The decision of the British Government to recall the tional Convention was neither unexpected nor met with any great display of interest in the Six Counties.
No-one here really understands the great hopes apparently placed by the Labour Government in this second phase talking-shop. Any optimism amongst the so-called moderate parties (Alliance, FauIkner's Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Labour Party) that a reconvened Convention will lead to any change of policies is fast evaporating. And in the hard-line Loyalist camp, discussion is more and more turning to talk of 'negotiated independence'.
One such Convention member, George Allport, made it clear in the Sunday News (18 January) that Loyalist politicians were fed up with being treated as small boys being told by Westminister what they can or cannot do. Allport went on to declare that 'an Independent Ulster governed by its own people would instil pride in its inhabitants'. Little imagination is required to know what methods would be employed to bring about such an attitude.
It is not only the men of destiny who are now calling for a negotiated independence. owing the announcement of the Convention recall, Ulster television screened a discussion programme chaired by industrialist Sir Federick Catherwood which presented the case for an independent Ulster from an economic viewpoint. It concluded that "finance is no barrier to independence New tone The pronouncements of the Labour Government have also taken on a new tone. Rees's statement at Westminister dropped the controversial phrase "power-sharing' and replaced it with words like partnership' and 'participation' Also gone was the British Government's previous insistence that minonty seats al Cablet lever would have to be written into a new constitution. Instead the British Government merely expressed the hope that the Convention parties might reach a temporary agreement on coalition.
Anxious as the Social Dem ocratic and Labour Party are to secure their future (Convention salaries are expected to dry up within the next six months), the Catholic population are not quite ready to buy any nonsense about voluntary coalition. The Follmemory of the debacle of the power-sharing Executive and the spring of 1974 is still too fresh.
er Unionist Council would seem to its position in the following terms: *We will not boycott the Convention. you control. But we will use our majority to stymie any attempt to discuss power-sharing with the Re publicans.' Ulster Workers Council strike in the The response of the United Ulstclinch the failure of the Convention. Loyalist leader lan Paisley explained You don't boycott something However, it is not only Republicans and marxists who understand that the future of British rule in the passes. North of Ireland will be decided outside, not inside, the Convention.
The major obstacle to Britain's plans remains the resistance of the anti-imperialist population. And it is to breaking this resistance that British policy is primarily dir ected at the present time.
The build up given by Wilson to South Armagh — his description of it as an 'exceptional area requiring exceptional measures' - is only a foretaste of what the nationalist population throughout the Six Counties can expect as the year For the first time, the British Government has been able to announce publicly that the SAS is being employed here - they have been here unofficially since at least 1971 At the same time the SAS have been introduced in a sympathetic light to the British working class - the assassins have become "peace-keepers. The way is being prepared for more general open use of the SAS in the Six Counties and, when occasion requires, in Britain itself.