Brendan Hughes • 8 October 2000
For almost thirty years the Republican Movement fought a war against the British to remove them from Ireland and establish a thirty-two county democratic socialist republic. We wanted control of the wealth in this country to rest with those who created it - working men and women.
In a bid to prevent any such thing taking place armed sectarian groups emerged - quite often under the direction of the British who made use of the sectarian divide for their own strategic ends. Many people died as a result, others were injured or imprisoned. Almost exclusively, those who suffered were from working class backgrounds both here and in Britain.
Thirty years on, despite our best efforts the sectarian divide still exists. Some say it is beginning to break down now that we have the Good Friday Agreement and a cross community executive at Stormont; that things at long last will begin to look better for the working class. Jolly good show - Hurrah or what old boy?
There is a coming together alright. But after reading the unionist Fred Cobain in last week's Irish News it is not difficult to see how the dice is loaded in favour of the rich. He termed the whole sorry charade up at Stormont a middle class government for a middle class people.
I was particularly interested in one aspect of Mr Cobain's assessment. He claimed that 600 people would die over the course of the next year as a result of poor heating in their homes. The poor and handicapped, be they Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Dissenter are all invited by her majesty's government at Stormont to come together and huddle as a means of keeping warm. We can rest assured that no one at Stormont will die due to a lack of heat. They might explode due to over eating.
A number of years ago I stood on a freezing site in West Belfast interviewing working class people about a rogue-building firm giving them a bad deal. One of the firms worker's pointed out that at the same time as the Tory Government had introduced VAT on fuel this firm was cutting the required statutory amount of housing insulation by half. In other words the poor were being told by the ruling class that they would pay more for their heat and when they eventually scraped together the money for it, it would vanish out the roof twice as quickly because of profit mad builders. Their powerful friends ensured that the findings were never published.
Fred Cobain is to be commended for speaking out and allowing us to see that in the years since that day when I stood on the site, little has really changed. Same old ship, just some different hands at the wheel. Now we are beginning to understand what the GFA really means. For working class Protestants and Catholics: - Got F--- All.
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Brendan Hughes • 8 October 2000
What are we doing in Stormont going through this degrading charade? Have we accepted that because we may have lost the military war we must also humiliate ourselves and abandon the political war? Have we accepted that Stormont is now okay; that the RUC is no longer rotten if Patten is implemented? Have we accepted that we are really British after all? Is it not more true to say that we have deluded ourselves and our own people by pretending that we have won a better deal for the working people of Ireland? As a fellow blanket protester has said - all of this is the British government's alternative to republicanism. What are we doing accepting it?
I am not advocating dumb militarism or a return to war. Never in the history of republicanism was so much sacrificed and so little gained; too many left dead and too few achievements. Let us think most strongly before going down that road again. I am simply questioning the wisdom of administering British rule in this part of Ireland. I am asking what happened to the struggle in all Ireland -- what happened to the idea of a thirty-two county socialist republic. That, after all, is what it was all about. Not about participating in a northern administration that closes hospitals and attacks the teachers' unions. I am asking why we are not fighting for and defending the rights of ordinary working people, for better wages and working conditions. Does thirty years of struggle boil down to a big room at Stormont, ministerial cars, dark suits and the implementation of the British Patten Report?
What has been shown here is that no matter what Nationalist politicians say about all of this they merely spend what the British allow them. Their grasp on political power is no stronger than my grasp on special category status. One morning in January 1978 I was the 'officer in charge of the republican prisoners' in Long Kesh; in the afternoon I was '704 Hughes' by edict of the British government. In the morning I was a political prisoner -- in the afternoon the British deemed me a criminal and left me naked in the H Blocks. The nationalists' power at Stormont, like my clothes, the British consider to be a privilege -- something to be taken away at any time. All republicans have gained are smoke and mirrors and nothing of substance. The British control the show and are always willing to follow the logic of the unionists.
It seems now that we have even reached the stage, as in Animal Farm, where some republicans are more equal than others. If the reports from Stormont are correct then it would seem that a senior member of Sinn Fein -- who would proclaim himself quite green -- has discriminated against other republicans on the false tactical grounds that they 'are too identifiably republican' to be employed in the Sinn Fein ministries.
For thirty years we sought to destroy this bastion of hatred and bigotry. Throughout its history the British fed it and bred it. Are we really expected to believe that the British alternative to republicanism -- the Good Friday Agreement -- will see Britain destroy its own baby? I don't think so.
If, as some tell us, a united, just and egalitarian Ireland is so close why are there still republicans taking up arms and risking their lives in order to achieve it? Are we going to be part of an administration that tortures and interns them? Where will it end? Twenty years ago this month a hunger strike began in the H Blocks of Long Kesh. Twenty years on there are republicans in prison such as Tommy Crossan. British troops are still on the streets; the RUC are still there, whether Royal Ulster Constabulary or Patten Ulster Constabulary.
