Today, the Éireann republic has opted for mass rebellion. Yesterday, I was in Belfast, capital of the northern counties, to speak at the FBU's Political School. My speech was on the Tories and the cuts, but I won't rehearse the material - read the speech at the end of this post which has much of the same commentary. I will say that it produced a brilliant debate afterward. The main thing I wanted to talk about, though, was the Question Time-style debate with politicians and members of the FBU, because it was an eye-opener about politics in the north of Ireland, and the prospects ahead of us.

First of all, there's a near consensus in favour of pro-free market and pro-business policies across all political parties, bar Eamonn McCann's 'People Before Profit' alliance. For example, everyone from Sinn Fein to the DUP backed a cut in corporation tax to 12.5%. That was their only growth strategy, as far as I could tell. Secondly, sectarianism remains the basis for political mobilisation in Northern Ireland, but it's become a curiously convivial kind of sectarianism at official levels - it's almost an in-joke when the Unionist says that some policy is being blocked by the Sinn Feiners or something like that. Thirdly, there's a degree of openness and concord with the unions that is unthinkable in the mainland. Brian Coleman wants to "break the FBU", but at the moment it's difficult to imagine a politician in the six counties being that brash. The assembly is a small quasi-autonomous body, and I suspect the last thing it wants is the big fight with the public sector that it has coming up.

The first issue that was raised was who was responsible for the crisis. Mitchell McLaughlin of Sinn Fein said it was the banks and the IMF, and the governments who empowered them, and he looked forward to seeing the government of Éire duly punished for this - which, after Sinn Fein's victory in the Donegal South-West bye-election, is straightforward tub-thumping for the coming general election in the south. Jeffrey Donaldson of the DUP sounded a bit like a Labour politician in some respects. I later learned that the DUP voted 87% of the time with Labour in Westminster rather than the Tories, which tells you how they build a base - they're not, like the UUP, just an auxiliary of the Conservative Party. He said that the problem was that the Tories had let the financial sector run amok at the expense of a stable manufacturing sector, that this had created a foundation of sand, and that he was only sorry that ordinary people would pay the price while banks got off scot-free. He was quite charismatic and jocular, and you can see how he gets elected.

Stephen Farry of the Alliance maintained that some governments, like Australia, had avoided the worst by having different policies (he didn't mention that this actually involved an unprecedented stimulus). He said that the problem was with government policy as much as with the banks, for creating an imbalanced economy based too much on property. Then he repeated the hateful catechism that "we are all in this together". On that, a firefighter spoke up from the floor and told him off, pointing out that the pain was not being distributed equally or fairly, that it was mostly hitting those who didn't do anything to cause the crisis, and that to claim "we're all in it together" is patronising, condescending and not even true. Farry stuck to his guns, but said that he aspired to distribute the cuts as fairly as possible within the Assembly's limited fiscal powers. Alistair McDonnell of the SDLP cautioned against getting angry and emotional. Yes, the banks and the exchequer are to blame, but we have too look for a solution, he said. But he admitted that he didn't quite know what that solution would be. John McCallister, of the Ulster Unionists' Party, was the only one who sounded like a full-blown Tory, I suppose because that's what he is. He blamed people for borrowing too much, he blamed the banks for lending too much, he blamed Labour for taking its foot off the brakes on public spending after 2000, saying they "spent and spent and spent" so that the country is effectively broke. But he did acknowledge that we can't have an unfettered free market any more.

Eamonn McCann argued that to ask who is responsible for the crisis is to ask who has been in control of the economy. "It hasn't been the trade unions, and it hasn't been working class communities, and it has been none of the people facing the cutting edge of austerity". The people in charge are capital, specifically finance capital, who acknowledge now law but profits. The problem was not who, but what - the problem was the capitalist system. He agreed with other speakers that the problem was global, and that the Assembly's ability to deal with it was limited, but this meant there couldn't be any specifically local solution. There had to be a movement of resistance across borders. I have to say, the reactions of the other politicians to Eamonn was warily respectful. They tended to try and find common ground with rather than, as I would have expected if this were taking place in London, exhibit contempt for his arguments. I'm not sure if this is because of his own standing, or just because the argument for resistance to capitalism has become that much more like common sense after the crisis. But it's something to think about.

