DUP Education Minister Paul Givan has sparked significant and justified anger for partaking in what appears to be an Israeli-sponsored trip to a school in the occupied territory of Jerusalem District – publicised shamelessly through official government social media!
This was rightly seen by many as nothing but a cheap attempt to whitewash the ongoing genocidal slaughter of Palestinians by Israel. Givan’s game is clear: bait the nationalist community over their support for Palestine while trying to whip up the loyalist base into a frenzy.
With less than 18 months until the next Assembly election – and with the TUV at their heels – in a desperate bid to shore up support, the DUP are once again pinning their rabidly reactionary colours to the mast – to absolutely no one’s surprise!
‘Fact-finding’
Givan’s trip was apparently a “fact-finding” mission to learn about Israel’s “innovative approaches to inclusive learning”. This is akin to approaching an arsonist to learn about fire safety – or getting advice from the DUP about anti-sectarian politics… It would be laughable if it weren’t so outrageous!
Everyone knows the grim reality. Over 200 Palestinian schools and all of Gaza’s 19 universities have been reduced to rubble. Tens of thousands of children have been slaughtered, alongside countless education sector workers. To speak of “inclusive learning” in a country actively committing genocide, is to stretch Orwellian double-speak beyond breaking point.
The trip is even more outrageous when one considers the state of the education system here in the North. The Education Authority is facing a £300 million funding gap, and has asked schools to take “any and all actions possible to reduce expenditure.” Schools are quite literally falling apart, with an £800 million maintenance backlog. 80 percent of them are projected to run a deficit this year.
The whole system is on the brink of utter collapse – failing students, teachers and staff alike – and what has the Education Minister to his name other than a “fact-finding” trip to Israel? Rather than working to improve the conditions for students and workers in the North, Givan’s using his position as sectarian political football.
Protests have already taken place in Belfast city centre and outside Stormont while an online petition calling for Givan’s resignation has reached over 14,500 signatures. The Northern Ireland Teachers’ Council outrightly condemned Givan’s actions, with INTO members calling for his immediate resignation at a protest.
DUP in crisis
Behind Givan’s “fact-finding trip”, social media stunt, and the DUP ‘uncompromising’ stance on the topic, clearly lies an attempt to whip up a sectarian argument to divert from the failures of the DUP.
The latest polling data for the next Assembly election reveals the DUP are dwindling at 18 percent support, down from 28 percent in January 2024. The TUV is chomping at their heels at 13 percent – having leaped from 4 percent support in January 2024. Seizing upon the rage in loyalist communities, the TUV are flanking the DUP from the right by hardening their overtly sectarian, racist and bigoted views.
This is extremely dangerous poll territory for the DUP. A drop in support of as little as 2 or 3 percent towards the TUV would place both parties on equal footing. It would amount to a disaster for the next election, where the DUP would not be able to present itself as the ‘biggest unionist force’, and therefore risking getting wiped out. They know the risks very well, after all this is how they have taken over the UUP as the main unionist force 20 years ago.
So the DUP are responding in kind by trying to land blows on nationalists and Sinn Féin at every possible opportunity. The TUV and DUP are locked into a contest to appear the most hardline unionist party. This however will do nothing to reverse the DUP misfortunes, and everything to stoke the flames of crisis in the North.
Stormont at an impasse
All pretence that this power-sharing executive could deliver any meaningful change for workers and youth in the North is collapsing under the weight of reality. As the DUP retreats further into unionist brinkmanship, Sinn Féin is chasing after them in a desperate effort to preserve the façade that the institutions have any credibility left.
After all the fanfare that followed the restoration of the executive and the passing of a programme for government last year, the reality is that nothing of any significance has been done by Stormont.
This is no accident. Sectarianism is hard-coded into the institutions. Just look at the motion of no-confidence against Givan – supported by a majority in the Assembly, but it didn’t pass because it must be approved not by a majority but by the DUP itself. Yet again, the so-called ‘power-sharing’ setup proves to be nothing more than a mechanism for paralysis – a barrier to real change, not a path toward it.
As the special crisis of British capitalism deepens even further, it will continue to drag the North down along with it. British finance Minister Rachel Reeves has already spoken of an upcoming budget of “hard choices” to reduce debt levels, i.e. more attacks on public infrastructure and the working class, which simply cannot and will not tolerate anymore. This is a recipe for major social explosions.
When posed with this disaster, the DUP, UUP and TUV – being completely incapable of mitigating the economic fallout – will kick the sectarian monster into overdrive to distract and distort class anger, with dangerous consequences.
By trying to patch up Stormont instead of dismantling it, Sinn Féin has proven completely unable to offer any real alternative to the endless political chaos.The only way forward in the North of Ireland is by sweeping Stormont aside entirely in the fight for communism. On a capitalist basis, none of the problems facing workers and youth – Catholic, Protestant, or otherwise – can be solved. Only by expropriating the capitalists and their political lackeys in Stormont in the common interests of the working class, can we see an end to sectarianism once and for all. The key question for workers across Ireland, therefore, is that of building a revolutionary organisation guided by the ideas of Marxism. This is what we, the Revolutionary Communists of Ireland, are attempting to build. We call on revolutionary workers and youth to join us in this task.
