A divided Left, and the role of divisive "left-wing" commentators.

[onlyasking]

Looking from my bedroom window last evening I watched well-to-do golfers on the sun-kissed old course. This club serves the recreational needs of some of Ireland’s wealthiest citizens. Members lucky enough to have a slot on so sweet an evening strode with ease between the greens, apparently carefree. And why wouldn’t they be relaxed. After all, the cunning plan, hatched at the heart of our body politic, to minimise the losses of the better-off in our society at the expense of everyone else is intact. The electorate has spoken, and it has said in the main “let’s move the deckchairs, and put different personalities in them, that’ll do the job”. In other words, “let’s reject the globalised capitalist policies of Fianna Fail, and replace them with the globalised capitalist policies of Fine Gael”.

Fintan O’Toole referred to the wafer thin differences in core economic principles between FF and FG, employing the not-so-original title of “Fianna Gael”. The electorate has effectively placed its faith in a different wing of an artificially divided polity, one that is dependent in its quest for power on a centrist Labour Party instead of the Greens. In supporting the further diminution of EU democracy represented by the Lisbon Treaty this allegedly left-of-centre party stands steadfast alongside IBEC, in conjunction with the media organs owned by, amongst others, a loyal knight of the Realm and an elitist trust, and shoulder-to-shoulder with the centre-right parties that have vanquished Labour’s “socialist” allies in almost all of the EU. The Labour Party remains in denial that this treaty will result in centre-right parties and their far-right allies controlling a newly empowered EU Commission and selecting from their own ranks an unelected EU foreign minister. A nice bit of power and influence for a retired Berlusconi, Phoney Blair, or some other capitalist cheerleader who has been consigned to history by his or her electorate. How better to drag Europe’s reputation deeper into the mud. How better to entrench, in Jimmy Carter’s words, the “supine” nature of the EU. And still the Irish Labour Party, Fintan O’Toole, Frank McDonald, Patsy McGarry and a whole bevy of “principled” opinionists have rejected for the second time the voice of the citizens of this state.

Furthermore, supporters of this Labour Party to a large degree transferred their votes to a centre-right party which is committed to whipping into line public sector workers in order to further protect the interests of those whose economic activities have led hundreds of thousands of ordinary workers to the brink of long-term unemployment and dispossession. In standing alongside those who have prospered the most from our “boom”, and who now seek to transfer the cost of its collapse onto those who prospered the least, the Irish Labour Party has abandoned all but a pretence of being in any meaningful way a party “of the left”.

An objective analysis of the outcome of the recent elections in the republic would conclude that the electorate in the republic has greatly rewarded a centre-right party allied in the EU to the likes of Berlusconi, and, to a lesser degree, given its blessing to a Labour Party which inhabits the political centre ground on which Britain’s Labour Party has become shipwrecked. Despite the recent rhetoric employed to establish Labour’s Not-Fine Gael brand, Eamon Gilmore will readily embrace Labour’s long-time FG big brother. Gilmore will possibly attempt to ensnare Joe Higgins, given his likely re-election to the Dail, in such a coalition, all the better to facilitate the pretence of representing the less well-off, though I’d be immensely surprised to see Higgins getting into bed with the likes of Leo Varadkar. Gilmore will be at the cabinet table with Leo and George Lee, of that there can be little doubt.

The Green Party, formerly of the left, has ditched its radicalism in favour of the likes of Deirdre DeBurca, who would not have been out of place in Blair’s New Labour, and has tainted its name by association with a party of the grossest consumerisation. Will it re-reinvent itself by re-embracing a more radical agenda in an attempt to stop the rot? Time will tell.

The left in the republic, such as it is, comprises Sinn Fein, the Socialist Party, the People Before Profit Alliance, the Workers Party, and a few independents like Maureen O’Sullivan and Finian McGrath.

Sinn Fein, in a state of perpetual demonisation, is finding it difficult in the republic to attract a substantial cohort of capable and articulate local candidates. The Socialist Party, despite having one of Ireland’s most coherent and credible politicians as leader, is very much currently a Dublin phenomenon. The PBPA, though potentially dynamic, is a very small and Dublin-centred party. The Workers Party is no longer a genuinely viable party.