The next issue, therefore, was what politicians proposed to do to solve the problem, and make sure it didn't happen again. Jeffrey Donaldson's argument was buck-passing. Essentially, he said, we get half of our budget from taxes, and half from the central government. The government has cut our budget, so either we cut public spending, or we raise taxes. Our only tax-raising powers are with the rates, or we can apply water charges. Both of these are unpopular, barring some hypothecated tax for health and education, so de facto people want us to cut spending. He also said to "our friends from England" that the English taxpayer pays much higher rates (council tax) than people in Northern Ireland, and that Northern Ireland is heavily subsidised by the central government in terms of public spending. Interesting to see how eager John McCallister said we need to have a pay freeze in the public sector, because there's already pay cuts in the private sector, and perhaps we could raise regional rates. Alistair McDonnell favoured cutting quangos, reducing senior civil servants' pay, further regulation, more restrictions on personal finance.

Mitchell McLaughlin argued that we're not going to prevent it from happening again, because the system is too global and Northern Ireland's ability to influence the global system is negligible. The best we can do, he said, is fight for more fiscal powers for the six counties. He's still working the nationalist angle, for all the good it'll do. He also argued that the cuts should be focused more on people with higher incomes, but said little specific in this regard. In general, three points of agreement among the bourgeois politicians, were that: 1) finance should be more regulated, with no more 110% mortgages and no more shady bank deals; 2) the "pain" should be shared as "fairly" as possible; and 3) "frontline services" should be protected as far as possible. None of them appeared to have thought through what that would involve - the system has relied on speculation and debt for the last thirty years or so, and no one suggested an alternative. They certainly aren't talking about boosting workers' wages or bargaining power to support consumption. When pushed about spreading the "pain" "fairly", Stephen Farry said that this was more of an aspiration than anything else. And as Eamonn McCann pointed out, frontline services aren't going to be protected because they aren't even being protected now, before Northern Ireland's austerity budget has been agreed.

A critic from the audience said he was "disappointed by the defeatist attitude of the panel. So far, no one is talking about creating employment, which would generate the revenue to support public spending". And that's where the old Tory argument came back in. Free up private enterprise, get the burden of the public sector off their backs, and they'll invest in jobs. Start by cutting corporation tax to 12.5% to match the south. Mitchell McLaughlin supports this because he wants "a level playing field" with the south. He said that he didn't favour the private sector, for his own ideological reasons which he didn't spell out, and added that if the south raises their rate, the north would "meet them on the way down". But he said "to have a strong public sector, you need to have a strong private sector generating the revenues to support that". This was more or less identical to the argument of those who were ideologically disposed to support the private sector. They all said much the same thing - cutting the corporate taxes worked in the south and, anyway, we now have to compete with Eastern Europe where the cost base is much lower. Eamonn McCann pointed out that this amounted to a redistribution of wealth from the public sector to private enterprise, on the basis of a prejudice that the private sector is more efficient. Indeed, there's an assumption that the public sector is somehow parasitic on the private sector, when the evidence is that at the moment the public sector is supporting the private sector. But, he argued, there is no evidence that more jobs will be created by cutting jobs in the public sector. The private sector only invests if it's profitable for them to do so, and only creates jobs if it suits them, so handing them a load of money won't necessarily make them more likely to employ more people. But above all, he argued, you can't begin to argue about creating jobs in the future if you can't first defend what you have.

