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Showing posts with label Irish Labour Party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Irish Labour Party. Show all posts

Dr John Coulter ✍ Is the Irish Labour Party strong enough to compete with established movements in Northern Ireland elections and unlock the Stormont stalemate?

Sounds a far-fetched idea, but with Tory PM Sunak suffering two humiliating Westminster by-election defeats this month plus a squeaky-bum majority victory in a third, Sir Keir Starmer’s British Labour Party must be sensing victory in next year’s expected UK General Election.

But a key problem as ever for Northern Ireland socialists is that the British Labour Party still refuses to contest Westminster elections in the Province, insisting that the election-blasted SDLP is British Labour’s sister party in Ulster.

That may be fine and dandy if you are a nationalist, but what political options for the pro-Union community who regard themselves as Left-wing?

Even as far back as the late 1980s after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement in November 1985, British Labour constantly pour cold water politically over the highly-vocal Campaign for Equal Citizenship, many of whose pro-Union supporters wanted British Labour to officially organise in Northern Ireland and contest elections.

And there’s the general perception among working class Loyalists that the main Unionist parties - the DUP and Ulster Unionists - are politically disconnected from the pro-Union working class and socialist politics.

The nearest party to a pro-Union labour movement in Northern Ireland is the Progressive Unionist Party, however, it has all been but electorally obliterated in recent polls. Besides, the party’s links to loyalist death squads, such as the UVF and Red Hand Commando, hampered its appeal among the Protestant working class.

As for the DUP, it was formed in 1971 as an amalgamation of two voiceless sections of the pro-Union community at that time - the loyalist working class and fundamentalist Christians. The traditional Paisleyite wing of the party always viewed any flirtation with socialism as smacking of Communism, and even branded the PUP in Belfast as ‘the Shankill Soviet’.

The UUP was always viewed as a middle class, big house Unionist movement - often dubbed the Fur Coat and No Knickers Brigade, for its seeming distain for the working class.

The UUP did have a pressure group for pro-Union socialists called Unionist Labour, but its influence within the party which ruled Northern Ireland for half a century was minimal.

So what are the workable alternatives. Ulster socialists have run a mixed bag of candidates over the years since the original Stormont Parliament was prorogued in 1972, but without the official blessing of the British Labour Party those movements have not fared well electorally.

The Provisional IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein, has scooped two successive election victories becoming the largest party in terms of seats in both Stormont and across Northern Ireland’s 11 super councils.

Sinn Fein’s socialism is inspired by James Connelly, the Scottish communist who formed the tiny Irish Socialist Republican Party and was one of the key organisers of the failed Easter Rising in 1916.

With polls predicting a surge in support for Sinn Fein south of the Irish border in the next Dail General Election, and if Sinn Fein does grab the reins of power in Leinster House, expect a Hard Left agenda to be implemented more akin to Connolly’s ISRP ideology than modern socialism.

That leaves only one workable alternative. Irish Labour, itself one of the oldest political movements on the geographical island of Ireland, must both organise and contest elections in Northern Ireland - and it must be ready to do so by that expected UK General Election in 2024.

In that election, expect Sinn Fein to deliver another poll battering to the moderate SDLP and if Sinn Fein returns with the largest number of Westminster MPs that will be a waste of space because Sinn Fein still refuses to take its Commons seats.

Irish Labour would not adopt such an outdated abstentionist policy and could provide the key seats which Keir Starmer needs to clinch the keys of 10 Downing Street.

If Irish Labour did contest seats in Northern Ireland, it would be then organised on an all-island basis; a fact which Sinn Fein constantly rubs into the SDLP.

With Westminster generating a new bout of general election fever based on the buzz from the three recent Commons by-elections, the concept of official UK Labour Party candidates contesting Northern Ireland constituencies has once more nudged its way to the top of the socialist agenda here.

In earlier articles, I have put forward the argument that if the Labour Party maintained that it will not put up official candidates in Northern Ireland, then the Dublin-based Irish Labour Party should live up to its pledge to contest NI seats.

Ideologically, there is a need for a formal labour party to contest Northern Ireland polls in the same way as the Conservative Party runs official candidates here. Okay, Tory candidates generally take an electoral hammering, but at least the party has the courage to face the electorate.

Strategically and tactically, is the Irish Labour Party capable of fighting elections in NI, given its disastrous past showing in the Republic’s 2016 general election when the party lost 30 Dáil seats, reducing its representation to seven?

Furthermore, what can Irish Labour gain by contesting Northern polls given its current tally of elected representatives in the South.

