The British Labour Party under Sir Keir Starmer is almost certainly going to prevail in the UK general election on July 4.
Given the almost daily implosions of Rishi Sunak, who bizarrely has been running a presidential-style campaign even though he is extremely unpopular, Labour could obtain the largest majority in 100 years, when Stanley Baldwin’s Conservatives won a majority of over 200 seats, defeating Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour Party in October 1924, after the latter had served as Labour’s first prime minister for a short stint.
Soon, Irish eyes, north and south, will focus in on Starmer and the Labour Party to see if commitments made will be kept once assuming power, or abandoned – something that happened when MacDonald’s Labour Party formed a British government for the first time in February 1924.
Then, the Labour administration was a minority one that lasted for just 10 months. Before entering government, there were “red scare” fears, stoked by certain elements in the British press, that the government would essentially be a communist one.
There were fears too from Ulster unionists that the British Labour Party’s policies on Ireland would reflect those it had in opposition by being an anti-partition, pro-united Ireland party.
As Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour Party was on the verge of forming a government in January 1924, the northern government’s chief whip, Herbert Dixon, claimed that if the fears they had were to transpire, and “the Labour government attempted to do something on the people of Ulster, then, not for the first time, they would show that Ulster could take care of itself”.
As it transpired, unionists had little need to fear as the Labour government steered a path on Ireland with as little controversy as it could muster.
Reliant on Herbert Asquith’s Liberal Party to keep his minority government afloat, it was always improbable that Ramsay MacDonald would diverge radically from previous British governments’ policies on Ireland since the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, a treaty it supported in any event.
The Labour Party’s main objective was to show that it could govern responsibly and this, coupled with the arithmetic constraints of the administration, resulted in its utterings on Ireland while in opposition being readily abandoned.
MacDonald was also acutely aware of the Irish question’s capacity to derail political fortunes in the UK, as it had done for much of the previous 40 years.
His government followed practically the same policies on Ireland as the previous Conservative administration had. It objected to the Irish Free State issuing passports that did not contain the words “British citizen” and it held deep reservations when the Free State pushed for the treaty to be registered as an international treaty with the League of Nations.
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While eager to avoid bringing the Irish question back into Westminster politics, the Labour government did have to deal with the one major outstanding issue of the treaty, the Boundary Commission, which had enormous potential to engulf the government in controversy.
MacDonald and the Colonial Secretary, JH Thomas, tried to kick the can down the road by either stalling the convening of the commission or by facilitating conferences between the two main Irish protagonists, James Craig and WT Cosgrave, to induce them to reach an agreement without the need for a commission to convene at all.
When these attempts failed and the Northern Ireland government still refused to recognise the Boundary Commission and appoint its commissioner, the Labour government was forced to intervene.
It sought the advice of the Privy Council on the legality of the commission convening without the northern government appointing its commissioner, and based on the advice it received, introduced legislation that allowed it to appoint the northern commissioner instead.
Even though the northern government had infuriated and exasperated the Labour government by its obstructionist tactics, it benefited from British government decisions in the two people it selected to sit on the Boundary Commission – the chairperson, Justice Richard Feetham, and the northern commissioner, Joseph R Fisher; both, in their different ways, could not have favoured the unionist cause more even if Craig had made the appointments himself.
The days of a Labour Party supporting Irish nationalism were long over by the time MacDonald’s government left office in late 1924.
If, as expected, the Labour Party wins the UK general election next month, it will be interesting to see how Keir Starmer’s relationship and policies towards Ireland, and particularly Northern Ireland, will differ from those espoused while in opposition.
Starmer and his shadow Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, have vowed to repeal the Legacy Act on a number of occasions. However, Benn did hint in this paper on the day the Legacy Act became operational, on May 1, that elements of the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) could be retained. Time will tell if the Legacy Act will be scrapped in its entirety or some elements preserved.
The days of a Labour Party supporting Irish nationalism were long over by the time Ramsay MacDonald’s government left office in late 1924
Like his predecessor Ramsay MacDonald, Starmer is a cautious man. His comments on a border poll not being on the horizon are not surprising.
While a former colleague, Bill Bowring, claimed that Starmer supported a united Ireland in the 1990s, he now is in the unionist camp, strongly advocating for the retention of the union as it currently is configured. His current stance is a departure from the ‘rigorous impartiality’ position espoused during the Blair years, though.
So scarred was the Labour Party by the 2019 general election that neither Starmer nor any of his front bench will mention Brexit in any context, for fear of providing ammunition to the right-wing press that dominates the media landscape in Britain.
It is likely, though, that a Starmer administration will seek closer co-operation with the European Union and, at the very least, honour international and legal obligations. Despite its best efforts, this could save the DUP from a lot of embarrassment if Irish Sea border checks diminish due to closer British/EU alignment.
Overall, though, as with Ramsay MacDonald 100 years before him, Starmer will makes decisions on Ireland with his own electoral interests in mind, and that naturally implies, if a choice has to be made, that British ones will always triumph over Irish ones.
