by John Coulter
THE Labour Party has finally organised itself as an official political party in Northern Ireland, ending decades of hard campaigning by socialists on both sides of the Irish Sea. The inaugural meeting was held in Belfast on Monday night, but the first electoral outing is not expected until the new Northern Ireland “super council” and Assembly polls in 2011 although some activists want the party to be ready for a general election next year – when there are 18 seats at Westminster up for grabs.
The move was spearheaded by Boyd Black, a lecturer at Queen’s University, who described the inaugural meeting on Monday as “a landmark occasion”. Mr Black made history last September when he became the first Northern Ireland constituency representative to address a Labour Party conference when he took the platform in Manchester.
He explained: “On Monday we were formally constituted within the Labour Party organisation – up to now we have been unofficial members. Now we will have a party constitution and elected officers. It is a big step forward. We will, as of right, have a seat on the National Policy Forum, the body which sits in permanent session and develops policy for the Labour Party.”
For many years, socialists in the six counties who wanted to join the Labour Party were told to join Labour’s sister party in Northern Ireland – the moderate nationalist and predominantly Roman Catholic Social Democratic and Labour Party. But since the formation of the Assembly in 1998 the SDLP has lost ground – and seats – to Sinn Féin.
The success of the peace process in the province – in spite of the credit crunch and subsequent economic downturn – has sparked renewed interest in the north by political parties in the Republic of Ireland.
The Dublin-based Irish Labour Party has already indicated its desire to organise in the north.
As well as Sinn Féin, a number of other left parties have also organised on an all-island basis – including the Greens, the Workers’ Party, the Socialist Workers’ Party and the Irish Republican Socialist Party. The Irish government’s senior coalition partner, the left-leaning Fianna Fáil, has also voted to organise in the north. There are now moves within the SDLP to merge with Fianna Fáil.
After the creation of Northern Ireland in the 1920s, northern socialists set up the Northern Ireland Labour Party in the orginal Unionist-controlled Stormont parliament but it could only ever manage to get a handful of seats.
Pressure on the Labour Party in London to formally organise in the north increased when, shortly before Christmas, Conservative leader David Cameron used the annual conference of the Ulster Unionist Party to unveil an electoral pact between the Tories and the UUP for the European poll in June and the next general election.
Ironically, the UUP’s sole Westminster MP, Lady Sylvia Hermon, who represents North Down, has voted with Gordon Brown’s Government on a number of occasions and is sceptical about the UUP/Tory link.
