Workers Solidarity Movement

The hopes of women living in Northern Ireland for the extension of the 1967 Abortion Act were dashed when an amendment to extend the act brought before Westminster on 22^nd October was not debated because of a procedural motion put by Harriet Harman, leader of the House of Commons and the Minister for Women and supported by many New Labour ‘feminist’ MPs.

The Stormont administration is at a critical juncture, with the Executive not having met in several months. It seems an eternity since Paisley and McGuinness chuckled their way through meetings and joint events.

Despite its retention of a heavy arsenal of lethal weapons including Tasers, and a litany of repressive anti-terror legislation including Diplock Courts, Hugh Orde, current Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland often refers to the force as the ‘most democratic, accountable police service in the world’. This from the same Chief Constable who has recently unsuccessfully attempted to block the release of vital documents to the Pearse Jordon Inquest. Pearse, an unarmed IRA volunteer, was gunned down by the RUC on the Falls Road in 1992.

What a farce! As the economy officially goes into recession, as electricity bills go up by 17.5%, as food bills are officially 6.4% higher than this time last year, the leaders of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions negotiate through the night and emerge bleary-eyed from the ‘social partnership’ talks with 1) a pay pause and 2) pay increases, when we eventually get them, lower than the rate of inflation. And then they have the cheek to tell us that this is “the best deal available in the current economic climate” (1). Lucky for them they’re not on performance-related pay if that’s the best they can do for their members.

On October 22^nd, in the biggest show of student strength in many years, over 15,000 third level students marched through the streets of Dublin. They were united in their opposition to the Budget’s 67% College Registration Fee increase and Minister for Education, Batt O’Keefe’s threat to bring back full college fees by September 2009. Last month, he announced that the return of fees would raise €530 million in revenue at a family income threshold of €120,000. To his embarrassment, he later had to admit that these figures were wrong and that in fact the maximum revenue would be only €130 million.

What we were witnessing was a clear demonstration of people power in action. The government was in a panic and was drastically hurtling to reverse the medical card decision. And when this meeting was followed up 24 hours later with a demonstration of 15,000 organised by the Senior Citizens Parliament and another 15,000-strong student demonstration against the re-introduction of 3^rd level fees it was obvious that politics in Ireland had changed drastically.

Despite the collaboration between the British Government and the DUP preventing the extension of the 1967 Abortion Act to the north the struggle for women's right to choose continues…..

Leading up to the Westminster vote, the Alliance for Choice campaign was active across the north organising public meetings, street stalls, a pub quiz and symbolic events such as the '40 women a week' protest outside Belfast city hall with an aim to highlight the fact that politicians here are exporting the 'problem' as over 40 women every week are forced to travel to other parts of the UK to carry out an abortion.

September-October issue of WSM's freesheet.

• The system works...for the rich
• Why can’t all the socialists get together?
• TV Review: The Wire
• Capitalism & war in the Caucasus
• The DUP and creationism
• Hamas, the left and ‘liberation’ in Palestine
• The Recession and housing
• Uncovering fraud where none exists 
• Capitalism and the exploitation of women 
• WTO trade negotiations 

Senior members of the DUP have been busy embarrassing themselves over the last few weeks.Comments by Ian Paisley Jr that the PSNI should shoot dissident republicans on sight indicate the ingrained right-wing stance of the party. Meanwhile his colleagues have been outdoing him in making their party a laughing stock. Iris Robinson repeatedly put her foot in it by describing homosexuality as an abomination while Edwin Poots and Meryvn Storey clambered somewhere back to the bronze age in their bid to have Christian creationism taught in science class.

The recent bitter collapse of the Doha round of World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks has put the WTO back in the news around the world. The latest talks failed in large part because rich countries refuse to reduce subsidies to their own farmers, while insisting that the poor countries should reduce theirs. But what is the WTO, and how is it relevant to our everyday lives here in Ireland?