08.05.2002

Socialist potholes

Jon Anderson of the International Socialists of Ireland looks at Sinn Féin and left challenges to the established parties in this month's election

On May 17 voters in the Irish Republic will be electing a new Dáil (lower house). In terms of governmental majorities there is little in it for workers. Under the 'social partnership' regime, conditions for the working class depend far more on the actual class struggle than on which bunch of rightwing crooks occupy the ministerial Mercs. What is interesting, however, is the large number of votes predicted to go to parties and independents positioning themselves to the left of Ireland's wretched Labour Party. The major beneficiary of the radicalisation is likely to be Sinn Féin. Some pre-election polls have suggested that SF could take an unprecedented eight percent of the vote. How that translates into seats is another issue, but SF stand poised on the brink of a major electoral breakthrough. SF's popularity comes from a combination of factors. It has a large, wealthy and effective organisation, and the dedication of its activists on the ground is legendary. Its high media profile and the radical image built up through 30 years of armed struggle have also helped. Last but not least, its amorphous populism has allowed SF candidates in inner-city Dublin to present a leftist profile, while in conservative rural areas like Donegal or Kerry they can tack to the right. The rise of SF has led to the ever amusing spectacle of the liberal Dublin media whipping itself into a moral frenzy. The prospect of a Fianna Fáil-Sinn Féin coalition is, we are told, an outrage. This is mirrored by leftists accusing SF of seeking a coalition with the right. A fair enough criticism, but it misses the point. In the north SF is already in coalition with far-right unionists and the two republican ministers - Martin McGuinness at education and Bairbre de Bràºn at health - have been foremost in implementing neoliberal policies. It is a moot point whether Sinn Féin is the most unscrupulous bunch of chancers in Irish politics (that is a hotly contested title), but students of history will remember the last major republican upsurge in the south - Seán MacBride's Clann na Poblachta movement in the 1940s - and the debacle that turned out to be. In any case, Gerry Adams cannot be expected to behave in a more principled way than the revered MacBride. A breakthrough for SF may be a subjective swing to the left in the minds of SF voters, but it is an illusory one. The last thing the Irish left needs is to be diverted down yet another nationalist dead end. Luckily, this election is also seeing the strongest challenge yet from the revolutionary left. The Socialist Party is standing five candidates and the Socialist Workers Party seven. Not only that, but they have managed to avoid any clashes. Given the chronic inability of the two major far-left parties to work together in the past, this is a minor miracle and highly welcome. The Socialist Party has built up a strong electoral base over the years in some working class areas of Dublin. Their charismatic leader, Joe Higgins, elected to the Dáil in 1997, has distinguished himself as an effective parliamentarian and is almost certain to be re-elected in Dublin West. SP comrades are hoping that councillor Clare Daly can pull off a surprise victory in Dublin North. They may be over-optimistic, but comrade Daly is expected to poll extremely well. All in all, SP comrades have a spring in their step these days. Comrade Higgins' many years of hard work in the west Dublin slums are paying off for them. They have a young, confident and growing organisation and provide an agreeably old Labour home for voters turned off by Labour leader Ruairà Quinn's corporate socialism. If they can wean themselves off their occasional sectarian tendency to declare themselves the leadership of the Irish working class, they seem to have a bright future in electoral politics. In 1997 the Irish SWP under its veteran leader, Kieran Allen, raised a few eyebrows by entering the electoral arena before the mother party in Britain dropped auto-Labourism. The results, if not spectacular, were at least credible. Having wound up the short-lived Socialist Alliance (see Weekly Worker December 6 2001), the SWP is again standing under its own banner and is running in an ambitious seven constituencies - up from four last time. The party's energy is not to be doubted and the calibre of the candidates is fairly good, but it remains to be seen whether they can avoid being squeezed by the republicans. What has been somewhat disappointing, given the size of the revolutionary left's challenge, is the lack of radical politics in the revolutionary parties' campaigns. This is more understandable from the SP, as after all the party has been operating a long-term strategy of community activism. Comrades Higgins and Daly have actually been putting in the work on the ground. The SWP is a more surprising case. In the 1997 election leading SWP cadres were loud in their scorn of the SP's "pothole" politics. This time around the strategy seems to be 'potholier than thou'. A glance through the latest Irish edition of Socialist Worker proves the point. The paper as always covers a broad range of subjects - Northern Ireland, Palestine, Le Pen and so on. Yet the election coverage is almost entirely devoted to the - entirely worthy, it must be said - campaigns against the unpopular bin tax and the privatisation of council services. There is little sign of a link between the election and broader politics. What the party should be doing is consistent work in communities of the sort done by the Socialist Party - and indeed the republicans - and combining it systematically with raising socialist politics, rather than lurching towards 'the community' whenever an election is on. There is a recomposition of the Irish left under way at the moment. The situation of the last 10 years or so, with the revolutionary left consisting of the two big parties and maybe half a dozen other people, is fraying at the edges. The recent formation of splinter groups by former SWP cadres in Belfast and Dublin is a sign of a new fluidity. All socialists in Ireland will of course be hoping for as big a vote as possible for the SP and SWP candidates on May 17. But the real task of renewing the left in Ireland will of course go on after the votes are counted.