1971 saw the start of the largest civil disobedience campaign in Northern Ireland's history - the Civil Disobedience Campaign.

It saw the withdrawal of nationalist politicians from councils, Stormont, etc. and a mass campaign to withhold funds, including the rent and rates strike, from the government in an attempt to bring about internment's end.

Stormont thought Operation Demetrius (internment) was going to end the Troubles. They were badly mistaken. 1968 had seen civil rights marches and limited violence. August 1969 saw an escalation in sectarian violence. 1970-71 saw the emergence of the Provisionsal IRA (PIRA) and the death of the first British soldier with 30 others dying in the run up to internment day, 9 August 1971. Of the 342 lifted, 105 were released within two days.

At a west Belfast press conference, Joe Cahill (PIRA leader) announced that about 30 IRA members had been detained and of those only three were leaders. Internment was an intelligence failure and it failed to halt the violence. In the two days after the raids, 17 died with 149 dying violently in 1971.

What really happened?

An old saying goes - "Success has many fathers", thereby explaining why so many say they called the rent and rates strike (RRS). It's true that the SDLP and Nationalist MP's called one from a press conference on 15 August, but it had already started after a call by Belfast Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) on the 10 August. The reality is the protest wasn't called by any one organisation, it was a spontaneous, mass, peaceful protest to "secure the release of the internees and to obtain a Bill of Rights which would guarantee civilised methods of government."

In Belfast's Public Record Office there is a government file, COM/58/13 titled Civil Disobedience - Counter Measures, which correctly says: "There can be no doubt of the great mass of sincere and immediate support for the rank and file for this opposition to internment. Indeed the relative success of the campaign from the beginning is probably due less to any organisation behind it, which can only have been minimal, than to the conviction of individual participants that their cause was just."

Individual families decided that they had to take a stand on this unjust law so once the call was made thousands responded. Within weeks, the numbers withholding rent rose to 21,248 and it grew from there. Although the campaign was aimed against public finances in an attempt to influence the government, at least 200 residents in one housing association also struck.

Limited or mass campaign?

A major limitation affecting the RRS was that it was isolated to one section of the community, the core being those Catholics in public sector housing. This limitation meant that the government spun the facts by saying that it was only a small-scale protest.

In a press statement on 17 October 1971 the government claimed that 26,000 were not paying out of a housing stock of 140,000, or 18.6%. The spin unravels when the files are looked at. On 27 October 1971 the Belfast County Borough Council had 16,000 dwellings, with 3,475 non-payers, giving a publicly quoted strike rate of 29.7%, a reasonable enough level. If you look at the areas with strikers, the overall percentage rises to 80%.

John McGuffin in his book, Internment, reports on the Tyrone Central Civil Resistance Committee conference of 17 October. There were reports of areas like Newry with 95% solidarity, the Bogside and Brandywell with 90%, etc. This has been dismissed as propaganda but the government's recently released files show that on 1 October there was 82.5% non payment rate in Belfast's Glen Road area, 87.5% in Derry, 43.3% in Cookstown and 90.75% in Andersonstown. There were even four isolated but determined houses in Ballycastle who stayed involved from the start until well into 1973.

Repressive legislation

The government responded to this popular protest and the financial threats with the Payment for Debt (Emergency Provisions) Act Northern Ireland (1971) on 14 October. This was described by the leader of the Child Poverty Action Group as "the worst piece of social legislation passed in the UK in this century".

The Act allowed the government to deduct the rent, plus rent arrears, from anyone who was in receipt of government funding, i.e. anyone who got social security or who worked for the government in any capacity. It was quickly adapted to allow any landlord, building society, etc. to use it to force payments of anyone in arrears. The government also established a special office, the Benefits Allocation Branch, with a staff of 80 responsible for taking the money.

After the initial groundswell with thousands getting involved, NICRA called on 5 November, to escalate the protest. They called for more people to join in and for other payments to the government to be stopped, including TV and radio licences, ground rent, water bills, etc.