To save face, and rebuild, Irish Labour needs to sell itself as an all-island movement. Merely organising in Northern Ireland is not sufficient. It must contest elections. Even fringe organisations, such as the anti-abortion Aontu party, led by former Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín, has only a handful of elected representatives but can still claim itself to be an all-Ireland movement given its elected representatives do politically straddle the Irish border.

At the crux of Irish Labour’s gamble is deciding where its central focus should lie. Will it focus mainly on rebuilding in the Republic; if it does not contest NI seats, is it opening the electoral door either to Aontu, or any future revitalised SDLP should the latter hold both the Foyle and South Belfast Westminsters seat from Sinn Féin?

Irish Labour, tactically, should emphasise that it would be prepared not just to take their seats at Westminster; it could join a so-called ‘rainbow coalition’ of pro-EU/Remain parties at Westminster to oust Sunak’s Tories.

If Starmer is to lead such a coalition, he may need to make significant gains in Scotland at the expense of the SNP, but will this become a reality given the financial allegations surrounding the SNP?

With potential for a Lib Dem ‘bounce’ under leader elsewhere, an Irish Labour MP in NI could prove invaluable to Starmer’s prospects of forming a Government, as well to future talks with the EU not just on the implementation of the Windsor Framework, but also on moves to rejoin the EU.

Should Irish Labour step up, a key selling point to Northern Irish voters would be that the party is not an overtly republican party like Sinn Féin or Aontu and, therefore, could be capable of attracting cross-community support.

Secondly, it’d be organised on an all-Ireland basis, unlike the SDLP which is Northern-based and has only a working relationship with Fianna Fáil in the South.

Should the party succeed, perhaps it might find itself in a prime position to challenge the Alliance Party as the main middle ground voice in Northern Ireland? More realistically, with political toes in the water in Dublin and Westminster, could Irish Labour be the surprise key to kickstarting the Stormont institutions?

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online. 

Could Irish Labour Hold The Key To Unlocking Stormont Stalemate?

Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ I am not a great believer in the bourgeois pedalled myth that parliamentary democracy is the most democratic system available to human kind.
 

It is not and, though better than a one-man dictatorship it is not the finest imaginable as we are led to believe. Neither do I believe in the myths portrayed by various Labour parties around the globe that a parliamentary road to socialism is possible, certainly while parliaments remain in their present form, bourgeois committee’s to manage the affairs of the rich, elected by the poor. 

Parliaments, certainly in England, have been around in their present form since the revolutionary overthrow and beheading of King Charles 1st in 1649 and have remained with us ever since. At the time the reformed parliament was progressive, taking away the so-called divine right of Kings to rule. Perhaps this is why the now British Parliament is called; “The Mother of Parliaments”. For many years would-be revolutionary parties like the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) were telling their membership, including me for a short time, and anybody else who cared to listen, there is “no parliamentary road to socialism” which I still subscribe to. I can remember this party many years ago (I was no longer a member thankfully) running down O’Connell Street in Dublin, trying to impress shoppers who took no notice whatsoever, shouting “one solution, revolution, one solution…” A sorry sight to say the least. If this was the best the revolutionary socialist camp had to offer then the bourgeoisie had and have no need to worry. 

Today we see the same SWP members, under the guise of People Before Profit sitting in the lower house of the Irish Parliament, Dail Eireann. What happened to the no “parliamentary road to socialism”, and “one solution, revolution”? Parliaments, in their present form as rich men’s committees meaning that the same class of people - the capitalist, or bourgeois class - still rule irrespective of who is in government. The capitalist state and all its instruments of law and order and, albeit as a last resort, terror will still prevail as Harold Wilson found out back in 1964 in Britain. He believed when elected to Number Ten he was actually in charge. He soon found out this was not in fact the case. 

The persons who behind the scenes dictate economic policy are the Governor of the Bank of England and senior Civil Servants, and the persons who decide Foreign Policy are the Imperial General Staffs, MI5 and MI6. As he stood in the Cabinet Office at Number Ten, he was reportedly thinking to himself, ‘if I press this button, I can summon the Imperial General Staff, and if I push this button, I can summon the Governor of the Bank of England’. How right he was, he could summon these people who would then tell him what he could and could not do. Fair play to Wilson on one occasion: he did get his own way on foreign policy, usually tailored to suit the United States, when he refused Lyndon Johnson's demand, dressed up as a request, for British troops in Vietnam, Wilson refused and got away with it! Despite my criticisms of Parliament and parliamentary elections I do exercise my right to a ballot paper. My right to register my vote it is, after all, about the only democratic right, limited as it is, anybody gets.

