Republican Socialist Platform (RSP) members from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee this year joined the annual Bloody Sunday march in Derry. Below we reproduce the text of a leaflet they distributed from the RSP website.

The anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Derry reminds us of the depths to which the British ruling class will sink to preserve their UK state. One major difference between 1972 and 2023, though, is that they now face a far wider challenge.

By 1998, in the face of various national democratic challenges with Irish republicans at the fore, the British ruling class had to fall-back on ‘devolution all round’ in their attempt to hold the UK together.

Today, the unionist/loyalist bloc created by the Good Friday Agreement has lost its majority in the bi-sectarian Stormont Assembly; Scottish unionists are a minority at Holyrood and Westminster; and in Wales, support for independence is growing rapidly.

What has not changed is the British ruling class’s contempt for democratic change, including the right of national self-determination. To get around their shrinking support, they turn to the most reactionary political forces and the anti-democratic Crown Powers of the UK state.

Brexit has paved the way for Westminster’s assault on trade union, consumer and environmental rights and draconian new laws attacking migrants and asylum seekers. To appease reactionary unionists, the Tories are undermining their own NI Protocol.

In December 2022, the UK Supreme Court overruled plans for a new Scottish independence referendum, despite this receiving majority support in the 2021 Holyrood election. The very next month, the Tories blocked Scotland’s progressive Gender Recognition Reform Bill, passed by a cross-party super-majority of MSPs.

It is clear is that British ruling class not only have no intention of conceding greater self-determination, they are now attempting to roll-back even the limited democratic concessions of 1998. The British Labour Party will do nothing to stop them.

The British monarchy plays a crucial role in fronting the UK state’s Crown Powers. We are witnessing a media offensive, led by the BBC, to reinforce the UK state around Charlie and his dysfunctional family. The planned coronation in May is the centrepiece of this anti-democratic offensive.

The Republican Socialist Platform, as part of the Radical Independence Campaign in Scotland, is working with Our Republic and others to hold a major republican demonstration on Edinburgh’s Calton Hill on May 6th, the same day as the coronation.

There is already a formidable campaign in Wales against the humiliating investiture of a new Prince of Wales. We encourage and want to support more protests across these islands against the coronation in May.

RSP members are here in Derry and Belfast to seek support in developing an alliance, based on internationalism from below, to break up the deeply reactionary UK state.

Originally published on the RSP website 30 January 2023: https://republicansocialists.scot/2023/01/scottish-and-irish-solidarity-against-the-uk-state/

To join the Republican Socialist Platform, go to this link. https://join.republicansocialists.scot/

Sunday 30 January 2022 marked the 50th anniversary of the massacre by the British Army of 14 innocent people in Derry.  The BBC and RTE completely ignored a large commemorative march in Derry, addressed by among others former Westminster MP Bernadette Devlin McAliskey and civil rights activist Eamonn McCann who were on the original peaceful march in 1972 and were fired on by the British soldiers.  Below we publish a report on the march by Irish revolutionary socialist John Meehan, from the Irish political blog Tomás Ó Flatharta. 

On Monday 31 January 1972, the day after the march, in the British House of Commons Bernadette Devlin (now McAliskey) then the independent socialist MP for Mid-Ulster, tried to challenge the lies of the Tory Home Secretary Reginald Maudling for twice claiming that it was the marchers who had fired on the British soldiers of the Paratroop Regiment – rather than the other way round.  She was denied the opportunity to speak and berated for trying to tell the truth – that a British minister was a liar.  Bernadette famously walked across the chamber and slapped Maudling on the face as a “proletarian protest”. against his lies  Bernadette later said she regretted she had not got him by the throat.  We reproduce a link to an interview with Bernadette on that day explaining why she did it.   It took several decades and an independent inquiry before it was finally confirmed that those shot by the British soldiers were entirely innocent, and that Maudling had lied to the House of Commons – but we don’t think he’ll be the last British minister to be found out as a liar!

Irish revolutionary socialist organisation Socialist Democracy is holding an online meeting on the politics of the last 100 years of the Partition of Ireland, with John McAnulty speaking – Tuesday 1 February 2022 19.00 7pm London/Dublin time. http://socialistdemocracy.org/RecentArticles/DiscussionIreland100YearsOfPartitionCarnivalOfReaction.html

The feedback I got all week, writes Tomás Ó Flatharta , was that the 2022 Bloody Sunday March in Derry today (Sunday 30 January 2022) would be huge. This turned out to be true. An initial report is below.

Here is the intriguing bit. The mass media (e.g. RTÉ Radio Bulletin this morning at 8.00am) reported lots of other stuff – for example, Dublin government taoiseach Mícheál Martin laying a wreath – and said nothing about the march this afternoon at 2.30pm in Derry featuring speeches by Bernadette McAliskey, Éamonn McCann, and others. RTÉ is a public service broadcaster in Ireland largely funded by a license fee. It comes under pressure from the “great and the good” to toe the line and exclude radical voices. And sometimes it gets things spectacularly wrong – today was an example.

What is the key political message today : Prosecute the Generals!We will keep fighting – and, eventually, we might win. If we don’t fight, we definitely lose.

It is very similar to what happened on the day of the 2016 100th anniversary monster parade in Dublin supporting the 1916 Rising – the Irish establishment media disgraced itself reporting on tiny religious ceremonies in Ballygobackwards and the like. It ignored tens of thousands on Dublin streets participating in a colourful parade.