There is no chance of any formal coming together of these various strands, and even an informal grouping is unlikely given that the smaller groups are unlikely to brave the perpetual political exclusion-zone set up around Sinn Fein by FF, FG, Labour and their fellow pro-Lisbon cheerleaders in the print media and RTE. In the context of the economic catastrophe facing the ordinary people of this state, with hundreds of thousands having lost their jobs, and tens of thousands in danger of losing their homes, it was illuminating that the issue which dominated the airwaves and the print media in the final week of campaigning had nothing to do with the fiscal unraveling of the state. Of course the burning issue was which party hated Sinn Fein the most. It’s little wonder we’re in free-fall.

More than a decade after the GFA, and years after the IRA’s destruction of its weapons, the largest left-wing party in the republic (and the third largest party in Ireland) is still presented as untouchable, despite the growing acceptance of Sinn Fein’s bona fides by unionists and following SF’s steadfast rejection of recent attempts to drag this country back to bloodshed.

Normally objective commentators like Fintan O’Toole, apparently willing to state the case for the have-nots in our society, cannot bring themselves to a more mature and objective analysis of who and what Sinn Fein now represents, in the face of the fact that they are the party most widely comprised of people from working-class communities. Sinn Fein represents the vast majority of non-unionists in NI, but those people, well over 100,000 people in a very low EU turnout, along with another 200,000 SF voters in the republic, continue to have their democratic choices thrown back in their faces by the body politic and its media cheerleaders in the republic. What is most striking is the willingness of those who would have us believe they oppose the parties of privilege to excoriate the largest political group which attempts generally to represent the interests of the least well off.

In a state long dominated by FF, FG and Labour, thousands of innocent children of the poor were condemned, by courts staffed by the well-to-do, to imprisonment, slavery, rape, and humiliation. Those three parties presided over the decades of this state’s prostration at the feet of an out-of-control hierarchy. Despite the current wringing of hands by the “ordinary decent anti-Sinn Fein parties”, and the likes of O’Toole, the most recent RTE/Sindo opinion poll shows that supporters of Sinn Fein, the target of their most focussed hatred, are those most angry about the deal between the state and the religious orders responsible for the decades of abuse and the cover-up. Could it be that Sinn Fein voters, coming as most of them do from the least well-off section of our society, are most likely to actually know victims of the abuse? That won’t stop the likes of O’Toole, not to mention representatives of the parties that presided over the state cover-up, from continuing to demonise Sinn Fein voters as being beyond the Pale.

It must be of great comfort to those who are now enforcing the impoverishment of the less well-off in the interests of those who are still comfortably-off to see the party they most vehemently reject being shredded by so-called left-wing commentators. Divide and conquer remains a core strategy of the rich and powerful, a strategy that relies greatly on an input from some of those who purport to represent the interests of the have-nots on whose backs the rich prosper.

[Panopticon]

We have a left-right axis of Irish politics, it's just not the one that socialists would like. Many countries have a non-socialist partisan divide, like the USA and Canada, in which a liberal party is against a conservative party. Each of those countries has a cohort of around 20% or less of the political class campaigning for policies along European social democratic lines. One could say the same about Ireland.

[JCSkinner]

This might be of interest to anyone wishing to look at the ramifications of last week's votes for the left in Ireland and in Dublin in particular:
Irish Left Review Looking at the Transfers: The Dublin Count in the Local and European Elections

[Red Boyneside]

onlyasking - I agree with your analysis of FF, FG and Labour. And just to clarify and maybe put your mind at ease, Joe Higgins will never be in a coalition with FG, FF or Labour. He opposed coalitionism when he was in the Labour Party.

Now, you know I have different views to you on the Shinners. Namely the idea that they are a left wing party. You correctly pointed out that The Greens have abandoned any left credibility but you don't come out with any similar criticism of SF who are currently engaged in coalition government with the most right wing party on the island. I know you'll say, oh they have to because of power sharing etc. I disagree on that point but - saying for a moment you are right, what about their policies in governent - hospital closures, attacks on workers rights and privatisations PFI's etc. In government, how are they any different from New Labour? (Other than the fact that they have some support at the moment).

Some quotes from Martin McGuinness:

“PFI contracts highlights the opportunities for partnership with the private sector in the pursuit of good value for money and the effective use of resources to meet the needs of schools.”

“It is now clear that PFI does offer real potential for value for money solutions to the pressing capital investment needs of our schools generally. My Department will, over the coming months, be consulting with schools authorities and other interested bodies, on its plans for the extended future use of PFI in conjunction with conventional capital new starts”.