In Britain and Ireland, the respective Labour Parties still pedal the myth that socialism can be delivered through Parliament, not so much the British variant these days as they appear to be more of an opposing Conservative Party in much of what they say. 

The Irish Labour Party

Ireland though is a different ball game especially, it appears, since the election to the party’s leadership of Ivana Bacik. On Saturday 25th March I listened to her maiden speech at the Irish Labour Party Conference (they don’t call it an Ard Fheis, they perhaps should but do not) and for once I heard some progressive soundbites. Echoes of the British Labour Party, now long dead, but alive and well here in Ireland it appeared. Not the seditious talk of one of the party’s founders, James Connolly, granted, but given the hot air we have heard over the years from various previous Labour leaders what Ivana was saying was progressive. She opened her address with “Friends and Comrades”, a long time since any Labour leader anywhere in the world, Jeremy Corbyn exempted, has used such language. 

She went on to describe “Labours vision of change” - a new way forward for the party it appeared “to deliver an Ireland that works for all”. So far, usual kind of opening bar the comrades bit, explaining how Fianna Fail and Fine Gael equal an unequal Ireland which are “failing the people of Ireland”. How correct she is on this one as the housing crisis worsens, the flames of homelessness are getting bigger so the Government throw a huge tin of petrol on it to increase the flames by ending the eviction ban. Housing is starved of “public investment” as the Government coalition of FF, FG and Greens turn to the “private market” whose sole aim is not to build houses, unless they are profitable, but only to make profits. Like any other service under capitalism, if there are no profits then the service does not get provided, this includes housing. Ms Bacik continued, “having a safe and secure home is a human right” and called for an extension of the eviction ban. It was also noticed she did not attack capitalism outright so let’s not get over carried away from a Marxist perspective.

The Labour Leader then addressed the issue of workers' rights and trade unions, a very important aspect of any Labour party bar, it would appear, the British version. More on this below. “The Labour Party is rooted in the trade union movement and no worker should have to work in uncertain conditions. Labour would end the situation where apprentices are not covered by the minimum wage. We would endure workers and unions have the right to organise”. That is the first time I have heard any party leader use that kind of language regarding trade union organisation, having “the right to organise” as a right, suggesting labour would legislate in this direction. “The best way for workers to organise is in the trade unions”. To any trade unionist this must be what we want to hear, to any worker including apprentices this should be music to their ears. 

She continues in this positive vein, “this vision is across the thirty-two counties and Labour supports a referendum” on Irish unification. She also indicated closer links with Labour's “sister party the SDLP”. Perhaps Sinn Fein should take such closer links seriously as each party could act as an extension of the other in the two jurisdictions, the six and twenty-six counties. At the moment Sinn Fein are very appealing to many nationalists in both jurisdictions. A Sinn Fein Taoiseach in the south and a Sinn Fein First Minister in the north is an appealing all Ireland factor in Sinn Fein’s popularity. If the Irish Labour Party forge closer links with the SDLP could this arrangement rival the position of Sinn Fein as the only all Ireland party? We should not run round with the idea that Irish Labour have suddenly become republican in their outlook, certainly not in the traditional Irish sense. That died in Irish labour with James Connolly.

Another point well worthy was a proposed “ban on all goods coming from the Israeli occupied territories” something which if uttered in the British Labour Party would be deemed “anti-Semitic” by the current leadership. Ivana Bacik included Palestinian refugees among the worlds needy and not, as appears to be Irish Government policy, just Ukrainians. The actions of the Netanyahu Government against the Palestinian people in Tel Aviv were condemned without reservation.

These were just a few of the points covered by the new Irish Labour Party Leader, Ivana Bacik, which to me sounded more progressive than those of Sinn Fein, who have not mentioned the “thirty-two counties” for, I don’t know, the signing of the Good Friday Agreement (Sell Out). This, it appears is a new dawn for Irish Labour just as the British labour Party had a new dawn with Jeremy Corbyn, but in favour of British capitalism, ditched him. Let us hope the Irish variety have more sense than to ditch Ivana Bacik.

The British Labour Party

In sharp contrast to the progressive sounding language spoken by the Irish Labour leader, in Britain the Labour Party appears to be continuing its rightwards direction of travel started by Tony Blair when he became the party leader in 1994. He abolished Clause IV, which had served the party well since 1918 and was in reality the guts of the constitution. Clause IV was a commitment to public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange and therefore a commitment to socialistic ideas, if not all out socialism. It separated Labour from the other parties in Parliament. Tony Blair got rid of this and replaced it with some obscure wording about being a modern party. Roughly translated that means a party of capitalism. Little wonder Margaret Thatcher once said of New Labour, they were her “greatest achievement”! 

