Eamonn McCann standing in Northern elections

national | politics / elections | news report

Sunday November 02, 2003 17:56

by Saoirse - Socialist Environmental Alliance

seaderry at hotmail dot com

Derry

Has good chance of taking a seat

Determined that there should be SOME kind of opposition in the Stormont Assembly, Eamonn McCann has agreed to stand for election to the Assembly. He points out that while the other parties are at each others' throats all the time about 'constitutional' issues, they are at one in implementing the neo-liberal agenda of privatisation and public sector cuts. As for imperialism, he argues that "The fight against imperialism in 2003 is a fight against US-led imperialism across the globe, or it is nothing. Those who welcome Bush as “a friend of Ireland” position themselves on the side of imperialism."

Socialist Environmental Alliance Platform

Our approach to politics is to put the interests of the working class first.

Politics in Ireland, North and South, has long been dominated by
Nationalism and Unionism demanding that other issues must wait until the border question is finally settled. The result is two states dominated by capitalism and imposing a corporate agenda---and, within the North, two communities in competition with one another. We need radical change.

If elected, our candidates will declare themselves “Others”. We are for the
fullest respect for religious and cultural expression. But we reject the notion that religious belief and political outlook should be one and the same.

The mass opposition to violence repeatedly demonstrated over the years is betrayed by politicians who cling to the old sources of dissension.

Nationalist and Unionist parties are at daggers drawn on issues to do with
"community". But they have a common agenda when it comes to the basics.
Curbs on public spending, private finance in schools and hospitals, and lower taxes on business dominate the Programme for Government agreed by the four-party outgoing Executive. We stand for active resistance to this agenda. We will encourage and support union action for decent pay and job security and against privatisation. We will back campaigns in working class communities for non-payment of water charges. Northern Ireland is the most unequal area in these islands. We say---Tax the rich to pay for public services.

We are part of and take heart from the global movements against capitalism
and war. We totally reject the idea that the issues which are convulsing the world have nothing to do with politics here. We make common cause with all those across the world who are fighting for the same things. We wouldn't have taken George Bush's hand except to twist it up his back and run him out the room.

We will campaign for the rights of women, including the Right to Choose. We want to galvanise opposition to sexism, sectarianism, racism, homophobia, and discrimination against people with disabilities or on grounds of age. When we use the word "equality" we won't just mean Catholics and Protestants having equal shares of what the system is willing to provide.

Any of our candidates elected will accept only the average industrial wage.
What's left will go towards campaiging on the issues we are standing on.

We are out to build for the future a broad organisation open to all individuals and organisations who support these ideas and who agree to work together to make them a reality. Our overall aim is a socially just and ecologically sustainable world from which exploitation and oppression have been cleansed, in which there is peace, and where the common people are organised to defend themselves against hatred, want and the abuse of power.