My Department has proved that PPP is a viable method of procuring facilities for young people - just last month the last of four pathfinder projects opened its doors to pupils. My Department will continue to work with school authorities to ensure that the best use can be made of PPP in tackling the backlog in the schools estate. Building on last year’s PPP announcement, I have decided to include two PPP clusters in this year’s capital programme. This will be subject to a value for money deal being secured with the private sector.”

“This is a challenging but exciting project, which will for the first time bring together controlled and integrated school sectors working together within PPP to procure new facilities without in any way compromising the ethos or management of the individual schools and I would hope to pursue this approach further in the future.”

“These two clusters represent new approaches to using PPP and I believe that the Department and the school authorities should continue to explore the opportunities provided by PPP.”

In the south, they have argued that Corporation Tax should be kept at the lowest in the EU since 2007. Their Minister for Education has just authorised the privatisation of all new school builds in Belfast for the next ten years - currently the largest PFI contract in the North. Their Minister for Regional Development has just announced increases in bus and train fares and the sacking of 75 bus drivers. Their Minister for Education has attacked wages and terms & conditions of classroom assistants across the North.

How could any genuine left party enter into an alliance (other than on single issues) or even an election pact with a party who in government has acted in such a way? How would this be any different to allying with Labour or the Greens or FG?

Now, the one thing that sets SF apart from those other parties I mentioned is that it does seem to still have within its ranks a decent number of people who are genuine lefts and a large proportion of its vote is also a left vote. The question that should be asked is can SF's left turn the party in that direction or is the answer for them to seek to build elsewhere.

On the building of a new left, the SP has long argued that it cannot come via the announcement of various existing activists at a meeting in Wynn's Hotel or the Teachers Club. It must come out of the struggles of working people and communities against right wing policies. There really hasn't been much opportunity for that over the last fifteen years or so but things are changing. There will be opportunities to bring people together to renew the project of workers' political representation in the coming years and the SP and I presume PBP will be engaging in that process and hopefully the likes of the WP, Eirigi, the ISN, WUAG, and the genuine lefts of SF will engage in that process too. It is the only way to build a credible alternative to the pro-market mainstream.

[cactusflower]

Thanks for the article JC:

Certainly, when Fianna Fail’s Maurice Ahern was eliminated, those in the know in the RDS were unsurprised to see the bulk of his votes head Maureen’s way. What was eye-opening was that more of his votes went to Fine Gael than to Labour or Sinn Fein.
It seems that word went out from Fianna Fail to vote O’Sullivan as a least damaging alternative. But obviously the more conservative Fianna Fail support preferred another right-wing candidate when it came to transfers.

Again, in relation to Christy Burke’s elimination, the surprise is not that the bulk of his transfers went to Maureen O’Sullivan, but that so many went to Paschal Donohue. A quarter of Sinn Fein transfers went to Fine Gael in total. One could read this as an anti-government vote, but it remains surprising, and perhaps a testimony to Burke’s appeal beyond the Sinn Fein core vote.

Your article focused on what was happening from a party perspective. I've talked with a lot of people about how they voted. From the voter perspective, a lot of people who wanted to vote left had very little choice. Certainly had the left, and I include Labour and Sinn Fein as I am looking at this from the perspective of voters, stood sufficient candidates the left vote would have been substantially higher.

Whether or not Sinn Fein is a left wing party is a good question, but it certainly attracts voters who are looking for a left alternative to Fine Gael and Fianna Fail. In most constituencies these are the nearest on offer to a leftwing party.

In my view, getting Fianna Fail out and keeping Fine Gael out are the electoral priorities and the vote in Dublin, where the candidates were available to vote for, was more than
50% left.

The Labour Party should not be let off the hook. Gilmore and Burton are seriously talking about going into government in coalition with Fine Gael. The parties and Independents on the left should demand that Labour respects the votes of people who vote for socialist and left parties and joins a coalition to keep Fine Gael out.

As they clearly can't be relied on to do this, and if they do enter government can't be relied on to implement socialist policies, building a socialist party across Ireland, urban and rural, is urgent.

[onlyasking]

Red Boyneside

Thanks for the rancour-free engagement. It’s sometimes difficult to address these issues in an atmosphere free from poison. Apologies for the delay in replying, a delay resulting from family, social and work commitments.

