Election Analysis: A seismic shift in Irish
politics

By Kieran Allen

Photo: Brid Smith and Joan Collins celebrate People Before Profit victories

The recent elections represent a seismic shift in Irish
politics. Ever since 1927, Fianna Fail has dominated the working class vote but
this has now changed – most probably for ever.

Even before the current economic crisis, the Fianna Fail
vote had entered a long slow decline. At the height of the Celtic Tiger, for
example, Bertie Ahern scored less votes than Charlie Haughey. When the crash
hit, Fianna Fail dropped all pretence of populism and launched an aggressive
attack on working class conditions.

They have now paid dearly for this and the electoral base of
the Greens has also been decimated.

The major immediate beneficiary is Fine Gael which has been
re-furbished through a huge influx of funds from business.  At its core, are a
new generation of hard-right young politicians such as Varadkar and Creighton
who want to intensify attacks on the public sector. On the doorstep, however,
Fine Gael played up the populist card, denouncing the ‘bail-outs’ of the banks.

Fine Gael is seen by many workers as a vehicle for getting
rid of Fianna Fail.

The most serious long term shift in Irish politics is the swing
to the Labour Party. It is the strongest party in Dublin and has gained from
its verbal shift to the left. It has opposed the bail out of the banks and has
distanced itself from Fine Gael. Its growth is part of a greater class
consciousness among urban workers.

But Labour can face in one of two ways. It can talk left for
a while – in order to gain greater leverage in a future coalition with Fine
Gael or even Fianna Fail. It did this in the late sixties when it went through
a ‘socialist’ phase and after the Spring tide of 1992. Significantly, Eamon
Gilmore has refused to rule out coalition with Fine Gael.

A more ambitious perspective would be to form ‘an alliance
of the left’, which is advocated by both SIPTU’s Jack O Connor and Sinn Fein’s
Gerry Adams. This would see Labour and Sinn Fein – and possibly even a reformed
and repentant Green Party come together to offer a ‘third option’ in Irish politics.

While this might be welcomed as a shift to the left, it
still contains severe limitations.

First, both Labour and Sinn Fein are committed to the
management of Irish capitalism. Both advocate ‘temporary’ nationalisations of
the banks; both want more support for business; and both only advocate more
public spending rather than the re-organisation of an economy on socialist
lines.

Second, both parties define politics primarily in terms of electoral
activity rather than popular mobilisation. The Labour Party, for example,
opposed a national strike on March 30th and its leader Eamon Gilmore told an
IMPACT conference that industrial action in the public sector was a thing of the past.
Both will verbally oppose water charges but will advise against a non-payment
campaign.

In this context, the vote of the radical left offers some
real hope for the future. Today the People Before Profit Alliance, the
Socialist Party, the Workers and Unemployed Action Group have all individually
more councillors than the Greens. Collectively they could be within striking
distance of Sinn Fein. Joe Higgins' magnificient victory in the Euro election in Dublin, replacing SF's Mary Lou McDonald is another indication of the same tendency. Voting patterns in Dublin indicate many are already wary
of Sinn Fein’s zig-zagging between left and right.

The vote for the radical left is all the more significant
because it grew alongside the swing towards the reformist left – and before
Labour or a Labour-Sinn Fein Alliance had been tested in office.

The radical left must now enter discussions to form either
an alliance or broad radical left party, where different tendencies can
co-exist. Previous arguments that such a development might be ‘premature’ make
little sense today.

The Socialist Workers Party is already working productively
within the People Before Profit Alliance, promoting its own distinctively
revolutionary socialist views while working with others on the 90 percent we
also agree on. There is absolutely no reason why an alliance of this sort
cannot be expanded.

We are only at the start of a deep economic crisis – where
even more wage cuts, water charges, and redundancies will be imposed on
workers. There is now a responsibility on the left to offer serious policies
which assume the possibility of an end to capitalism. 
See detailed results page here