The Campaign for Democracy in Ulster / CDU [1965]
[Editor’s Note: The Campaign for Democracy in Ulster was an exclusively Labour Party body which was established in June 1965, with Paul Rose, Labour MP for Manchester Blackley, as its President, Lord Fenner Brockway as chairman, and Bill O’Shaughnessy, former treasurer of the South London branch of the Connolly Association, as secretary. O’Shaughnessy was later succeeded in that position by Cllr. Paddy Byrne. Paul Rose, whose interest in the Irish question stemmed initially from his involvement with the Manchester branch of the Connolly Association from 1962 onward and who was elected to Parliament in 1964, was a moving spirit in establishing the CDU. In a Wikipedia article entitled “Paul Rose and the Campaign for Democracy in Ulster” Michael Herbert of the Manchester Irish in Britain Representation Group writes: “By June 1968 the central committee of the CDU were forced to conclude that the campaign had run out of steam. Only four members of the central committee attended meetings regularly and only three constituency Labour parties remained affiliated. They had not succeeded in getting a resolution on Northern Ireland to the party conference, whilst a public meeting in Kilburn in April had only attracted 20 people, despite a large amount of flyposting. Paddy Byrne presented a bleak assessment of how things stood. ‘In short no mass movement has developed and there is no indication that one will’, for in his view the British Left were ‘far too concerned to save socialism from extinction than to bother about Ulster, about which the mass of British people know little, care less.’”
Below is a report by Desmond Greaves on the establishment of the CDU that was carried in the June 1965 issue of the “Irish Democrat”. The front-page headline to this item read: “64 Labour MPs found anti-unionist organisation”. While giving sympathetic coverage to the CDU and its subsequent activities in the “Irish Democrat”, Greaves and the Connolly Association regarded the setting up of an exclusively Labour Party body as narrowing the scope of the solidarity movement in Britain, for – in contrast to the Connolly Association – it did not include non-party people, who constituted the great majority of the country’s inhabitants, whether English, Scots, Welsh or Irish, not to mind communists or other non-Labour left-wing people. They believed too that the establishment of the CDU was partly aimed at denying the Connolly Association credit for the solidarity work it had been engaged in since 1955, and reducing its potential for influencing events. For example as far back as 1961 the Connolly Association had secured the signatures of over half the members of the Parliamentary Labour Party to a series of telegrams to Unionist Premier Lord Brookeborough calling for the release of Republicans interned without charge or trial in Belfast at that time, and in that year and the year following it organised three marches across England for civil rights in Northern Ireland. In the event the CDU’s activity, while valuable, only lasted a few years. Various early writers on the Northern Ireland civil rights movement have tended to exaggerate the impact of the Campaign for Democracy in Ulster, while ignoring that of the Connolly Association. During the years of the CDU’s existence its work in British Labour Party circles tended to overlap with or parallel that of the Connolly Association.
In addition to Desmond Greaves’s report on the CDU’s foundation below, two further report items by him are added from the same, June 1965, issue of the “Irish Democrat”. These cover other meetings on Northern Ireland that the Connolly Association was involved with during the previous month – one being the annual conference of Britain’s largest technical trade union, the Draughtsmen and Allied Technicians Association(DATA), and the other a conference organised by the Manchester branch of the Connolly Association, at which three Labour MPs spoke. They are included here for illustrative purposes, as similar reports of CA activity and influence in the British Labour movement can be found regularly in the monthly issues of the “Irish Democrat” throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s and later.]
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64 Labour MPs found anti-unionist organisation
The Connolly Association’s long and arduous campaign to interest British Labour in the Irish question bore important fruit on June 2nd when the “Campaign for Democracy in (north-eastern) Ulster” was formally launched at a meeting in the Grand Committee Room of the House of Commons.
Chairman is Lord Brockway, and Members of Parliament on the Committee include Mr Paul Rose, Mr Stanley Orme, Mr Hugh Delargy and Mr Eric Ogden.
Fifty-six Members of Parliament have agreed to sponsor the campaign, whose purpose is to secure an official inquiry into the working of the Government of Ireland Act, with special reference to civil rights in the six counties.
