The Government of Ireland Act 1920 effected the partition of Ireland with elections in June 1921 planned for the lower houses of the parliaments of Northern Ireland and of Southern Ireland. The Labour national executive decided to leave the field to Sinn Féin, although its 1921 report suggested that it was unaware that Sinn Féin intended to use the elections to replace the First Dáil with a Second Dáil. The executive reprimanded Richard Corish and the Wexford Trades Council for accepting his Sinn Féin election nomination. When the truce of July 1921 ended the Irish War of Independence, Labour was not involved in any way in the negotiations that led to the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921, by which a new Irish Free State would be established as a Dominion of the British Empire equivalent in status to Canada.
