From Famine to Free Zones and Economic Resistance

Ever since the Famine, Ireland has wrestled with issues of economic dependency and exploitation.

The Celtic Tiger economy had served to provide more jobs, but those who benefited most from it were already rich. Although the Ireland we have inherited has all kinds of resources and great potential for national achievement, it is far from realising that potential.

Ireland is marked by underdevelopment, unemployment, emigration, housing crisis and poverty on a large scale. These problems, serious enough in themselves, are magnified by the continuing British occupation of the Six Counties, which also has its origins in Ireland’s colonial history.

The struggle for a 32 county all Ireland democratic socialist republic has always been intertwined with economic justice and resistance. The system outlined in Sinn Féin Poblachtach Éire Nua programme, which provides for a strong provincial and local government in a federation of the four provinces in Ireland.

So, what is today's economic growth plan for Brexit Britain and the Occupied Six Counties? And will Brexit privatise entire regions that fall prey to corporate governance beyond the reach of our citizens.

Beneath the surface, the newly installed British Labour government has agreed to include a Rishi Sunak legacy - Tory plan of 12 Freeports and 74 Special Economic Zones throughout Britain. This political pact was made well before the July 4, 2024, British general election. By all accounts, British Labour had already approved this economic package and become board members of Sunak’s nationwide Freeports/SEZ consortia.

In this instance, I will refer to investment zones / free ports as free zones. They are all place-based policies used by successive British Tory governments, aimed at driving enterprise growth, innovation, and job creation in specific areas. I shall also outline what Britain means by levelling-up in particular for the Occupied Six Counties.

In Safeguarding the Union command paper (Jan 2024), the then Tory government announced it will support the Occupied Six Counties - a convoluted system that is Stormont to ‘capitalise on its unique opportunities’ by providing £150 million. This money was to turbocharge and enhance Investment in areas through its ''levelling-up'' policy which came about to reduce inequality based on where people live.

Furthermore, according to Tina Mc Kenzie, Policy Chair, Federation of Small Businesses (FSB). A member organisation that commissioned the ‘Making Northern Ireland an Enhanced Economic Zone’ document. This lady was a ‘NI21’ political leader and now a millionaire business women advocating that:

‘we should raise our ambition to capitalise on the change and set out to make Northern Ireland the ‘Singapore of the Western Hemisphere’.

Is this the path we want for a truly free and prosperous Ireland?

This ‘free zone’ is a model of privatisation and in my opinion a scam. It is set to wreak havoc on key societal infrastructure; schools, housing, fire safety, councils, NHS, and everything that is regulated will be sold off to the investor class. It will also cover 45 kilometres in diameter throughout the regions of East and West Ulster. But beneath the false promises of growth lies familiar concerns about tax breaks for corporations and a race to the bottom for workers' rights.

It is apposite to recall the prophetic words of the Irish patriot, James Connolly:

“England would still rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs”.

The people of Ireland must provide economic resistance and work to liberate the ourselves. To establish a democratic system, based on justice and equal rights — to build Éire Nua: a New Ireland. In that Ireland, Irish people will begin to experience real power in their own communities, with those communities serving as the foundation for a modern, pluralist Irish republic.