The last time the British Labour Party tried to remove the once sacred Clause IV was after the 1959 election defeat. Then leader, Hugh Gaitskell, proposed to remove Clause IV but was defeated by the party’s left-wing. Blair succeeded in not only getting rid of Clause IV but also in diminishing the relevance of the left-wing within the party. Even though it was not greatly acted upon when Labour were in government the fact it was there in the constitution was the weapon of the left-wing. The nearest Labour came to enacting Clause IV was after the landslide victory of 1945 when Clement Attlee nationalised much of the major British industries, including coal, rail, gas and electric, and transport, and introduced the National Health Service (NHS). 

When Blair abolished Clause IV he removed the guts of the Labour Party’s constitution, the part which made them a reason for existence. The Conservative Party have a much older set of ideas based on the 1834 “Tamworth Manifesto” and although capitalism has moved on since those days it is still said the Tamworth Manifesto is the basis for modern Conservative political thinking. They did not just rip it up, they adapted the wording and meaning to suit modern times. In contrast, the Labour Party took their jewel in the crown, Clause IV, and ditched it. Now, in British parliamentary politics there is very little between the Conservative government and the Labour opposition.

Blair immediately started distancing the party from the trade unions while at the same time accepting their money to fund his project, “New Labour”. With the short break in this pattern of party leaders, Jeremy Corbyn who was on the left was leader between 2015 and 2020 and represented traditional labour policies and values, the election of Keir Starmer to leader in 2020 signified a return to the rightwards political direction. Any hope of resurrecting Clause IV under Corbyn died with Starmer’s election as did the brief return to traditional Labour policies. There is very little mention under the Starmer leadership of the trade unions, except to condemn strikes and the strike waves currently running through Britain. The Labour leader refuses to support openly the strikers and forbids any Shadow Ministers attending picket lines, though he stops short of outright condemning the unions and blames the government, as the party of opposition should, for not “sitting down and talking”. He condemns the disruption strikes cause, suggesting the trade unions who are representing their members' interests, should reconsider this strategy. Compare this with the pro-union part of Ivana Bacik's maiden speech. Starmer should realise he, as a Labour leader, cannot sit on the fence as one of his predecessors, Neil Kinnock, did during the 1984/85 Miners Strike. Whereas the Irish Labour Party are calling for “workers and unions having the right to organise” the British variant cannot even openly support those millions of workers taking strike action. Strike action, it must be said, as a last resort after government and employers refused to listen.

Keir Starmer has also expelled former leader Jeremy Corbyn for what he, Starmer, calls anti-Semitic language. Jeremy Corbyn has fought against racism and ant-Semitism all his political life and is certainly not guilty of what Starmer is suggesting. All Corbyn was saying was pretty much along the lines of what was contained in Bacik’s speech to the Irish Labour Party on goods from the occupied areas being banned and condemning the Israeli Government for their actions against the Palestinian people. Language like this cannot be used in the British labour Party in case it upsets the Israeli Government! In other words, any statement offensive to the Israeli Government is anti-Semitic! Really? This is a complete redefinition of the term “anti-Semitic” more over it is anti-Semitism according to Keir Starmer. Keir Starmer appears to be more concerned with not upsetting the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv than supporting the beleaguered Palestinians.

Whereas the British Labour Party appear hell bent on “thriving” in a capitalist society rather than challenging such a society, the Irish labour Party appear to be moving in the opposite direction, leftwards. Being left-wing does not make a person revolutionary, the terms left and right-wing are parliamentary terms originating from the French Revolution. Who sat on which side of the “Constituent Assembly” - the left, who advocated social and economic change, or the conservative right who wanted more of the same, the status quo. It would seem the Irish Labour Party have rediscovered, if Bacik's speech is any indication, some of their original values, but not the revolutionary anti-capitalist part of these values. They are still not the party formed by James Connolly, Jim Larkin, Richard O’Carroll and others who used seditious terms like “I want to talk sedition” and “capitalist robber barons” often used by Connolly and Larkin. That aside Ivana Baciks speech was a breath of fresh air and more radical in many respects that Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou McDonald. She certainly appears to have put the breaks on the right-wing trajectory of recent years within Irish labour.