Then it was pointed out, again by a firefighter, that the government is talking about cutting 25% from the Northern Ireland fire and rescue service, and that this will mean at best scrapping fire appliances all across the country. Another firefighter said: "you know that cutting the fire and rescue service won't be a soft option for you, because we won't let it be a soft option for you." This was a friendly, but authoritative, warning. There was not much that could be said on this point. All of the assembled politicians were aware of what cuts of that scale would mean, and there were some promises - to my mind, half-hearted and vague - that they would 'try' to see that they would do about that, citing the issue of public safety and the increased security threat as reasons to lessen the swinge of the axe. Eamonn McCann argued that the 'terrorist threat' was itself the result of the problems with capitalism - it is not an upsurge of Republicanism, but the fact that young people in deprived areas want to fight that is leading them to sympathise with the 'Real IRA'. He said he had spoken to supporters of the Reals, and they had told him, "Eamonn, at least they're still fuckin fightin." He said it has to do with the distribution of resources in society, and that if anything the public sector needed to be expanded not reduced, with more youth services and schools provided.

Mitchell McLaughlin said he didn't disagree with this, but argued that this only underlined further the need for the devolution of fiscal powers. McCann said that the problem could be solved by simply collecting existing tax. £123bn had gone uncollected every year, he said, allowing businesses like Vodafone to escape from the lion's share of their tax duty. If all the tax was collected, we wouldn't even be having a discussion about cuts. "People say you can never do that, these people are too powerful. But is that really so? Or does it depend on will?" He argued that it was necessary to build the social forces that could make them pay their taxes and make governments defend the public sector. Mitchell McLaughlin closed by agreeing that the Vodafone issue said it all, and that it would be necessary to build up the energies that could take this issue on. On the other hand, he said, "these people own the system"... And that, I think, is Mitchell McLaughlin and the Sinn Fein leadership. They are reluctant neoliberals. In fact, the only thing that seemed to distinguish the mainstream politicians was their degree of reluctance in implementing the same basic agenda of cutting spending, reducing taxes on businesses, talking up regulation (they don't have to do anything), and hoping for the best. The question, then, is whether the trade unions in Northern Ireland form part of a wider sweep of resistance, across the UK and Ireland and effectively across the continent.

Come on, you all know the words: #It was on the twelfth when the Pope shite himself/It was on the Shankill road...# No? You haven't heard that? My, you have lived a sheltered life, haven't you? How about this one?: #We shall be mastered by no fenian bastard/For we are the boys of the POTV [Pride of the Village - an exuberantly violent flute band from Templepatrick]...# You're joking me? You've not heard tell of that one either? Well, these are popular folk songs where I come from. I don't know about the songs on the other side. There were some Catholics in our estate, but they didn't exactly go around the place singing - or, rather, they did, but it was more likely to be 'Hey Frankie' by Sisters Sledge than the 'Soldier's Song'. I suppose I just felt like mentioning this because I caused some minor offence when, at my Marxism talk, I jokingly suggested that I have a privileged position from which to view the 'culture' wars, as Northern Ireland doesn't really have a culture. Let me tell you this, boy: Northern Ireland has culture coming out of its arse. (Or is that kultur?) Why, look, just look at it. Culture, curling out in magnificent, glossy segments. It's like cross between a bakery and a Canadian logging camp.

Of course, this is rather unfair and, if I was being entirely serious, would place me right alongside the ridiculous handwringing unionist and nationalist politicians and reverends bleating about how violence has no place in a civilized society. Next, I'd be saying how disgawsted ay awm with the oitrayt vayilence n thawggery awn display. These rictus-mouthed, pious officials and holy-holy sooks look and sound ridiculous, and powerless, because in a way they are. The British state rules round these parts, and the British state has already determined what the contours of the settlement are to be. If you doubt this, ask the DUP. They were shit full of opposition to the institutions of Good Friday, and led hundreds of thousands of Protestant bigots constituents to believe that it was possible to overthrow this arrangement - now they're it's guardians. So, if everyone is happy, and if the settlement is so wonderful for both sides (because there are only two sides of any argument in Northern Ireland), how could it possibly be that there are protests, sit-down strikes, and now riots, hijackings and bomb scares, with police being shot at and injured? It must be the Republican dissidents. Or, as you English put it, the three Bs: bog-trotting bastards in balaclavas. That's the line from Martin McGuinness, Peter Robinson, and the Chief Constable. It's always the same story: a small minority ruining it for everyone else.

