Celtic Crossed No More

In Scotland, two things are greatly to be hoped. First, that Alex Salmond is going to contest Glasgow Southside as an Independent against Nicola Sturgeon. And secondly, that the electors are going to vote for whoever was best placed to defeat the SNP in each constituency, while giving their list votes to All for Unity, which George Galloway has registered with the Electoral Commission.

Here in the North East of England, at the last General Election we made ourselves matter for the first time in decades. Not only that, but in certain areas, such as here in County Durham, we made ourselves matter more nationally than the local elite would allow us to matter regionally, effectively bypassing that elite.

Likewise in Wales, at the last General Election they made themselves matter for the first time in decades, and in certain areas they made themselves matter more in the United Kingdom than the local elite would allow them to matter in Wales, effectively bypassing that elite.

Momentum must be maintained. It is practically certain that there is going to be a hung Senedd, and it is scarcely less certain that the Conservatives are going to be the largest party. Therefore, the voters in each region should support a list that would fight for economic equality and for international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends within a united and independent Britain.

There is now a border down the Irish Sea, the EU has made it clear what it thinks of the Irish Republic, and the DUP no longer provides the British Government’s majority. Instead, across Wales, the English Midlands, and the North of England, the Conservatives hold by tiny majorities seats that contain major centres of Irish Catholic population.

But like those centres, Northern Ireland, the North of Ireland, the Six Counties, call it what you will, has benefited enormously from the United Kingdom’s social democracy since 1945, eroded though that has been since the Budget of December 1976. Elsewhere in Ireland, there is still no National Health Service.

It is time to organise in order to secure economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, both within a united and independent Ireland, and within a united and independent Britain.