This development parallels the establishment of the “Friends of Ireland” group in the House of Commons in 1945. The present group is not, however, committed against partition as the Friends of Ireland were, but includes in its objects the application to Northern Ireland of a Bill to outlaw religious discrimination.
Forestall
So alarming did the Unionists consider this development that two days before the meeting Captain Terence O’Neill flew his whole Cabinet to London, in an attempt to forestall any possible action, and to junket his way into favour with the people that matter.
He gave a special interview to the London “Times” in which he was so determined to admit nothing that the content of his replies was almost nil.
He sudden visit was an admission that the twelve Unionist MPs are not exactly a wow from a political point of view. Their presence is resented by Labour backbenchers who would have less reason to dread the division bell if they were not allowed in Westminster at all. Their position to the right of the main Tory party makes them useless as ambassadors at a time when Captain O’Neill is trying to disseminate a picture of sweetness and light.
Mater Hospital
Attending the meeting from the Campaign for Social Justice in the six counties was Dr McCluskey, who brought a six-page memorandum showing that the six-county Government was discriminating against the Mater Hospital in Belfast.
Honorary secretary of the new organisation is Mr William O’Shaughnessy, one-time treasure of the South London branch of the Connolly Association. Mr O’Shaughnessy, who is a native of Portlaoise, told the “Irish Democrat” that the campaign will be urging Labour parties and trade unions to pass resolutions to annual conferences.
It is understood that a public meeting is to be organised in the near future, Lambeth Town Hall being mentioned as the probable venue.
Only one member of the National Executive of the Labour Party to sponsor the campaign is Mrs Elizabeth Braddock. It is expected, however, that a number of others will do so if enough resolutions go to the annual conference. Then the question will be whether the front bench will heed to urging of the backbenchers and the rank and file outside Parliament.
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[“Irish Democrat” report, June 1965]
Key Trade Union Demands Six Counties must be probed
- Belfast delegate seconds resolution
Britain’s largest technical trade union, the influential Draughtsmen’s and Allied Technicians’ Association, is to call upon the Prime Minister to set up a Commission of Enquiry into Northern Ireland and urge the TUC to ensure that trade unionists in the six counties enjoy the same rights and civil liberties as those in the rest of Britain.
This was decided by some 200 delegates representing 70,000 draughtsmen, designers and technologists from all over Britain and Northern Ireland at the union’s annual conference in Blackpool last month.
The motion, which was submitted by the Wembley South branch, had the full support of the Executive and was moved by a Connolly Association member, Galway-born Michael Cooley, a member of the National General Purposes Committee of the Union.
“The responsibility for the state of affairs in the area we are discussing – the six North-Eastern counties of Ireland – rests squarely on the shoulders of the Westminster Government in accordance with Article 75 of the Government of Ireland Act 1920,” said Mr Cooley.
“My branch is satisfied that in that area is practised widespread and systematic discrimination against Roman Catholics,” he continued, quoting statements, statistics and anti-Catholic leaflets to support his branch’s contention.
Dealing with electoral practises Mr Cooley called for an end to the archaic “Property Qualification” and multiple voting in local elections, the absurdity of which was exemplified a few years ago when the President of the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions was not allowed a vote whilst in the same election directors of companies which have in the past victimised members of the union had four or even six votes.
The repressive measures used by the Northern Ireland authorities were operated against the trade unions in many ways. In fact the Belfast Trades Council supported the demand for a Royal Commission and has called for the same rights as trade unions in Britain at the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) Conference held in London in March. “The TUC will have to face up to its responsibilities to its brothers in the six counties,” said Mr Cooley.
On the effects Northern Ireland has on the British political scene, Mr Cooley said:-
“When during the last General Election, the conspiracy of silence was broken for a few days by television reports etc., even the most sedate sectors of the British public were shocked by what they saw. It is inevitable that in an area such as the British Isles the degree of civil liberties as a whole will be directly related to the lowest common denominator, and my branch submits that Northern Ireland is that lowest common denominator. As a result of the present set-up in the six counties, you now have in your House of Commons twelve Tory Unionist MP’s who in our opinion have no right to be there since they were not returned in a free election. They were elected in one in which the main opposition party, Sinn Fein, was not allowed to contest in its own name. When it contested under another name its headquarters were broken into by armed police.”