You raise several points, on some of which I would broadly agree with you. An area of discussion where we are most likely to continue to disagree would be the whole question of what it is to be “of the left”. I understand, given previous discussions, that you adhere to a set of doctrines primarily concerned with the need to revolutionise socio-economic structures globally, and following on from those fairly rigid principles you have a difficulty in accepting that those who fail to work within your doctrinal framework are “of the left”. I understand how strength is found in rigidity, but I would tend towards a more flexible definition of what constitutes a left-wing perspective.

To me, the primary concern of those on the left should be opposition to the almost perpetual concentration of wealth, power and privilege both within specific societies and globally. I am not of the belief that there is one single political or philosophical doctrine which addresses adequately the needs of the disempowered and the impoverished across the range of societal types across the world.

Given the requirement for people of the left to tackle the Rich and Powerful in their exploitation of the poor and weak, it’s crucial that the various mechanisms employed by the Rich and Powerful are identified. It is not in my view sufficient to tackle alone the massive imbalances to be found in socio-economic interactions between workers and those who control their workplaces. The Rich and Powerful employ means above and beyond “the marketplace” in order to perpetually subjugate the masses. One of their core strategies has for centuries been the use of ethnic, racial and religious supremacy, with the required campaigns of demonisation, for the purposes of weakening the potential collective power of the billions of people who labour for a few crumbs from the tables of the tiny minority who mould and control their world.

Policies based on racial supremacism and sectarianism have been central to the development of the capitalist power-centres, and must be undermined where possible. Some of these policies were the outcome of the colonial experiment in which the native people of this island were the laboratory rats. The policy of “divide and conquer” perfected in Ireland was exported by the English Empire to vast swathes of the globe. Not for nothing are the direst manifestations of capitalist exploitation known as the “Anglo-Saxon Model”, as seen in its full glory in the past quarter of a century in the UK, the USA, Ireland, Singapore, and Hong Kong, the latter non-UK entities all having been greatly impacted by England’s colonial rule.

In the case of Ireland, it’s little wonder that opposition to social inequality and racial/ethnic supremacism took the form of opposition to the Crown and its politico-military establishment. One of the tragedies for the left in Ireland was the warping of potential working-class resistance to the Rich and Powerful by the perceived need to oppose the very real iron-fist policies of suppression employed until recently in NI by British Governments in conjunction with the body politic in the republic.

This opposition to the British neo-colonial policy in Ireland involved a vastly wider range of motivations and basic principles than the narrow nationalist agenda that is presented in the anti-republican “analysis” of the likes of Fintan O’Toole and a great number of other opinionists.

The republican movement that coalesced in the years following the initiation of the recent conflict by the unionist state and its orange supremacists was comprised of (a) catholic Irish nationalists, (b) those who saw themselves as part of a global anti-colonialist resistance alongside the PLO and ANC for instance, (c) people of no great ideological mindset who sought to avenge wrongs done to them or their families, (d) atheistic or agnostic Marxists, (e) catholic followers of Liberation Theology, with its “option for the poor”, and, no doubt, (f) some who harboured a basic contempt for the other side of the sectarian divide. This movement shared that diversity of motivations with the movement, led by Patrick Pearse, with which James Connolly made common cause in 1916 to strike against the Rich and Powerful in Ireland, a privileged minority comprised of a range of people from loyal unionists, who saw themselves as being of an entirely separate and superior caste, to the likes of the catholic capitalist William Martin Murphy.

What has long been called the “nationalist” tradition in Ireland, in which the native Irish asserted their equality with those unionists of “settler stock”, can in no way be compared to the type of nationalism exemplified by British racists, or those of any of Europe’s other powers, or the Afrikaners, or the Zionist movement, or for that matter NI’s loyalists. The crucial and overwhelming difference is that where Irish “nationalists”, just as the “nationalists” of the ANC or other national liberation movements, were struggling for equality with their colonial masters and the resulting independence that equality would bestow, those like the British, German, Italian, Spanish, Zionist or Afrikaner nationalists were, and are, asserting their racial or ethnic superiority over those they perceive as being of a lower order. That is an utterly crucial difference, but one that has never prevented critics of the Irish struggle for national self-determination from ascribing the same supremacist nationalist motives to the wide range of people involved in Ireland’s conflict with her British colonial masters. Today, this difference is absolutely clear from SF’s position on immigration and its total rejection of any notion of social exclusion based on ethnicity, even though the rejection of such policies may have limited SF’s appeal amongst a section of the urban population in the republic. On the event of his ratification as Deputy First Minister in the north, Martin McGuinness devoted almost his entire acceptance address to the need to oppose racism in all its forms, an appeal that would be welcome if it were to be heard from some of SF’s opponents up on the moral high ground. In fact, while marching beside Joe Higgins on an anti-racist march in Dublin a few years ago, when race was perhaps more of an issue than it is now, I noticed how strong the SF contingent was. That is not the kind of thing “nationalist” parties, in the sense conveyed by SF’s opponents, wish to get involved in.

