Campaigns // Imperialists Out Of Ireland

No British Withdrawal? - No Royal Visits!

The recent suggestion by Bertie Ahern that a state visit to the Twenty-Six Counties by the commander-in-chief of Britain’s armed forces, Elizabeth Windsor, is “inevitable” should be viewed with concern by socialists, republicans and democrats alike. 

Ahern has spoken favourably about the possibility of a Windsor visit and has clearly placed himself on the side of those wanting to grant her one.

An ally of Ahern on the issue is the current Twenty-Six County president Mary McAleese, who has long held the opinion that a state visit by the woman who masquerades as the ‘Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’ would be a positive step.

When McAleese stated that the circumstances for such a visit “are probably now getting to the point where they are as close to right as they have ever been,” she was simply confirming the success of the long, British-inspired policy of political ‘normalisation’ in Ireland - where that ‘normalisation’ is based upon protection of the constitutional status quo.

éirígí is opposed to the British head of state visiting any part of Ireland for as long as that same state continues its occupation of the Six Counties.  While visits by the British royals to occupied Ireland are, unfortunately, all too common, the prospect of a full state visit by Elizabeth Windsor to the Twenty-Six Counties represents a major challenge to all progressive people on the island of Ireland, but most particularly for those resident in that state.

éirígí is actively campaigning against the issuing of an invitation to Windsor to visit the Twenty-Six counties and will, if such an invite is issued, actively oppose that visit.

For Windsor to visit the Twenty-Six Counties on the back of the ‘successful’ implementation of the Good Friday Agreement will be portrayed by Britain’s apologists in Ireland as final confirmation that the people of Ireland have ‘matured’, and ‘come to terms’ with their historical sense of ‘inferiority’ with regard to Britain.

This type of political obfuscation and subterfuge on the part of the establishment in Ireland and Britain is integral to the creation of an atmosphere where it becomes possible to create and maintain the illusion that the cause of conflict in Ireland no longer exists.  British imperialism, Irish national self-determination, independence and sovereignty are thus reduced to issues for consignment to the dustbin of history.  

In this regard, political life in 21st century Ireland gives renewed veracity to the Connolly maxim that, “ruling by fooling is a great British art with great Irish fools to practice on”.    

The simple fact is that, were a state visit to go ahead, Elizabeth Windsor would be coming to the Twenty-Six Counties as the head of a British state - including its armed forces - which continues to illegally occupy the north-east of Ireland.

Of this fact there is no dispute.  Such a visit would represent, in a way that only displays of royal pomp can, the victory of modernised 21st century British imperialism over Irish democracy.

The Six Counties, unfortunately, remains a part of the ‘United Kingdom’ and will remain so as long as the Unionist Veto is upheld and as long as the people of Ireland acquiesce to Britain’s continued colonial and imperial ambitions towards Ireland.

A state visit to the Twenty-Six Counties by the Elizabeth Windsor would not be conducted on the basis of equality and respect for the independence and sovereignty of the host country, as would be the norm for such visits.

Instead, such a visit would constitute the final acceptance by the Twenty-Six County establishment of the permanence of partition and British rule in Ireland.  It would represent the ultimate act of tipping the cap to the old master.

The reality is that there can be no welcome in Ireland for any British leader, of government or of state, for as long as the occupation of the Six Counties continues.  It is incumbent upon all those who profess to uphold the principles of the right to national self-determination and freedom from military and political occupation to ensure that no such welcome is forthcoming, in either the Six or Twenty-Six Counties.

If the Dublin government do invite Windsor to the Twenty-Six Counties, it will no doubt be welcomed by the great and the good in the media, the political establishment and the churches.  It will then fall to the people of Ireland themselves to reject both the visit and the political philosophy behind it.

In this there is ample historical precedent.  In 1911, when the British King George V proposed a visit to Dublin, James Connolly’s Socialist Party produced the following leaflet setting out the reasons why republicans, socialists and democrats, should be implacably opposed to any such proposition.  Almost 100 years later, have the reasons for implacable opposition to British royalty on the part of Irish democrats changed?

“Fellow-Workers,

“As you are aware from reading the daily and weekly newspapers, we are about to be blessed with a visit from King George V.

