What a pathetic episode the 'explanation' from
Labour Party lawyers for barring Northern Ireland people from
memberhsip of the British Labour Party turned out to be.
The lawyers, in 'explaining' to a potential
member from the Province as to why he could not join the Labour
Party, pointed out that Ulster people are "not British
citizens or subjects."
This ridiculous statement casued understandable
outrage in Northern Ireland, but it also drew a lot of ridicule
in Britain, and it resulted in the Secretary of State, Paul
Murphy, having to make an apology in the House of Commons
on February 5.
No doubt Prime Minister Tony Blair and those
past Secretaries of State of Northern Ireland shared the embarrassment
of Mr Murphy.
If any good arises from this utterly deplorable
affair it must be that the whole sorry business publicised
just how unfair Labour has been to those people in Northern
Ireland who want to join the party. The people of Northern
Ireland were also entitled to the apology, as there are no
more loyal subjects of Her Majesty the Queen than those in
Northern Ireland who stand firmly behind the Crown.
No-one is seriously pretending that there is
a long queue of potential members of the Labour Party in Northern
Ireland clamouring for admission. But there are a substantial
number of Ulster people who would be prepared to do this,
and it is time Labour ended the pretence that these folk are
not eligible, fobbing them off with the insulting suggestion
that they should consider taking out SDLP membership.
In the days when the Northern Ireland Labour
Party was a significant force in Ulster politics, a fair number
of Orangemen belonged to the party, not just in Belfast, but
also in other parts of the Province.
Some of these were ex-servicemen and ex-servicewomen
who had fought in the campaigns of the Second World War.
No-one thought of questioning their British
credentials in those post-war years or in the 1950s and early
1960s, nor would they have dared, as these ex-service people
fought for their country with the same commitment and loyalty
as their fellow countrymen and women on the mainland - and
they were all volunteers.
Today, at a time when 'asylum seekers' from
all parts of Europe and other parts of the world are flocking
into England, most of them illegal immigrants, eager to settle
in a country which already has hundreds of thousands of recently
arrived people, most of them with little or no affection or
allegiance to the United Kingdom, it is surely time to remove
the discrimination against British subjects from Northern
Ireland who want to join one of the main political parties
in their own State.
It is getting more and more difficult for the
Labour Party to maintain this unfair ban, especially with
brave people within their own ranks like Ulster-born MP, Kate
Hoey, being prepared to stand up and be counted. The ban will
go some time, so why not bring this sordid little chapter
in the history of the 'People's Party' to an end by putting
right a great wrong inflicted on a section of the British
people.
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