It is by no means inconceivable that Tory MPs of the Smethwick variety look with envy at their colleagues from Northern Ireland and think how convenient it would be if they too could be returned in elections where no effective opposition is tolerated.”
“We in the Wembley South branch believe that the time is long overdue for the British public to demand to know what is being done in its name in this area.”
The motion was seconded from the Executive by its member from Northern Ireland, Belfast draughtsman Ken Banks.
“The Executive urges you to give your full support to this motion,” he said, “since an inquiry could be the basis on which the anomalies which undoubtedly exist in Northern Ireland could be set in order. When the British people know what is going on the six counties, they will insist on changes to increase democracy and civil liberties there.”
A most effective contribution was made to the debate by a delegate who simply read out the provisions of the Special Powers Act. A pin could be heard drop in the hall as the English delegates listened in tense silence to the measures which the Northern Ireland authorities can and do take under this Act. Many delegates admitted afterwards that they didn’t know of the Act and felt that it would be far more appropriate for South Africa than part of the British Isles.
The vote in favour of the motion was almost unanimous.
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[“Irish Democrat” report, June 1965]
Elizbeth Sinclair in Manchester – Conference on civil liberties
Despite bad weather and the local elections, which kept some people away, 38 delegates attended a conference called by the Manchester branch of the Connolly Association to discuss civil liberties in the twenty-six counties.
Conference was held on 16th May and the first speaker introduced by Chairman Tom Redmond was Miss Elizabeth Sinclair, secretary of the Belfast Trades Council.
She opened by saying that she came to Manchester under some sense of anger and humiliation. How would British trade unionists like to go to Belfast looking for help? “If the British would get off our backs,” she went on, “we could settle all our own problems. All that was wanted was equality of democratic rights.”
Describing the Unionist policy of discrimination, she said that while its object was anti-working class, its incidence was against the Catholic population. No country could be called democratic that had the Special Powers Act.
She made it clear that she was not asking the British trade unionists to fight the battles of the Belfast workers for them, but to call for legislation which would enable them to fight their own on equal terms.
Dr John Broom, secretary of Stockport and District Trades Council, praised the work of the Manchester branch of the Connolly Association and said he was convinced of the justice of its cause.
Mr Leslie Lever MP said that he desired to associate himself with the words of Miss Sinclair. The Racial Incitement Bill was inadequate and Northern Ireland should have been included.
Mr Eric Ogden MP (West Derby, Liverpool) thought that if “Ulster” could interfere in British affairs, then the Westminster Parliament could act in Northern Ireland. In any case he would prefer to see Labour MPs at Westminster.
Mr Stan Orme MP (Salford) spoke of the new interest at Westminster in the Irish Question and complimented Mr Paul Rose on the lead he was giving. He quoted a letter he had received from a Co. Down Protestant congratulating him on his work for democracy in the six counties, and added that that man had asked him not to disclose his name or he might be victimised.
He advised the Irish movement for the moment to confine its demands to the restoration of democratic rights. He thought the Unionists might shortly do a little reforming of their own initiative as a sop.
He said that he was proud to associate himself with the conference and felt that the Connolly Association and the “Campaign for Democracy in Ulster” should work together.
Mr Joseph Deighan, the Association’s president, said it was nothing new for the more far-seeing sections of British democracy to support Ireland’s demands, as this was in their own long-term interests. While appreciating Mr Ogden’s preference for Labour representatives over Tories from the six counties, he explained the situation which rendered their election highly improbable.
A resolution was passed calling for a public inquiry into the operation of the Government of Ireland Act in respect of civil liberties in the six counties, and legislation against religious discrimination.
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[The above three reports, written in each case by “Irish Democrat” editor C. Desmond Greaves, were carried in the June 1965 issue of that paper. The full file of the “Irish Democrat”,1939-2000, is carried elsewhere on this website.]