The following article by Eoin Ó Murchú was first published in Unity, the weekly paper of the Irish Communist Party.
THE election – or rather unelected elevation – of a new British prime minster has been greeted by some as heralding a new era in British politics and thereby opening up the possibility of a progressive push by the governments in Dublin and London to move beyond the sectarian impasse of Stormont and open the way for a new relationship between the two countries.
Unfortunately, this is not just wishful thinking but a totally naïve ignoring the reality of what Andy Burnham, the new British prime minster, stands for.
He has a long record of fully backing the Blairite project, which recast the British Labour Party as Tory Lite.
He is fully behind the imperialist delusions that have long bedevilled British Labour, agreeing fully with Starmer in his resolve to keep the Ukraine war going as long as possible.
He has openly accepted that increased military spending will mean less on social welfare and social projects, and even endorsing the fiscal restraint policy demanded by the City of London from Starmer.
This means that despite the airy fairy talk of his Irish lineage, he will keep the purse strings of Westminster firmly shut against the needs for extra funding for the North of Ireland.
He will, of course, be warmly welcomed by the Dublin establishment which is even more afraid of Irish unity than the Northern Unionist parties, precisely because he intends to maintain the status quo.
The Dublin establishment opposes Unity for two reasons. Firstly, they don't want to share the profits of power with their Northern counterparts. And secondly, somewhat ironically, they are afraid that the Protestant working class would be more disposed to challenge the injustice of class division in a state to which they have no inherited subservience.
In the meantime, the working class is facing increasing crises. Health, housing, education, job security are all constant problems, as the governments in both countries put the interests of profiteers above those of working people.
And we put up with it.
In the North, the scourge of sectarianism continues to divide workers. Stormont has failed to give the North a coherent leadership that will pressure Britain, which claims jurisdiction over the area, with the resources it needs, while the parties refuse to seek out common areas of interest in social matters that could unite the people in action.
The leading nationalist party, Sinn Féin, is abandoning the challenge it formerly posed to the Establishment status quo as it insists on seeing the future in the framework of the European Union. The EU is a club for the bosses, and workers' interests can only be advanced by challenging it not endorsing it.
The Unionist parties, all of them, put sectarian interests ahead of any real challenge or any real call for change. They are all happy to see workers left at the end of the queue.
The working class needs change because the crises we endure are becoming unbearable for more and more. This change is not just a question of Irish unity, but more importantly a rejection of imperialism, whether British or European. The march to war is certainly NOT what workers need.
The debate about Irish unity cannot be avoided. To pretend it won't happen only means that others will decide our future, as the men of money work it out between themselves.
We need a new society, one that emphasises social needs and takes the resources to meet them. The resources to give us good work training for our youth so that they can have worthwhile futures. The resources to take away the worry of not being able to pay the rent or meet the fuel bills of buy the food we need for our families.
It's change or go under.