“Knowing from previous experience of Royal Visits, as well as from the Coronation orgies of the past few weeks, that the occasion will be utilised to make propaganda on behalf of royalty and aristocracy against the oncoming forces of democracy and National freedom, we desire to place before you some few reasons why you should unanimously refuse to countenance this visit, or to recognise it by your presence at its attendant processions or demonstrations.  We appeal to you as workers, speaking to workers, whether your work be that of the brain or of the hand – manual or mental toil – it is of you and your children we are thinking; it is your cause we wish to safeguard and foster.

“The future of the working class requires that all political and social positions should be open to all men and women; that all privileges of birth or wealth be abolished, and that every man or woman born into this land should have an equal opportunity to attain to the proudest position in the land. The Socialist demands that the only birthright necessary to qualify for public office should be the birthright of our common humanity.

“Believing as we do that there is nothing on earth more sacred than humanity, we deny all allegiance to this institution of royalty, and hence we can only regard the visit of the King as adding fresh fuel to the fire of hatred with which we regard the plundering institutions of which he is the representative. Let the capitalist and landlord class flock to exalt him; he is theirs; in him they see embodied the idea of caste and class; they glorify him and exalt his importance that they might familiarise the public mind with the conception of political inequality, knowing well that a people mentally poisoned by the adulation of royalty can never attain to that spirit of self-reliant democracy necessary for the attainment of social freedom. The mind accustomed to political kings can easily be reconciled to social kings – capitalist kings of the workshop, the mill, the railway, the ships and the docks. Thus coronation and king's visits are by our astute never-sleeping masters made into huge Imperialist propagandist campaigns in favour of political and social schemes against democracy. But if our masters and rulers are sleepless in their schemes against us, so we, rebels against their rule, must never sleep in our appeal to our fellows to maintain as publicly our belief in the dignity of our class – in the ultimate sovereignty of those who labour.

“What is monarchy? From whence does it derive its sanction? What has been its gift to humanity? Monarchy is a survival of the tyranny imposed by the hand of greed and treachery upon the human race in the darkest and most ignorant days of our history. It derives its only sanction from the sword of the marauder, and the helplessness of the producer, and its gifts to humanity are unknown, save as they can be measured in the pernicious examples of triumphant and shameless iniquities.

“Every class in society save royalty, and especially British royalty, has through some of its members contributed something to the elevation of the race. But neither in science, nor in art, nor in literature, nor in exploration, nor in mechanical invention, nor in humanising of laws, nor in any sphere of human activity has a representative of British royalty helped forward the moral, intellectual or material improvement of mankind. But that royal family has opposed every forward move, fought every reform, persecuted every patriot, and intrigued against every good cause. Slandering every friend of the people, it has befriended every oppressor. Eulogised today by misguided clerics, it has been notorious in history for the revolting nature of its crimes. Murder, treachery, adultery, incest, theft, perjury – every crime known to man has been committed by some one or other of the race of monarchs from whom King George is proud to trace his descent.

“We will not blame him for the crimes of his ancestors if he relinquishes the royal rights of his ancestors; but as long as he claims their rights, by virtue of descent, then, by virtue of descent, he must shoulder the responsibility for their crimes.

“Fellow-workers, stand by the dignity of your class. All these parading royalties, all this insolent aristocracy, all these grovelling, dirt-eating capitalist traitors, all these are but signs of disease in any social state - diseases which a royal visit brings to a head and spews in all its nastiness before our horrified eyes. But as the recognition of the disease is the first stage towards its cure, so that we may rid our social state of its political and social diseases, we must recognise the elements of corruption. Hence, in bringing them all together and exposing their unity, even a royal visit may help us to understand and understanding, help us to know how to destroy the royal, aristocratic and capitalistic classes who live upon our labour. Their workshops, their lands, their mills, their factories, their ships, their railways must be voted into our hands who alone use them, public ownership must take the place of capitalist ownership, social democracy replace political and social inequality, the sovereignty of labour must supersede and destroy the sovereignty of birth and the monarchy of capitalism.

“Ours be the task to enlighten the ignorant among our class, to dissipate and destroy the political and social superstitions of the enslaved masses and to hasten the coming day when, in the words of Joseph Brenan, the fearless patriot of '48, all the world will maintain:

'The Right Divine of Labour
To be first of earthly things;
That the Thinker and the Worker
Are Manhood's only Kings.'