_{The government gives money to NGOs to help refugees. The refugees buy tents because the government won’t provide accommodation, so the government spends money to destroy the tents.} Photo: RTE

The main story of the elections is that despite long-standing failures and some dissatisfaction the main governing parties, including the Greens, more or less held their own, illustrated in quick speculation that they will bring the date of the next general election forward.

Together they won around half the first preference vote in the local elections and 46 per cent in the European.  This is historically low for the two main parties (46 per cent and 41 per cent respectively) but these are now two cheeks of the same arse that are quite able to work together at the top while their voters are transferring to each other.  Even historically the previously minor party, Fine Gael, required a third party to represent an alternative, which the Green Party has, for now taken up, in the role previously performed by the Labour Party.

This has led once again to the obvious suggestion that they should merge, given the utter absence of any political differences.  At this point, however, one is reminded of the quote from the American comedian Bob Hope who said that “No one party can fool all of the people all of the time; that’s why we have two parties.”

The dissatisfaction that achieved expression was reflected in the 28 per cent vote for a variety of independents in the local election and 34 per cent in the European, while an independent won the Limerick mayoral contest.  Most of these have no fundamental political differences from the two main parties, in some cases merely being former members with no differences at all but availing of the possibilities for personal opportunism offered by the electoral system.

Despite the ups and downs the Irish state is politically stable, reflected in Fine Gael being in office for over 13 years.  This reflects the continuing recovery and growth from the financial crash.  Of course, this has a narrow foundation, resting on a limited number of US multinationals, but the threats are not yet immediate.

The problems of this growth – of income inequality and housing for example – are ones that ‘solve themselves’.  The poorest are atomised and prey to reactionary solutions or apathy while the inadequate infrastructure is partly a result of inadequate state capacity.  There is unanimous agreement that the solution lies in increasing this capacity – ranging from the governing parties themselves through to its liberal critics and its supposed left opposition. The precise role and scope of this increased state intervention is all that varies between them.  Not an inconsequential matter but not fundamental either.  The political origins of the left organisations as nominally Marxist gives its reformist programme nothing more than a radical tinge.

While Europe witnesses its biggest conflict since the Second World War, there is an Irish consensus that supports Western imperialism, which the left’s opportunism in also supporting Ukraine does nothing to challenge.  The gestures of the Government in supporting the Palestinian cause are enough to quell widespread opposition to what this imperialism does in its support for the Zionist state, while the position of the left on the war in Ukraine does nothing to clarify imperialism’s consistently reactionary and barbarous role.  Breaking the consensus on this is hard enough already given the dependence on US multinationals and EU membership, while the loss of Clare Daly in the elections is the loss of the most articulate and passionate opposition voice to this imperialism.  Again, the parliamentary left didn’t help by standing against her.

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The final factor that is genuinely new is the electoral appearance of the far right, steeped in racism and xenophobia, flying the national flag and invoking Ireland’s colonial subjugation even while its most rancid elements collaborate with the British far-right.  Between it and the bourgeois parties lies various shades of reactionary nationalism; part of the stability of the ruling bloc of mainstream parties was their adoption of a harder rhetoric and tougher policies on immigration.  These parties have thus partially legitimised the more radical rhetoric to their right.

One commentator estimated that anti-immigrant candidates took 15 per cent of the vote in the Dublin European constituency and had three elected to Dublin City Council.  The naïve who think Irish nationalism is progressive because it is an expression of the oppressed should have cause to reflect, although if they have been able to ignore the character of the nationalism of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein and various republican militarists so far, it might not be a surprise if this is not revised by the far right becoming its latest expression.

It might also be estimated that about one third of the population of the Irish state still clings to its idea of this nationalism as that of holy Catholic Ireland.  In 2004 racism played no small part in an almost 80 per cent support for a referendum to limit the rights to Irish citizenship of children born in the State.

Since then, much has been made of the modernisation and progressive liberal development of the country but notwithstanding the mobilisations around referendums on divorce, abortion and gay marriage, much of these changes, including the support for change in these referenda, are due to the general secularisation of Irish society and not, unfortunately, to mass struggles of the working class, its movement or a mass women’s movement.  These changes received significant support from the main bourgeois parties and never called into question the political hegemony of these parties never mind the class foundations of the state.

All this is reflected, among other things, in the continued patronage by the state of the Catholic Church in education and health and the continued governance of the two main parties.  The growth of independents is a continuing tribute to the clientelism and parochialism of much of Irish politics.

There is therefore no crisis in the state that would provide the grounds for the mainstream parties to do more than give a certain legitimacy to anti-immigrant rhetoric.  It has no need to collaborate with outright racist forces even if they have been useful to put a squeeze on Sinn Fein through its more primitive support.  The far right is also handicapped by being very badly fragmented with no unifying figure appearing.  The far right is therefore not the primary problem but rather an expression of the weakness of an alternative.

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I generally dislike blaming the successes of the right on the failure of the left since it often minimises our objective weakness, the strength of capitalist forces and their ideological hold, and the political resources of the bourgeoisie.  It is always necessary, however, to discuss what lessons we can learn.

Despite the relative success of the Governing parties there is general dissatisfaction and disaffection among many people.  That this was mainly expressed in votes for independents was a judgement on Sinn Fein.  That Sinn Fein failed to make the gains it expected while People before Profit/Solidarity stood still and didn’t increase its vote significantly is a judgement on it.

That PbP TD Paul Murphy indicated on RTE1 that a possible drop in votes was less important than a gain in seats indicates a left so mired in electoralism that its claimed ideological foundations are no guide to its actions.  It claims that it ‘sees elections as a way to build struggle’, but in reality it supports struggles in order to build itself and its primary goal in building itself is to win elections.

Its main strategy has thus been to work towards the creation of a ‘left Government’.  This only makes sense if Sinn Fein can be seen as a constituent part of this.  I have previously argued that the reformist programme of the left is no barrier to it being part of a ‘left’ government, which can be called ‘left’ because it isn’t going to be socialist or a workers’ government.  PbP/Solidarity is only on 2 – 3 per cent in opinion polls and elections so it very obviously needs something much bigger outside to make this remotely credible.

Enter Sinn Fein, and also exit Sinn Fein.  Just before the elections it was reported that the Party had travelled to London with financial firm Davy to give a briefing to ‘investors’.  Davy stated that ‘Sinn Fein does not plan to fundamentally change Ireland’s economic policy’ and noted that “overall, Sinn Fein’s approach from an economic standpoint is more ‘New Labour’ than ‘Corbyn Labour’.”  If this didn’t sink the credibility of a left Government as the way forward, then the recent election results certainly have.

These elections had a turnout of just over 50 per cent while the 2020 general election turnout was 63 per cent.  The next election will even on this basis be different, and some of the trends noted above will build up trouble if they continue.  What it will not be, however, is the opportunity to make the objective of a ‘left’ Government either credible or, more importantly, make it the central objective of those seeking to build a working class alternative.

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