The Labour Party is a worthy member of progressive coalitions of Left argues Labour National Executive Council Member Paddy Cole.
In the aftermath of the financial collapse, social democratic parties across Europe have been served up a huge slice of political humiliation. In attempting to defend working people we have sacrificed ourselves in the short term for the greater good.
If we are to recapture hope and continue to rebuild honestly, democratically and constructively, a clearer vision is vital for the Labour Party. A vision that is deeply political, radical and ideological, that gives working people and the people who rely on public services a vision for a better and fairer world.
This vision must be unwavering and unapologetically socialist, underpinned by a number of key priorities for action, in cooperation with others progressive forces.
These should be the most important issues impacting on the lives of our people, like health, housing, education, jobs and equality. It should be accompanied by the same strategic building blocks for mobilising support as we are seeing in the National Homeless and Housing Coalition, the Coalition to Repeal the 8th Amendment and the Still Waiting health campaign.
It’s through such collaboration that we demonstrate our genuinely constructive and nonsectarian approach to winning practical solutions to people’s problems. Some people simply set out to win battles in the echo chamber that is social media. What Labour seeks to do is win the battle of ideas and put those ideas into practice.
There have always been genuine socialists in the Labour Party like there are Christians in the Church. Grassroots socialists within the Labour Party must work with others on the Left to win power in order to bring about a real alternative to the hegemony of the two civil war parties.
The battle of ideas in a rapidly changing world is already well underway. Do we choose tax cuts over real investment in public services? Do we turn a blind eye to climate change or work to win for workers and communities a just transition to a low carbon economy? Do we empower private developers or local council workers to build homes for our people? We can’t have both. These are the battles of our time, battles we on the Left must win.
It is a shared, communitarian vision, opposed to the neoliberal vision for society. Unfortunately, liberalism has had some cheerleaders claiming to be ‘progressive’. Only together can we reject the values and false morality that place the whims of the individual over the common good.
We have a choice: continue down the path to a self-constructed dystopia or reassert the dignity of humanity
As socialists, we know too well the cost of a society run solely in the interest of powerful individuals at the expense of the community. It leads to the centralisation and concentration of power in fewer and fewer hands. Monopoly companies, giant tech firms and media empires which dominate almost every branch of our economy and control the space in which people communicate. The power which these companies hold over our communities is a frightening negation of democracy. We have a choice: continue down the path to a self-constructed dystopia or reassert the dignity of humanity.
We must choose the latter and I would argue that we are in an opportune position to do so. Now that Ireland has regained its economic sovereignty, the State is now on the threshold of having more resources at our disposal than at any time in the country’s history.
The Labour Party is, and always will be, a party of the Left. That’s where we belong and where we are at our strongest. We don’t specialise in telling people what they want to hear and sneering on the sidelines. Our job was, is and always will besimple. To swim against the tide, to spite the odds, to work together and serve the people.
If you look at the work of elected Labour representatives in the Oireachtas you will see them highlighting the gender pay gap, working with others to improve workers rights’ legislation or calling time on the scandals in planning departments, the Gardaí and the Department of Justice. In our local authorities, you will see Labour councillors working with others on the Left to vote to invest in public services instead of providing tokenistic property tax cuts. In our communities and colleges, you will find Labour members organising for decent work and decent lives, alongside and in unity with their fellow leftwing activists.
Paddy Cole is a Labour Party National Executive member and can be found on Twitter @paidicole.