It’s not for nothing that many national liberation movements in the latter part of the 20th century were at least in part if not wholly sympathetic to the basic socialist concepts of social equality and international brotherhood. There are strong reasons why republicans made common cause with Africans, Arabs and Native Americans, including those who followed a broadly internationalist socialist agenda. The absence from any list of groups with whom republicans had dealings of the kind of fascist and extreme nationalist movements found in former countries of empire is also evidence of the republican movement’s place amongst groups of the international revolutionary left. Furthermore, SF’s chosen grouping in the EU is amongst the far left and radical Green parties of Europe.

With regard to the specifics of SF’s leadership partaking in the short term in a non-socialist agenda in the cross-party NI executive, your points are valid. In my opinion this pragmatism is part of the outworking of the post-colonial period from which NI is emerging. SF must be in government there, and cannot simply do as an independent political party can while in opposition in the republic, insofar as setting out policies and sticking by them regardless. This is part and parcel of the historical warping of agendas caused by the post-colonial issues to which I referred earlier. Perhaps the SF leadership was overcome, like others within the broad left in the years leading up to the unravelling of international banking, by a sense that the "market" had trumped socialism. That is deeply to be regretted, and would in my view have been part of SF's support plateauing since 2004. Their attempt to play a less radical middle-ground card has not served them well, but they retain a place, in my view, on the broad left of Irish politics.

My basic point is this: broadly left wing parties in the republic are still a long way short of being in government. Given that any formal coming together of these parties is at present not an option, I would argue that they should avoid spitting venom at each other, and concentrate what firepower they have at the Rich and Powerful instead, along with attacks on the crucial support network the Rich and Powerful have amongst the rest of the political and media establishments.

If it was good enough for James Connolly to make common cause with Patrick Pearse, I see little reason for Joe Higgins and his supporters to focus on the doctrinal shortcomings of a party who genuinely oppose inequality, privilege and the oppression of the vast majority of humankind.

I'll be joining you on the No to Lisbon trail in expectation that Joe Higgins takes up the cudgel with gusto.

[Red Boyneside]

onlyasking,
I agree that debates on the left should avoid rancour however I do think that these debates should take place. Unprincipled alliances on the basis of intellectual dishonesty are no way to proceed. The question of "what is left" is sure to be one that becomes more and more prevelent in the near future as people grasp for an alternative to the status quo. The points I made though were important from the perspective of a principled left. I'm not inflexible enough not to want to work with anyone who doesn't 100% conform to the views of the Socialist Party. However this is not the issue. The point of highlighting SF policy in government in the North is that now they are carrying out those very policies that put them on the side of the rich and powerful. You cannot wave the red flag with your left hand and wield the axe over public services and jobs with the right.

I'd contend as well that the nationalism of P.H. Pearce was far more progressive than anything that SF adhere to today but add that Connolly's involvement in 1916 was a huge mistake given the revolutionary wave that swept Europe less than two years later.

So to conclude, I'm sure our respective sides will be working together to oppose the re-run of the Lisbon Treaty but if SF continue on their current trajectory in the economic sphere it will be harder and harder to see them as part of the left. That also seems to be the conclusion that some SF activists on the ground are coming to aswell.

[uriah]

But even the much admired Tony Gregory and the less admired Finian McGrath propped up Fianna Fáil Governments.

[Red Boyneside]

But even the much admired Tony Gregory and the less admired Finian McGrath propped up Fianna Fáil Governments.

Tony Gregory voted as a once off for Haughey for Taoiseach, in exchange for money for his community. I think he was wrong to do so but its not the same thing. He wasn't actually in government or weilding the axe. McGrath pffft. Is he left?

[powderfinger]

Don't wish to derail this very readable thread,but could anyone explain the reason why there is no "Thanks" option on Onlyaskings OP?