One thing to remember today is that the actual rent in the early 1970s was low relative to today, ranging from £1.05 per week to £3 in September 1971. By March 1972 there were 22,400 "defaulters" withholding £1,012,000 in rent and rates, rising to debts in the "region of £2m" by June 1973.

In June 1972, civil servants noted that Belfast Water Commissioners "are likely to face a deficit of perhaps 20%" instead of the normal 2%. The Belfast Corporation Election office was owed £400,000 and the NI Electricity Board was owed £125,000 by customers because of the campaign.

Government's response

Besides the repressive legislation and the creation of a new 80 strong office to take money off the lowest income families in society, the government was worried about the scale of the popular protest. There are a number of things that highlight the government's fears. On 9 December 1971, Sean Morrissey, the Chairman of the Turf Lodge Residents Association, and Executive Committee member of the Communist Party, was arrested. Was it a coincidence that the government had heard the day before that the estate had 88.7% of non-payers. In a reflection of the position of Marxism in favour of mass protest actions, the Belfast Telegraph reported, 19 January 1972, that: "This civil disobedience campaign will cripple unionism more surely than any bombings of city warehouses and stores."

It is not fanciful to consider that the scale of the popular protest was one of the factors in the government being determined to smash the civil disobedience and street protests. And then came Derry.

Bloody Sunday

In 1972, the military situation in Northern Ireland exploded after Bloody Sunday with Stormont being suspended and direct rule imposed from Westminister. Given this combination of developments, it is no surprise that there was a fall off in the numbers protesting in the rent and rates strike. Despite this fall-off, 12 of 18 participating Belfast districts had over 50% or more taking part in June 1972. There were still 11,740 public sector tenants taking part in February 1974. The recently released government files are a mixed collection of documents but one of them does state that in addition to the protesters in the public sector there were a further 9,000 privately owned properties not paying rates giving over 20,000 still protesting in mid 1974.

The election of the power-sharing executive (Sunningdale Assembly) resulted in some abandoning the strike. A further factor was the July 1974 announcement by Secretary of State Merlyn Rees that internment would be gradually phased out. The reality was that the RRS had been effective in influencing the British government's internment policy.

On 28 December 1973, the SDLP called for the strike to end. When made a Minister in the Executive, Austin Currie, (who had occupied a house in the sixties against injustices), implemented plans to not only increase the amount of arrears which could be seized every week but he also added a penalty charge against the protesters. This provoked huge anger against the SDLP but also reduced the numbers involved in the protests.

Lessons of the strike

The rents and rates strike involved tens of thousands in mass protest action against government injustice. It developed on the spur of the moment with no organisation behind it, planning for it, encouraging people to participate. A combination of several factors resulted in its decline. These factors include the simple fact that it was a spontaneous action, that no one had built the mood and the support necessary for it in the areas beforehand and then organised to maintain the campaign. The repressive laws seizing people's money were a factor. These laws brought in to smash the rent strike were used against anyone who got into financial difficulties, including Protestant residents of Belfast's Glencairn estate in March 1972. The repressive laws did have an impact on the situation then, but the legal position today is that should the government want to take our money they have to take us all individually to court thereby slowing down their repayments and clogging up the legal system.

The Provisional IRA's individual terrorist campaign also damaged this mass, non-violent campaign by pushing it to the sidelines. The idea that an individual could really take part in a struggle against repression and for justice was down-played by the message from the PIRA to the Catholic community - the Provos would fight the battle for people!

The rent and rates strike was a mass peaceful protest against injustice. It was a spontaneous movement. If it had been better prepared and an active campaign built in all communities, and if it had been cross-community, it could have been more successful. It is these lessons that the Socialist Party is using today to build a movement which unites Protestants and Catholics across Northern Ireland in a mass campaign of non-payment to defeat the water charges.