General Secretary John Lowry, speaking ahead of The Workers' Party Northern Regional Executive Annual Conference, has reiterated that socialism is the only answer to Northern Ireland's deep-rooted social and economic problems. He said, "The Draft Programme for Government and the Draft Budget have recently been announced by the Executive. Nobody who has read these documents can be in any doubt that class politics are alive and well in Northern Ireland. Unfortunately for the ordinary people of Northern Ireland, our new devolved government is delivering politics for the well-off within society.

"The central economic strategy of Ian Paisley, Martin McGuinness and their colleagues is simple: over the next five years their plan is to give many millions of pounds of public money to private companies. Nowhere in their plan is their anything about using the vast resources at their disposal to create publicly-owned companies that will provide the type of high-value jobs Northern Ireland so desperately needs. Instead, the money will be given to private (often foreign) companies, and instead of the people of Northern Ireland benefiting, the profits will go into the pockets of a tiny number of shareholders. We have already seen the British government give over £20 billion pounds of taxpayers money to Northern Rock. Our local politicians intend to follow exactly the same policies and to make exactly the same mistakes as their counterparts at Westminster.

"Instead of advancing the interests of the poorest in our society, our devolved government is punishing them to sustain the better off. We need only look at the actions of the Education Minister Caitriona Ruane. While she denies the classroom assistants a fair wage and mounts vicious attacks on the trade union movement, she has failed to grasp the nettle of reforming an education system that ensures the children of the privileged succeed while the majority are thrown on the scrapheap at 11 plus. The only answer to the class politics of this government is to build the class politics of  workers, to unite against sectarianism and to forge a socialist alternative."

This is the message Mr. Lowry will deliver at a morning panel discussion, (other panellists including Jon Cruddas, Labour MP.; Patricia McKeown. President ICTU and Kevin McAdam, of UNITE) on Class Politics: Does it matter any more?"' at the conference in the Wellington Park Hotel on Saturday 24th November. A similar message about his own country will be delivered by a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Iraqi Communist Party, Salam All, who will speak about the situation there at 2pm.     

Further details of the conference are available on the Events page of this website.  

Issued 23rd November 2007