Historically the British and Irish Labour Parties have had differences. When the Irish party was formed in 1912 the British Labour Party agreed to remain exactly that, British not a UK party. This was agreed between the two leaderships to give the Irish party room to develop its own entity separate from Britain, it was early British Labour policy to support Irish independence. Even today the British Labour Party do not organise in the six-counties. James Kier Hardie, a friend and comrade of James Connolly’s agreed this was the best direction to give the Irish the best chance to develop. Both organisations were part of the “Second International” at the time. When, in 1914 the First World War broke out in Europe the British party, despite early opposition, along with most of the international voted to back their indigenous bourgeoisie in the war as did the Germans, Italians, in fact all of them bar the Russians under Lenin, the Bulgarians and the Irish (though Connolly and Lenin never met). This was a complete change for both parties, British and Irish, in political direction. It appears such change in travel is occurring again.

All the socialist rhetoric by the new Irish Labour leader is all very well while she is not in a position to implement it! The employers would fight back, be under no illusions, against her pro worker and pro trade union measures. The question is, would she, if necessary, legislate against the bosses just as the various governments of the employers have demanded legislation against the unions? Time may well tell on that one. I refer back to the well-meaning Harold Wilson back in 1964 who soon found out how far the British state would allow him to go. Would the Irish state also put a block on some of Ivana Bacik's policies? Again, time will tell!

🖼 Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist

The Irish Labour Party And British Labour Party ✏ Some Short Comparisons

Anthony McIntyre  ☠  It has long struck me that the Irish Labour Party more than any other has abandoned the constituency that returns it in pursuit of office. 

It promises a left package then delivers the Rabbitte punch to the recipients of the promise so that it may become the prop sustaining governments which view left packages much as a dog does a lamppost.

Whatever the Labour leadership sought to project onto the screen, the filtering process left the electorate feeling that it had just viewed Pensions Before People. Last time out those who had voted the party in such numbers in the previous general election followed through on Eamon Gilmore's promise, while still with the Workers Party, to destroy the Labour Party. Since then Labour has struggled to make any impact on the Irish political scene.

None of that stopped me from turning up at a Labour Party Town Hall meeting in Drogheda's D Hotel on Monday evening. I actually left Dublin early to make the event which was attended by around one hundred people. I had never been at any of the party's gatherings before although any time I have approached its elected representatives or party workers, the response has been nothing less than helpful. Their members also have been to the fore in defusing the moral panic that the far right has been trying to stoke and amplify over a range of issues, most notably refugees.  

With a new leader, Ivana Bacik, in place the party hopes once again to make a pitch to an electorate which thus far has proven tone deaf to its discourse, its ears more attuned to the populism of Sinn Fein.

I went along to listen, with little intention of asking questions framed by the sentiment expressed above. Ultimately, I was disappointed. Not because of anything Ivana Bacik had to say - she was quite impressive. It was down to my reason for being there, as a listener, being thwarted by hecklers and others determined to subvert that vital democratic function - free inquiry. 

While elements of the far right seemed to be in attendance, it would be unfair for me to say that they were the main architects of the disruption. On occasion, those making what appeared to be anti-refugee sentiment themselves could not be heard because of the howling and interjections from the floor. More than once I found myself straining to hear a speaker because a fishwife, fluent in gibberish, near the front of the hall continuously heckled. Badly executed performative posturing, there was more sense to be heard at a silent movie than from her.

For the most part, the two women who most assertively voiced the anti-refugee concern, couched in the language of being worried about some threat to their own children, made their points and desisted from roaring or badgering. Nevertheless, concerns about the safety of children fail to impact on me when the supposed threat is identified as being from the refugee community. This in a society that has seen its children raped and abused by the monstrous men of god and then have it covered up by the Hierarchy of the Catholic Church. The last time the far right stood outside a Catholic Church in Drogheda was to rail against refugees and not those in charge of the building.

Despite the theatrics of staged walkouts - at which point, it might be posited, the average IQ of the hall seemed to go up - Drogheda Mayor Michelle Hall handled the meeting adroitly, promoting zero tolerance for intimidation while never once being intimidated from the bully pulpit. When Ivana Bacik arose to address the issues, she unapologetically traced her immigrant antecedents and swept aside both hate and fear mongering. An Garda who were present were not called upon. Ultimately, the measure of matters is to be found in the comments of Louth TD Ged Nash:

Despite attempts from a handful of loud voices from anti-vaccination and anti-refugee campaigners to disrupt the meeting, the vast majority of those who attended made it clear they came to listen to the Labour leader outline her vision for the party and the country.

In a democratic forum, discourse and the exchange of ideas is vital. Participants have a right to speak which no one on the night was denied, but they also have a right to hear, which was on occasion denied. Those whose purpose in turning up at this type of public event is to drown out should be escorted out.

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Zero Tolerance For Intimidation

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