Protestant workers suffer higher unemployment and poorer housing than anywhere else in the U.K. Today, for example, more than half of women workers in Northern Ireland earn less than 100 a week. All workers suffered when the Tories slashed jobs and services and introduced vicious attacks on the unemployed like the Job Seekers Allowance which forces people to take up low paid work. So both Protestant and Catholic workers have a common interest which cuts across the sectarian divide. The key is to encourage a common working class struggle - and in the course of this to offer a socialist alternative. We believe that Protestant workers can be broken from Unionism and that there is an alternative to Republicanism.
Republicanism is different to loyalism in that it grew from a fight against oppression.
But today it cannot take that struggle forward. It encourages Catholic workers to look to Fianna Fail and or to right wing Irish American politicians around Bill Clinton as their allies. Other sections of republicanism argue for a return to armed struggle. We oppose both approaches. A right wing politician who stands over discrimination against black people in America or a Fianna Fail government that covers up for corruption can only be hypocritical when they claim to oppose the oppression of Catholics in Northern Ireland.