Aye, as they say, right. No such thing. There has been constant sectarianism and violence since the peace accords, not to mention racist pogroms, and while one doesn't discount the existence of a minority of Republicans who can't let go of the dream, they can't be blamed for every sign of social distress and dissent. The short background is that the Orange Order, (whose role in the origins of racial supremacy was recently the subject of heated debate here), have yet to abandon their hobby of marching on nationalist communities during the bonfire season around 12th July each year. There's nothing intimidating about this, you understand: it's just a friendly hello, and an invitation to experience Orange culture up close. Most peaceful Catholic residents enjoy the opportunity to gawp at the gallons of Harp lager consumed, the tattoos, the pot bellies, the stanley knives, and the young man twirling a baton made from a stick, two tennis balls and red-white-and-blue sticky tape.

Essentially, it works like this. In the weeks before the big parades day, the 12th, loyalists in Protestant estates construct a make-shift mountain in some grassy area of the estate, from pallets, tires, furniture, planks, and consumer durables, all stolen from back yards, living rooms and industrial estates. At the top of this mountain, they pin an effigy which they invite people to believe is the Pope or some lesser papist. Then on the evening of the 11th July, they get a wee bit pissed, go round bricking Catholic windows, maybe find a 'fenian' out after curfew and give him something to think about, then head back to the mountain to set it on fire. Beholding this blazing sacrificial behemoth, like little Orange druids, they drink more lager to the sound of loyalist songs not a kick in the arse away from the childish ditties I recounted at the top of this post. Having spent all night getting sozzled in twenty-four packs and bigotry, anyone in a flute band hastily throws on a uniform and heads off with his musical implement, more lager, plenty of fags, and some mates, to march through some fortunate town centre or village. And, if tradition is duly revered, someone identified as a 'taig' will likely get his ballicks booted in, or cut off. I myself have a rather special memory of the Murray Memorial Flute Band's antics in my own home town. They got a bit lathered and apparently staggered on to an Ulsterbus where - would you believe it? - the driver was a Catholic. In a fit of inspiration, they dragged him outside and stabbed him so many times that when an old dear tried to staunch the bleeding by wrapping him in ten towels, she ended up with a mass of blood-soaked cloth and a dead man in her arms. Ah, blessed culture.

Where was I? Oh yes. A minority of recalcitrant Catholics do sometimes try to obstruct these harmless cultural festivals with their petty, resentful protests. They stage sit-down protests and block the roads, absurdly claiming that residents have rights. This being in flagrant defiance of the decisions of the Parades Commission, the residents are all too often setting themselves up against the police, who have the werewithal to remove them. And then you get 'trouble'. This year, Catholic residents of Ardoyne did just that: they staged a sit-down strike. They insisted to anyone who would listen, that they were not Republican dissidents, but residents protecting their area. Now, as Splintered Sunrise suggests, there's a lot of young unemployed men who are always up for a fight with the cops in Northern Ireland. This made up a fairly hefty proportion of loyalist rioters when I was still living there. For many of my young peers, it was recreation. In a social landscape with fuck all to do unless you've got money, the opportunity to take on the forces of authority for a few nights, and even end up in the news, is not to be missed. The more adventurous elements even found the time to hijack cars, break into factories and set up road blocks. And if the same police have been part of a machinery that is oppressing you, and has been since you were born, there's probably an added frisson in causing injury to a few of them.

The trouble is, of course, that after a few days and nights in which a slightly other-worldly atmosphere descends on the six counties, everything goes back to normal. Young people go back to being unemployed, poverty remains poverty, and the working class still gets battered by the extreme neoliberalism of a sectarian proto-state that reduces every important political question to whether it is Protestants or Catholics who are predominantly getting shafted. Sectarianism remains the life-blood of Northern Ireland politics, loyalist gangs still extort, rob and apply vigilante 'justice', and the political leadership ventilates about peace while also regularly exhaling bigotry about ethnic minorities and gays. Nothing changes. They let out a bit of steam, and it goes back to the way it was. And that's the crisis: that things stay exactly as they are.