Our experience up to now has been humiliating. We have danced to every tune; broke every promise ever made; pursued all the policies we used to term others "collaborators" for pursuing; and have dressed it all up as something progressive in order to deceive our base. Have we merely proved the old adage that the first casualty of war is the truth?
I understand that articles like this written by people like me cause annoyance to some fellow republicans. That is unfortunate but so be it. It is my very republicanism that causes me to speak out just as it did during those long and lonely years on protest. My republicanism then was legitimate -- it is no less legitimate today. Twenty years ago they called me a fenian bastard. I remain an unrepentant fenian bastard. My republicanism and hunger strike were against British rule. I still refuse to conform to it or the views of those now administering it.
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At the beginning of December 2000, Brendan Hughes, along with Anthony McIntyre, spoke at a meeting in Manchester on the situation in Ireland. At it they both outlined their opposition to the Good Friday Agreement and the role that Sinn Fein is playing. They both belong to the Irish Republican Writers Group (IRWG) which produces the magazine Fourthwrite. Both men were IRA POWs held in Long Kesh. Brendan Hughes was the Commanding Officer of the prisoners when the first hunger strike began in 1980 and he was himself one of the hunger strikers. After the meeting, Brendan kindly agreed to be interviewed, first telling how he had been held and questioned for 1 1/2 hours at Liverpool Docks before being allowed entry to Britain.
FRFI: What are your views on the peace process?
BH: I basically strongly agree that the war in Ireland with the British is over. I believe that the military struggle is over but I totally disagree with the Good Friday Agreement (GFA). The Republican Movement, the IRA, spent 30 years bringing down the rotten regime called Stormont, controlled by the British government. The GFA has brought Sinn Fein into Stormont, still controlled by the British, with the RUC still armed and still on the streets. British troops are still on the streets of the north of Ireland, still on the roofs of the Divis Flats. Sinn Fein people have now become part of the occupation forces in the north of Ireland. I disagree with that. I disagree with the whole concept of administering British rule in Ireland, which I believe Sinn Fein is now doing. I therefore will oppose it.
The GFA allowed two Sinn Fein ministers into Stormont. One of the acts the Sinn Fein Health Minister carried out was to close a hospital. [Bairbre de Brun, Sinn Fein Health Minister, carried through cuts in the health budget. Hospital facilities in South Tyrone and the Jubilee in Belfast have been closed. She is also introducing the Private Finance Initiative into the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast.] I believe that as long as Sinn Fein are in this regime, then they are in a British regime and they are administering British rule in Ireland. I totally disagree with what's happening and I'm opposing it, but it's not easy. I've been a member of this movement for over 30 years, most of my adult life. It doesn't make it easy. I don't feel comfortable about it, but I know it's right to oppose it because what's happening is, I think, a total betrayal of everything the Republican Movement has represented over the years.
I think the Republican leadership has begun to move away from everything that we fought for and I'm saddened over that. Again I have to say, it's not an easy thing for me to do. They are my old friends and comrades, but for me it's wrong, very much wrong and I have to speak about it.
FRFI: Why do you think this process is happening? Whom does Sinn Fein represent?
BH: I think Sinn Fein is changing. I've noticed it over the years. I've written to An Phoblacht, the newspaper of Sinn Fein, and tried to expose the rogue builders on the Falls Road – rogue builders that are paying men £20 for a day's work, way under the rate. That was my first act, to go and write an article and try to get it published in An Phoblacht. When they read the article at the An Phoblacht office, they refused to publish it. I threatened the editor that if they didn't publish it, I would go to the Irish News with a stronger version. The article was eventually published, very much watered down. To the present day those same rogue builders are still there paying the same wages with the complicity of the Sinn Fein leadership. To me it's a betrayal of the working class. To me it's a shame, a disgrace that they are allowed to get away with this and these same builders that I've been writing about, campaigning about, are building Sinn Fein offices! They're still paying the same wages. They pay their men in pubs, they allow the men to run up bills, to me they're just alien to everything Republican, everything revolutionary that I've ever stood for in my life. It shouldn't be allowed to happen.
A new type of leadership has come in who are 'collar and tie' – all the woolly jumpers have been thrown away and the collars and ties are in. From my perception of things the Republican leadership has moved away from the working class and is attempting to win the middle class. They're attempting to win the ground that belonged to the SDLP.
FRFI: Do you see any way forward?
