Since I wrote the first part of my reply (Allan Armstrong (RCN) replies to David Jamieson (ISG) – part 1) I have met David for the first time. Face-to-face discussions are a better way of trying to understand the thinking and positions that others hold. They can also help to overcome some preconceived notions. In the…
Offensive Behaviour And The Independence Referendum
In the following two articles, Jim Slaven of the James Connolly Society shows that SNP government’s Offensive Behaviour Act represents the latest attempt to create a ‘sectarian’ smokescreen to avoid tacking anti-Irish racism in Scotland, whilst the Labour Party’s ‘opposition’ is nothing but the rankest opportunism from a party that has long upheld the UK…
NATO, Nuclear Weapons And Scottish Independence
Eric Chester (RCN and IWW) exposes the contradictions of the SNP’s anti-Trident, pro-NATO stance. The Scottish National Party has insisted that an independent Scotland would be free of nuclear weapons. This position reflects the fact that Scottish popular opinion is overwhelmingly opposed to the stationing of the Trident submarine system at Faslane. These subs, a leftover…
Women And Scottish Independence
Alicia Arquera, a member of the International Socialist Group, gave this Introduction to a discussion on Women and Independence at the Edinburgh branch of the Radical Independence Campaign on April 29th. I just wanted to start by saying that I am pleased I am to have been asked to speak this evening on women and…
Republic Day Speech
Allan Armstrong (RCN) was invited by the James Connolly Society to speak on behalf of the Edinburgh branch of the Radical Independence Campaign at the Republic Day commemoration on April 24th at the Connolly plaque in the Cowgate, Edinburgh. I would like to thank the James Connolly Society and the 1916 Societies for inviting the…
Good Friday Agreement – Thatcher’s Progressive Legacy?
John McAnulty of Socialist Democracy (Ireland) helps to clear up some of the confusion about Thatcher’s legacy with regard to Ireland. Some have argued that, after ditching the hard-line Ulster Unionists in the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, she opened up the way to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA). John, however, highlights that, the degree to which Thatcher…
The Bedroom Tax in Northern Ireland
This article on the ‘Bedroom Tax’ in Northern Ireland comes from eirigi. Several parallels (some erroneous and some useful) have been drawn between the ‘Bedroom Tax’ and the Poll Tax. However, even Thatcher’s Tory government never tried to introduce the Poll Tax into Northern Ireland in the context of the Republican struggle there. Today, the…
Riding Two Horses At Once – The SWP and Scottish independence
The following extended review of Keir McKechnie’s pamphlet, Scotland – Yes to Independence: No to Nationalism, was started before the most recent crisis in the SWP became public. Until the SWP resolves this crisis, its political interventions are likely to have more limited impact on the Left than in the past. Socialists should support those…
David Douglass reviews – Adrian Kerr, ‘Free Derry: protest and resistance’.
Adrian Kerr, Free Derry – protest and resistance, Guildhall Press, 2013, pp. 224, £11.95 From the declaration of ‘Free Derry’ on August 9 1971, when the solidly working class and republican community seized control of their own area of the city of Londonderry, to the time of the Provisional Irish Republican Army ceasefire in 1994, the…
Allan Armstrong (RCN) replies to David Jamieson (ISG) – part 1
David Jamieson of the International Socialist Group has replied to two contributions made by Allan Armstrong of the Republican Communist Network (see David Jamieson of the ISG replies to Allan Armstrong). These took a critical look at ISG member, James Foley’s pamphlet, Britain Must Break, and examined the prospects for the Radical Independence Campaign, and the role…