Now, you might be thinking, "bigotry in Belfast? Well, I never!" True, the attacks on Romanians earlier this week come after years of assaults and intimidation of Chinese workers which reached a bloody crescendo in 2003 and 2004. And it follows attacks on Polish workers earlier this year, in which Unionist politicians tried to cover up the extent of what was happening. Actually, Unionist politicians like Sammy Wilson - one of the few people in the world who really does have a face like a well-smacked arse - have been openly encouraging discrimination against migrant workers. But I do consider it significant that the attackers were chanting BNP and Combat-18 slogans as they did this. Not because there's a powerful Nazi organisation in Ulster, but it does look as if Northern Ireland's disproportionate number of violent young bigots have been heartened by the recent success of fascism in the mainland. Eamonn McCann, noting the lack of BNP presence in the areas affected, suggests that the attackers are "invoking an established brand rather than acting at the instigation of an organisation". (Mind you, it seems the BNP have just established their national call centre in Dundonald, and presumably intend to try and build a little family of fascists in the area: can't you just hear the pitter-patter of tiny goosesteeps?)

Over at Splintered Sunrise, I see that the UDA boss is ventilating over the BNP's malevolent influence, desperately trying to deflect any blame that might be placed on his right-wing paramilitary outfit: "It seems that what is exercising Hard Bap is the possibility that the UDA’s good name might be besmirched by commentators linking it with the BNP. Which sort of says something about Nick Griffin’s push for respectability." This won't fly, of course. Studies have shown that 90% of racist crime in Northern Ireland takes place in Loyalist areas. It may not be that the UDA are actually encouraging such attacks, but there is a powerful continuity in the methods of violence and intimidation, and the bigotry underwriting them. Moreover, it seems that some other things don't change either: most of Northern Ireland's minorities consider the Police Service of Northern Ireland (née RUC) to be institutionally racist. Well, of course it is. It is the still largely unreconstructed authority of an occupying power that has spent decades terrorising Catholic estates. On top of that, the Crown Prosecution Service only seems to try a fraction of the reported cases of racist violence. So, if you're being driven out of your home by some jumped up Rangers fans with an admiration for the fascist way of doing things, you can't rely on the police, and you can't rely on the courts. And as for the Assembly, they've done fuck all about it for years, despite having pledged to do so. (The lack of consideration given to migrants in policymaking is discussed in this lengthy and useful report [pdf]). The efforts of solidarity campaigners is all that is coming down the pipeline.

McCann argues that the root of this is more than a deflection of older forms of sectarian violence, though, and I think this is crucial:

It is not to excuse the assaults to point to the fact that the Protestant working class, and its young people in particular, have been the main losers from change in Northern Ireland. It's not that they have taken a hit that their equivalents on the Catholic side have not also suffered. Whatever your religion, the poorer you are here the more likely you are to have not benefited at all from the agreement hailed around the world as ushering in a peace based on mutual tolerance. It's no accident that the Real IRA draws its support almost exclusively from the least well-off in the Catholic community.

The snarling young men who forced the Romanian families out have the additional grievance that the Protestant community's sense of itself as living in "their" state has been shattered by the developments symbolised by Sinn Féin sitting snugly in government with the DUP. That none of them can remember the glory days of untrammelled unionist rule matters little. They feel – and it's a feeling they know is endorsed and welcomed by many nationalists – that Catholics are on the way up, Protestants on the way down.

I know that complaint very well. One used to hear quite a bit (from Protestants) in the 1990s, that while once it was the Catholics who were being victimised, now it's the poor Prods. The neoliberal consensus reinforces this sense of grievance by reducing the sphere of legitimate arguments about public spending and resources to sectarian ones: not, will we close this hospital, but will this hospital be closed in a Protestant, or a Catholic area. This entails McCann's conclusion that, while it is necessary to confront these thugs - physically, if it comes to that - it is also essential to build the kind of radical anti-neoliberal left that has just done so splendidly well in the south of Ireland.