[Peace-discuss] [sf-core] Fwd: analysis of the Irish election

["Dr. Andrew Ó Baoill"]

A good question - and a good observation.

In reality, there is little likelihood of cooperation amongst those on the Left, and it's almost certain that Labour will be in government, and all the other Leftwing representatives will be in opposition. I see two sets of reasons for this: electoral math, and internecine tensions in the Left that go back decades.

Electoral math:
1 Fine Gael are going to be about 10 seats short of an overall majority. This essentially eliminates the possibility of a government without them. You would need every other party to band together to create a government, including the detested Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein (who really want to continue in opposition), all the United Left, etc. (At most you could lose a handful of independents along with FG, but with so many groupings you wouldn't want a razor-thin majority.) In other words, that's not happening.
2 Fine Gael have few options other than Labour: they won't go in with FF, both because it's toxic to any potential partner, and because civil war politics are still an active factor in relationships between those parties. (FG and FF are seen to represent the two main factions in the 1922 war, and that reverberates both through the parliamentary parties and the local organizations). Sinn Fein and FG don't work nicely together - both because of divergence on the 'national question' and other issues. FG could cobble together an alliance with various independents, but several leading members, post-election, have referenced the undesirability of repeating FF's reliance on politicians willing to extort the national government for better-filled potholes in their local area. (Incidentally: the clientelism of Irish politics is, even at a time of national crisis, endemic.)

So that leaves Labour and FG, who have been in rather fraught coalitions on various occasions (1948-1951, 1954-1957, 1973-1977, 1981, 1982-1987, 1994-1997), the only times when FF has not been in power in the past 79 years). I should note that Labour was in government with FF from 1992-1994, and while it fell (due to a complicated scandal involving judicial appointments) it was, overall, a good government, with great developments on civil liberties, and the start of the current peace process. (It was also an era of economic growth and development - and the claim by Labour that the 1992-1997 era, when Labour was in government, was one of 'real' growth, as opposed to the bubbles that followed, seems a reasonable interpretation of the statistics.)

Left in-fighting:
1 Joe Higgins, who leads the Socialist Party, left the Labour Party as a result of purges in the 1980s, when the 'secret party within a party' that was militant was rooted out. There are younger figures (Boyd-Barrett, who's the best-known figure of 'People Before Profit', comes to mind), but a lot of the senior figures in various groups have been arguing with each other for 30 years or more, and aren't necessarily minded to compromise or work together. 
2 While Labour is generally seen as reform-oriented, focused on achieving some power, to exercise what influence it can, many of the smaller Left parties are pretty much committed to not entering coalition, and given their total numbers (SP and PBP will each have 2 seats out of 166, which represents a great increase for them) that only leaves opposition. That makes it difficult for Labour and the other Left parties to have conversations about how to coordinate their activities:
- SP and PBP will not support a government that contains FG or FF in return for concessions, and see Labour's involvement in such a government as making them complicit as class traitors. It's worth noting that even though Labour will have its biggest showing ever, the greater size of FG (and the lack of other options) means that the party is likely to only have 5 seats in cabinet, out of 15, as opposed to the 6 it had between 1992 and 1997 in two different coalitions).
- Labour sees SP and PBP as either naive (believing that the revolution is just around the corner, and interpreting a joint vote of 2.2% as heralding a new era) or cynical (knowing that they're not going to implement any of their policies, because they aren't going to be in power, and therefore not feeling constrained to construct policy platforms that bear any relationship to reality). (In truth I'd charge Sinn Fein with cynicism on this front, rather than PBP or SP. The claim recently by Sinn Fein that just refusing to pay back any of the national debt would "have no (negative) impact whatsoever" was one example.)
3 Apart from Joe Higgins' leaving/expulsion from the Labour Party, various other of the splits on the Left are very personal: people who have left after not being selected as candidates, or after not feeling sufficiently supported in their candidacies. Far too much of Irish politics is about petty personality issues, on the Left and more generally.

I'd note that there has been cooperation on the Left in the past. Through the 1980s, the 'second tier' of the Left was occupied by The Workers' Party, a Marxist party that had emerged from a split within Sinn Fein in 1970. After the revolutions in Eastern Europe, most of TWP split off to form Democratic Left (via various interim titles), and that party eventually took part in coalition with FG and Labour from 1994-1997, and after the 1997 election Democratic Left and Labour merged to form the Labour Party of today.

Andrew

On 2011 Feabh 27, at 12:24, <jrbarret at illinois.edu> wrote:

> Thank you, Andrew and Carl.  It is remarkable how little attention the election results are getting, even on the Left. Andrew, it may be a naive question, but if Labour enters the government with FG does that not reduce the prospects for the sort of borad Left cooperation you mention in your note? The cooperation to the left of Labour is really very encouraging, but the numbers are still small without Labour.  If the latter were to move to the left rather than further right, FG would have a difficult time pursuing the sort of austerity measures they are likely to advance -- NO?
> 
> Thanks again.
> 
> Jim Barrett
> 
> ---- Original message ----
>> Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2011 19:17:44 -0500
>> From: "Dr. Andrew Ó Baoill" <andrew at funferal.org>  
>> Subject: Re: [sf-core] Fwd: analysis of the Irish election  
>> To: Socialist Forum <sf-core at yahoogroups.com>
>> Cc: Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>  Thanks for forwarding this to the list Carl. It's a
>>  weird election, and bitter-sweet for myself and many
>>  of those I've been talking with today.
>>  The Labour Party, of which I'm a member, looks set
>>  to have one of its biggest representations ever:
>>  with about 1/2 the seats yet to declare it's already
>>  gained more seats than it had after the last
>>  election. It looks set to have between 30 and 40
>>  seats, which will make it the second-largest party
>>  in the Dáil for the first time since 1928. It's a
>>  member of the PES, and ranges from social democrat
>>  to democratic socialist in its membership. The
>>  parties further to the left will also see growth,
>>  including the Socialist Party and People Before
>>  Profit, and might well reach 7. It should be noted
>>  that the parliamentary rules do allow them to work
>>  with other small groupings to create a 'technical'
>>  group, so that's almost certain to occur.
>>  I'd agree with the analysis of your source about
>>  Sinn Fein - the party postures as Left, but has been
>>  happily working with conservative parties in the
>>  North for some time, and is understood by many to be
>>  more interested in rhetorical positions it sees as
>>  giving it electoral advantage, than in actual Left
>>  policies. As an example, the party (rather quietly)
>>  supported the bailout of the Irish banks over the
>>  past few years, voting for the move at key times.
>>  (Labour, in contrast, was the only party in the
>>  Dáil to oppose the bailout.) This is a party for
>>  which the 'national question' is the primary
>>  motivating factor. As I write the party holds 8
>>  seats, and might even double the seats it had in the
>>  last Dáil. (It had five entering the election.)
>>  Apart from the frustrating growth in Fine Gael, a
>>  center-right party affiliated with the Christian
>>  Democrats (traditionally gaining support from
>>  professionals and large farmers, and which seems to
>>  be moving further to the right on economic and
>>  social issues), there's a second issue to be noted:
>>  while Fianna Fáil has seen its vote collapse,
>>  several of the new independents are 'gene pool'
>>  candidates - that is, they are former FF members
>>  (sometimes until very recently) who ran as
>>  independents, avoiding the taint of the party, but
>>  with the same centrist/faux populist background.
>>  Even with this, you could be looking at a FF party
>>  (even after the reabsorb many of those gene pool
>>  independents) that will be about 1/3 the size of the
>>  outgoing party (so sitting around 25 rather than
>>  around 75). A broad left (Labour / SF / ULA) of
>>  almost 50 seats. FG are predicted, at present, to
>>  end up around 75 seats. We're likely to see Labour
>>  in government with FG (as FF are toxic as potential
>>  partners for either FG or Labour at present, and
>>  neither party has the numbers to build a coalition
>>  with any other combination of partners).
>>  Andrew
>>  On 2011 Feabh 26, at 17:58, C. G. ESTABROOK wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>    -------- Original Message --------
>>    Subject: [lbo-talk] First results announced in
>>    Irish general election
>>    Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2011 22:38:47 +0000 (GMT)
>>    From: cmk1 at eircom.net
>>    Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>>    To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>> 
>>    Don't read too much into the apparent victory of
>>    the neo-liberal Fine Gael. The
>>    next Irish parliament will have the largest ever
>>    left representation. The United
>>    Left Alliance already has four seats secured; once
>>    it gets to seven it can form
>>    a so-called 'technical group' which means it must
>>    be given a certain segment of
>>    speaking time (thus overcoming 'quaint' liberal
>>    democratic parliamentary rules
>>    designed to ensure small left parties make no
>>    impact).
>> 
>>    It looks like the Socialist Workers Party's
>>    Richard Boyd Barrett might just
>>    secure a seat. Mick Wallace has been elected in
>>    Wexford. An utter oddity from a
>>    conventional left perspective. A big property
>>    developer over the past twenty
>>    years, he has been sympathetic to left groups
>>    allowing huge banners stating
>>    'People Before Profit' to be draped over the
>>    scaffolding of his sites in Dublin;
>>    he has provided the Communist Party with arguably
>>    the snazziest bookshop in
>>    Dublin, and he has employed Turkish construction
>>    workers who were sacked by the
>>    building firm GAMA when they blew the whistle on
>>    this extreme low-pay and
>>    exploitation.
>> 
>>    Sinn Fein will also be strongly represented in the
>>    next Dáil; and they have
>>    consistently argued outside of the dominant
>>    sado-monetarist orthodoxy. While I
>>    personally wouldn't regard them as 'Left' wing,
>>    many other Irish people would
>>    have no hesitation in doing so. And in Gerry Adams
>>    who has been elected in the
>>    Louth constituency, they will be led by one of the
>>    most important figures in
>>    recent Irish history.
>> 
>>    Also, the desertion of Fianna Fáil by Irish
>>    workers will be a real boon for the
>>    socialist Left in years to come. This party's
>>    dominance since 1932 has been
>>    based upon its ability to cultivate a mass working
>>    class backing. It's recent
>>    embrace of extreme neo-liberal austerity means
>>    that backing in gone, and the
>>    material conditions in Ireland are such that the
>>    working class will never return
>>    to Fianna Fáil in numbers again.
>> 
>>    Yes, an avowedly Thatcherite party will lead the
>>    next government and some of its
>>    prominent members - Leo Varadkar, Lucinda
>>    Creighton, Richard Bruton, Simon
>>    Coveney - would fit right in with the UK Tories or
>>    the Republicans. But things
>>    have changed immensely in Ireland, it's game on
>>    for the Left and the next few
>>    years will be mighty interesting.
>> 
>>    ###
>> 
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