream of a united Ireland; he should shift his allegiance gently away from the republican movement, and over to the influential cross-border bodies and British-Irish institutions.
Given the growing tide of Eurosepticism in the United Kingdom, and even within Labour, Corbyn can score points by using the British-Irish institutions to persuade the Republic to re-join the Commonwealth Parliament Association.
I say “re-join’ because Ireland was a founder member of the original Empire Parliamentary Association in 1911 when the island was entirely under British rule. If the UK quits the EU, it will leave the Republic on the irrelevant fringes of the Europe EU. The modern CPA represents more than 50 national and regional parliaments, so is rather different from the old Empire.
The end result could be a united Ireland by the back door without the need for armed struggle.