There will be no welcome or relief in the nationalist working class communities in the six-counties by the immanent hand over of power from Westminster to the new Northern Ireland Parliament at Stormont.

The handover of power to the Unionist-controlled new assembly under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement is inherently anti-Republican, anti-nationalist and ultimately anti-working class. The 'equality agenda' has been derailed, hijacked and controlled by unionism in an attempt to minimise the application of civil, human and political rights of northern nationalists in the six-county state.

Unionists have managed to regain power twenty seven years after Britain was forced by political and civil rights agitation, forced onto the international arena the terrible conditions and abuse of civil and human rights the nationalist working class community were forced to live under by the Stormont regime.

What has Unionism and British Imperialism done in the following 27 years to earn the trust of northern nationalists? The answer is clear - nothing!

What little change there has been is cosmetic and even cosmetic changes have been resisted by unionists tooth and nail. Northern nationalists are still more than twice as likely to be unemployed than their Protestant Unionist fellow citizens. Despite the formation of the Housing Executive as an answer to housing discrimination against Catholics, they continued the practice of allocating houses in certain areas along sectarian lines, the building of new public housing continues to adhere to old sectarian boundaries - unused and empty. Unionists have yet to admit that discrimination was widely practiced by the old Stormont regime let alone still practiced with relish.

LoyaIist paramilitaries continue an armed intimidation campaign against the nationalist community.

Britain has left intact the armed institutions of the State, with the RUC unreformed when it should have been disbanded, the loyalist militia, B Specials became the UDR which became the RIR which remains untouched and able to continue its potential for armed sanctions against a nationalist community still denied equality.

Much is being made of the sacrifices the Unionists have made in the current political process and how no decommissioning by republicans would be a step too far for them - this is bull!

The return to power for unionists will occur without reference to the basic demands of the northern nationalist working class, it is all the worse that Britain has been aided and abetted by the so-called Pan Nationalist Front which is already fragmenting along traditional class lines, attempting to isolate republicans. The Pan Nationalist Front is in reality an Irish capitalist alliance.

Indeed no welcome for the 'new Stormont'. It is clear who has to pay the price for peace - the Irish working class.