The left must build an active base that can challenge for government without Labour, argues Joan Collins.
For those of us who want to build a progressive left movement capable of challenging Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, capable of winning elections and forming a government to implement real change, the first thing we need to do is, ditch the Labour Party.
Labour is a party with two faces, the one they put on in opposition, and their real face when in government, part of the establishment, serving the interests of the elite, and no different from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. There is no better example of this than the role they played in opposition up to the General Election in 2011 and the role they actually played when in the 2011 to 2016 coalition with Fine Gael.
Remember the Labour election ads? One ad depicted Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and the Greens as sheep while proclaiming that Labour were the only party that opposed the bank bailout. It was going to be ‘Labour’s way or Frankfurt’s way’. That very quickly became Frankfurt’s way as the government implemented the Troika programme of brutal austerity to pay for the bailout Labour claim they opposed.
Another set of election ads ‘warned what Fine Gael had in store’; increases in VAT, cuts in Child Benefit, strangely, a Euro on a bottle of wine (that really scared the life out of working people) and a €238 a year water tax!
The list of broken promises is endless
None of this stopped Labour from putting Fine Gael into power. They used the old reliable of ‘the national interest’ while promising to protect the most vulnerable. It was precisely the most vulnerable who were targeted for cuts as they were the least able to defend themselves. The health service was decimated, as were community programmes. The list of broken promises is endless.
On the water tax, Labour ministers enthusiastically took on the task of demonising and attempting to use the police and the courts to smash the most significant movement of working people and trade unions seen in decades, Right2Water.
They paid the price in 2016, going from the 37 seats won in 2011 to seven! Now they are attempting to put on a ‘left’ face. They have managed to sneak themselves in through the back door into the National Housing and Homeless Coalition. This has been done with the support of SIPTU and Impact (now part of Fórsa). Again, what was their record on housing and homelessness in government? Two Labour ministers had responsibility in this area. It got worse under their watch.
It seems there is a discussion in Labour about its future direction. One element wants to emphasise Labour as a niche socially liberal party, appealing to its main base now, better-off voters. By the way, the idea of Labour leading the way on women’s or LGBTQ+ rights is a myth. Labour was in and out of government in the Ireland of the Magdelene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes. Did Labour oppose the rule of the bishops? Did they heck! Its leadership was every bit as subservient, conservative and Catholic as Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Their worst nightmare was being labelled ‘reds’.
Another element wants to emphasise Labour as a party working with the trade union movement. However, Labour is no longer the political arm of the labour movement, having changed its rules so that trade unions can no longer be affiliated to it.
It would be remiss of me not to mention that there was an honourable tradition in the Irish Labour Party in the past, Jim Larkin, Owen Sheehy Skeffington and the Torch journal in the 1940s, and later in the 1970s with Noel Browne, Matt Merrigan, the Left Liaison and Militant tendency groups, all of whom fought for the values and ideas of Connolly and Larkin. However, in fact there has been no serious left opposition in Labour for nearly thirty years.
The real question now for those who want to build on the activism, enthusiasm, commitment and community roots of Right2Water is not to be fooled by Labour who are preparing to go back into Government supporting Fine Gael of Fianna Fáil at the first opportunity. Though they may now find themselves in a queue with Sinn Féin and others.
Do we also allow the right wing leaders in the trade union movement to drag our movement back into the cul de sac of Social Partnership? Or do we reject business as usual and build a new, broad left movement for change which is worthy of being called the Left in Irish society?
Joan Collins a TD with the Independents4Change group.
