Workers Solidarity Movement

As the cost of living and rate of inflation has hit a 10 year high, over 200 construction workers at Kilroot power station in Northern Ireland decided to take matters into their own hands without intermediaries in solidarity with a victimised worker who was ‘asked’ to leave the site after raising health and safety concerns.

 Belfast WSM held its first successful public meeting on ‘Building the Anarchist Alternative’ was attended by about 10-15 people who listened intensely to WSM speaker Alan MacSimoin, who gave a short introduction to anarchist ideas and the politics of the WSM. This was followed by a long period of debate and topics briefly discussed included recent workplace struggles, anarchist-syndicalism, partition in Ireland, the struggle for women’s right to choose as well as combating racism in the North and lots more.......

While the rest of us are slaving away to make end’s meat and facing the brunt of the ‘credit crunch’. We are continually told by our political rulers to be ‘competitive’ for the bosses waiting for the promised ‘trickle-down effect’ that never arrives. Staggering rises in energy prices above the rate of inflation, imposition of un-wanted water charges while hundreds of people die every year due to ‘fuel poverty’ it seems the North elite rich club have never had it so good according to the latest Sunday Times rich list. There is now a record of 61 people from the north among Ireland’s richest 250 and they are getting richer! Last year their wealth increased to a combined £10.7 billion! On top of the list like every year is Fermanagh’s Sean Quinn worth about £3.7 billion, who does allot of dealing in insurance and property market. Alright for some eh?

The war may be long over and our political rulers have finally decided to get it together but there has been no ceasefire in the class war against working-class people both locally and globally despite the promises of ‘prosperity’. With the onset of economic ‘recession’, continued decimation of our manufacturing industry and public services, increase in the cost of living (energy costs such as heating and electricity have risen by over 30% since 2006 never mind 1998), lack of affordable housing combined with the lowest wages in the UK and highest level of people on incapacity benefits in the UK, the wee ‘North’ isn’t a bed of roses that our rulers are keen to promote. Sectarian divisions institutionalised under the voting system at Stormont, and racist attacks are more evident and visible now more than ever as the ‘peace-walls’ have got higher and there are more of them.

Ciaran Murphy is a political singer songwriter based in Belfast who wrote the bulk of his material while a "dissident republican" prisoner between 2003 - 06. Last month an English music label pulled out of an agreed distribution deal with him due to unease at the political slant of his songs and the perceived sympathies of his small fan base. He describes himself as an 'Irish separatist' with libertarian socialist principles. Here Sean Matthews of the WSM puts questions to him on music, gigging and his political outlook. Ciaran is speaking in a personal capacity.