The weather did not stop the people of Derry as thousands took part in the March for Justice on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

British Army Paratroopers shot dead 13 and wounded 14 civilians during a civil rights march on Sunday, January 30, 1972. A 14th person died later from his injuries.
People from all over the island and beyond took to the streets of Derry, leaving Creggan at 2:15 this afternoon and marching peacefully through the streets of Derry finishing at Free Derry Corner.
The route retraces the original route of the civil rights march 50 years ago in 1972. Many held signs demanding justice from the British Government for those who lost their lives.
When the crowds returned to the Bogside, there was a rally at Free Derry corner with Bernadette McAliskey, née Devlin, and well-known civil rights campaigner Eamonn McCann among the speakers.
Irish civil rights leader, Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, gave a powerful speech to the crowd, “People walk this road every year, there has to be another generation of people, like the young people here,” she said.
“I’m so glad to see so many young faces here. One thing that is certain, Bloody Sunday will never be forgotten.
“Again, as we have done every year, reminding people that Bloody Sunday was not just about the people who were killed, not just about the city and it was not just the first of many killings that broke our hearts for thirty years, this was different.
“This was a day when the British Government policy which had started weeks and months before, came to fruition on the street.
“Internment was introduced to try and break the people. They have responded with more marches and strikes. People tend to forget history, but nowhere in the six counties has forgotten.
“It was that kind of mass action that the British Government was afraid of. They were afraid of the marches as a result.
“It is the same today, what they are afraid of is this here. They are not afraid of the lone gunman, they are not afraid of the sniper, they are not afraid of the secret army. They can infiltrate, they recruit agents out of them.
“What they are afraid of is this here. Masses of people who won’t quit. People who will tell their children and their grandchildren.
“If I don’t see the British Government in the dock, my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren will see them in it some day.”

https://www.derrynow.com/news/derry-news/732173/one-thing-that-is-certain-bloody-sunday-will-never-be-forgotten.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook&fbclid=IwAR0IYJ29T5Ft62ic8HG6lViFyLgjN6Bh2szGupNNu0feG-J4t6KDtg2QrLY

The establishment media has not said too much about a general strike which swept across Ireland because of Derry’s Bloody Sunday – resulting in the burning  of Dublin’s British Embassy on Wednesday February 2 1972. Listen to a fascinating account by historian Brian Hanly here : https://www.leftarchive.ie/podcast/35-bloody-sunday-reactions-in-the-republic-of-ireland/?fbclid=IwAR2Z1LOUr9K5oSTq3iYaDfsEpJLGazkTCSawrRssOHyXy8B1OqA7gq6hxXo

In summary, let us record : In 1972 the Dublin Government caught up with the public mood across Ireland and declared a “National Day of Mourning” on the day of the funeral for the 13 civilians murdered by the British Army Paratroop Regiment on Derry’s Bloody Sunday. A general strike swept across Ireland, giving a mandate to people on a huge march – Called by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions – who burned the British Embassy to ashes. Wednesday February 2 1972 – A day to be proud of a Risen People in Dublin.

John Meehan January 30 2022

Bernadette Devlin delivers a proletarian protest  on Monday 31 January 1972

Bernadette Devlin delivers a proletarian protest (31/01/1972) – YouTube

Bernadette Devlin McAliskey won two parliamentary elections in Mid-Ulster as “Unity” and an Independent Socialist.  She took her seat in the House of Commons, unlike the abstentionist wing of the Republican Movement, and used it as a platform across the British Isles to stand up for workers’ rights.  She lost her seat in 1974 when the Social Democratic & Labour Party stood against her and handed the seat to a conservative Unionist.  She survived an assassination attempt by loyalist paramilitaries.  Bernadette went on to stand in Dublin for the Irish Parliament (Dáil Éireann) as a candidate of the Irish section of the Fourth International and she still speaks at revolutionary socialist meetings to this day – here is her speech on the 100th anniversary of the Irish Easter Rising to a meeting of British Fourth International supporters in 2016 in London:  https://youtu.be/J9QCArSU3-g

Our friends at Red Mole Rising have done a great service by republishing online Rayner Lysaght’s history: “The Republic of Ireland”.

Originally published in 1970, this is a dense and detailed account of Irish history up to that period from a revolutionary marxist standpoint.  Rayner Lysaght recently died at the age of 80, and for most of his life was a revolutionary activist and member of the Fourth International.  Born in Wales and descended from a long line  going back to Welsh Chartist radicals, Rayner moved to Ireland in his early years to study and stayed there for the rest of his life helping to found the Irish Fourth International group in the 1970s while researching and writing about Irish history.  He is particularly well known for his detailed account of the almost-forgotten Limerick Soviet of 1919.  “The Republic of Ireland” is a detailed history of the island, written from the standpoint and understanding of the the centrality of the class struggle rather than a traditional academic focus on governmental and ruling class institutions.  As such, it is not as well known or widely read as it should be, so it is a fitting tribute to Rayner’s life to have it republished online and made more widely available.  For those grappling with the challenges of Scottish independence from the UK state, an understanding of Irish history from a working class marxist standpoint is immensely rewarding.

The book is available as a large PDF and contains a new introduction written in 2021 by Irish revolutionary socialist John McAnulty of Socialist Democracy.

The full book is here.

It is also available broken down by chapters here.

Obituaries of Rayner Lysaght and tributes to his life can be read here: https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article7210

ecosocialist.scot October 2021

“The Republic of Ireland” Contents pages