BH: I don't have an immediate alternative. The only alternative we're expressing through the IRWG is debate. I think debate has been muffled and censored. I think debate has been unwelcome. I think the way forward for us at present in the IRWG is to try and expose the weaknesses and the betrayal of the GFA and to force people to answer the questions that we have asked. To build a broad base of debate initially, to try and force the Republican Movement back to the base where it belongs, in other words the working class. As to building another party, I am certainly not attempting to do that. I think the people who can bring about a revolutionary socialist party in Ireland are in Sinn Fein. If the little that we are attempting to do in the IRWG goes any way towards that, then OK, that's an achievement on its own. If all that fails, at least what we're trying to do is record that not everyone could go along with Sinn Fein's acceptance of the GFA and the British solution to the Irish problem. At least we'll be on record of trying to oppose it and of sticking our necks out. If we achieve more than that, then great, we can develop from there.
Everybody is opposed to the IRWG – the British, the British media, the Irish media, the Republican media, everyone is opposed to what we're trying to say. To me that says we must be doing something right.
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So, what of the working person in our new set up in the six counties? We are in the process of seeing 'our' police force being dry-cleaned. We are in the process of seeing 'our' Stormont being whitewashed. We are in the process of seeing 'our' Republican Movement shedding its skin. We are certainly not in any process of seeing the conditions of the workers being improved. Women are still being forced to work for £2 an hour; men for £20 a day. What has the Good Friday Agreement done for the working class people? As a republican, as far as I can see - nothing!
For the working people the GFA may as well mean 'Got Feck All'. It has delivered absolutely nothing. What should the Republican Movement be doing for working people? Absolutely everything. The rogue builders that plague and prey on working class republican communities should not be allowed to treat workers as slaves - in work one day and out the next because the boss takes a dislike to you or may resent the fact that you do not drink your wages in the bar that he owns and in which he pays you. He can quite easily find some other wretched soul who feels compelled out of poverty to work for less that the £20 a day he gives you. Whatever happened to the old adage of a 'fair day's work for a fair day's pay'?
It seems to me that after thirty years of struggling we are still facing repression - by the British, by our so-called ‘own people‘. If after thirty years of gruelling war, death and hunger, we end up with a British administered six-county state alongside a 26-county republic, both of which exploit and repress working people, then it has all been in vain. Any internal arrangement (and it is an arrangement for the prosperous not a solution for the poor) or for that matter a thirty-two county arrangement that leaves the condition of working people untouched was simply not worth thirty years of war and death.
Do the Unionist communities have a similar experience? How are their ex-prisoners treated? Would the PUP, which claims to be radical and for the working man and woman, allow those who are nothing better than the slum landlords of the building industry to build their party offices with a grossly underpaid workforce who are not allowed to be unionised? How do those who claim to be socialist within the unionist community resist such exploitation? If there is to be a meaningful debate between republicanism and loyalism, let it begin there rather then with the waffle and nonsense about flags that passes for dialogue up at Stormont.
James Connolly was right when he said Ireland without its people meant nothing to him. In all honesty, if it were the only way to avoid exploitation and the rule of poverty creators, and if such a thing were possible, I would prefer a six-county democratic socialist republic where the workers would have control of their own destiny, the right to work and security of employment. A republic where it is a crime to exploit workers and where the employment of rogue builders would be banned by sheer morality never mind the law.
In other words a society where there is …
JUSTICE
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Brendan Hughes and John Kelly, No More Lies • Irish News, 3 January 2007
A number of years ago a body of republicans came together in support of open debate and an end to a range of sordid practices that had brought republicanism into disrepute. The group, while loosely referring to itself as a congress, came to be known as No More Lies.
It aspired to offer some form of moral protection to those republicans who felt they wanted to push back the party censors and thought police.
Today it seems that the need to refute lies and offer moral protection is as great as it was then.
Of particular concern are certain allegations being peddled by the Sinn Fein leadership.
Supported by the PSNI, it claims to be under physical threat from some people opposed to its partitionist policies and its eagerness to embrace the PSNI.
In our view there are threats being made. But they are coming from Sinn Fein and are directed against republicans who seek a wider debate on the policing matter.
A number of people have been warned by Sinn Fein that they must not attend independent meetings organised by republicans around the policing issue.
It is not the threat of physical attack that Sinn Fein leaders fear.
This is evident from the way they continue to go about their daily lives. It is the possibility of republicans fed up with Sinn Fein lies and deceit deciding to mount an electoral challenge that sends shudders of anxiety through the leadership circles. We have no position on electoral intervention one way or the other. We do not know if any electoral challenge has been discussed. But those who wish to discuss all matters relevant to republicanism – including an alternative electoral strategy to Sinn Fein’s, must be both free and safe to do so. We are concerned that in a bid to stifle wider discussion within the republican community, Sinn Fein is pursuing a strategy of threat against dissenting voices. They are disguising their own menace by attributing violent intent to those voices. Such voices are healthy in a republicanism unafraid of critical self-examination. They must be protected against Sinn Fein leadership threats and smears used to undermine their credibility.
Let the debate take place and the most honest participants win.
Under no circumstances should it be prevented from happening
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