Corruption at the heart of the political establishment

The jawdropping sequence of events surrounding Iris Robinson soliciting £50,000 from two millionaire property developers (the late Fred Fraser and Ken Campbell) has opened a Pandora’s Box of corruption which goes right to the heart of the political establishment. Iris Robinson’s refusal to declare any interest when present at the Castlereagh Council meeting which awarded the tenancy to establish a café at council-owned property to Kirk McCambley, whom Robinson was having an affair with, threatens to bring down the Robinson dynasty.

 

Many people were suspicious when Iris Robinson made a statement explaining her affair with McCambley and her attempted suicide last year and chose to mention the fact that she had “encouraged friends to assist him by providing financial support for a business venture.”

The decision of Peter Robinson to invite senior political reporters to his home to make a statement on his wifes’ affair and attempted suicide was meant to distance himself from the scandal and present himself as a victim in this saga. But it has spectacularly backfired on him after the allegations made on the BBC Spotlight programme that the First Minister and DUP leader assisted his fellow MP and wife’s attempt to cover up the fact that she had accepted money from developers illegally. It is clear Mr Robinson made his statement on the eve of the Spotlight broadcast in order to throw suspicion on his wife and not himself. But the allegations made by Iris Robinson’s ex-political adviser Selwyn Black that Peter Robinson became involved in the consequent bid to give the money back to solicitors representing Frasers estate and Ken Campbell, has now raised the question of whether the First Minister has broken the ministerial code which obliges him to act in the public interest. His failure to report Iris Robinson’s actions could now lead to the First Minister stepping down in disgrace and resigning as leader of the DUP after less than two years in power. A humiliating result for an ambitious politician who spent nearly 30 years serving as deputy leader under Paisley.

What this scandal has unearthed has not just been the revelation of how out of touch the political establishment are but the extremely close relationship between them and wealthy business people. Fred Fraser was one of the wealthiest property developers in Northern Ireland and has been involved in many housing developments in Castlereagh, a council area politically dominated by the Robinsons for decades. Iris Robinson has also been involved in lobbying on behalf of Ken Campbell to secure him commercial developments in her constituency. If Iris Robinson can so easily access free money from property developers, then the next question must be asked – how many other councillors, MLA’s and MPs have close corrupt links to wealthy business people? Business people don’t give money to politicians for nothing. He who pays the piper ultimately calls the tune. The parties in the Assembly Executive are responsible for procuring huge public contracts to private companies with a guaranteed profit. Their policies of privatisation, even if not directly linked to bribes or “donations”, reward the rich at the expense of ordinary working people.

Instead, working class people are being told we must pay water charges, accept cuts to services jobs and wages and young people must accept mass unemployment. The capitalist system together with its political establishment is utterly corrupt. The case for the building of a mass working class party with representatives who live only on a workers wage and fully committed to fighting for the rights of working class people has never been stronger.

Total
0
Shares
Previous Article

‘Power Sharing’ Assembly delivers austerity, as sectarianism grows

Next Article

Haitians Abandoned, Bankers Rewarded

Related Posts

Time to plan for all-out postal strike

 Editorial, The Socialist (Socialist Party England & Wales)

The third week of national strike action at Royal Mail has seen the bosses on the run. They fear the disruption of mail in the pre-Christmas period when over two billion letters, cards and parcels are processed through the system.

They thought they could force the union into making more concessions just as they did in the 2007 deal, which many postal workers (and how right they were) feared was the thin edge of the wedge. The plans of Royal Mail to cut jobs, intensify workloads and drive working conditions back into the Victorian age have been completely exposed by their actions since the 2007 deal.

Lenin – the original dictator?

Vladimir Lenin, the main leader of the Russian revolution, made the following insightful observation in mid-1917: “During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred, and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonise them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the ‘consolation’ of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarising it”. (State and Revolution)

NI General Election – Fall of the Robinson Dynasty

Socialist alternative needed

The general election results in Northern Ireland will be mostly remembered for the punishment the voters of East Belfast meted out to DUP leader and Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson who spectacularly lost the seat he had held for 31 years.

 

Building the campaign to fight fees & EMA cuts

December's school student walkouts and protests to defend EMA and oppose the hike in tuition fees were an excellent example of young people standing up to fight for their rights. Thousands of school, university and tech students took to the streets, along with tens of thousands more in England and Wales. Unsurprisingly, the Tories and LibDems voted through the hike in tuition fees.