Monthly Archives: December 2024

Nationalism planning for a United Ireland

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The Belfast paper – The Irish News – has a column every Saturday by Patrick Murphy that regularly flagellates Sinn Fein for its hypocrisy and incompetence, sectarianism and corruption, its elevation of the cause of a united Ireland over a united people, and the constitutional question over questions of economic and social equality and poverty. Most of all it is criticised for its nationalism, even its betrayal of it through its recognition of the legitimacy of the ‘two traditions’ in Ireland, which translates as two nations and thereby betrays its own stated goal of a united nation.

Sinn Fein is not the only target and the SDLP and Southern parties get a lashing now and then as well.  It’s a bit repetitive, even if accurate in its own way, and his style can sometimes be irritating.  Anyway, the irony is that for all his economistic denunciations of nationalism, he is actually a bigger nationalist than the SDLP, Southern parties and Sinn Fein.

His bête noir is the European Union, which he sees as robbing Ireland of its sovereignty with Irish membership akin to allying with the British Empire against Germany in World War I, betraying Connolly’s entreaty to ‘serve neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland’. Of course, he has no difficulty is demonstrating the imperialist character of the EU and its current complicity in the imperialist and Zionist genocide in Palestine etc.  But he is no Marxist and so is unable to appreciate that his belief in a sovereign independent Ireland is a pipe-dream; a reactionary attempt to turn the clock back to a world of independent nation states that also ironically never existed and will never exist.  A recent article by Boffy sets out what is going on here.

By coincidence the Saturday issue of The Irish Times has an article by the Taoiseach Simon Harris setting out the need for the Irish State to defend its current success from the potentially devastating effects of a Trump presidency through some sort of ‘diplomatic offensive’.  This can only involve reminding Trump of how useful the Irish state is for the United States – “Ireland’s offering is one that speaks to Trump . . .”  Since what speaks to Trump most of all is willing and obsequious servility, the Irish are well practised in ingratiating themselves with US presidents, getting the opportunity to do so every St Patricks day with a ridiculously over-sized bowl of shamrock.  What handing over the bowl by the Irish Taoiseach symbolises is the handing over of the country to its true and ultimate chieftain.

The idea of Patrick Murphy that Ireland could genuinely be an independent and sovereign state, against the United States and outside of the European Union, is so divorced from reality it has been abandoned by every other Irish nationalist party.  Irish socialists should not take on the burden of trying to claim it and should instead recognise the ending of the era of nation states as heralding the ending (very painful ending) of capitalist nation states and inevitably of the nationalist ideology that is sustained by them.

The decline of nation states and agglomeration of super-states and imperialist alliances, demonstrated by the US and China and by NATO and BRICS, is an expression of the development of the productive forces of capitalism upon which the possibility of socialism rests.  The intensifying competition and rivalry between these imperialist states and their alliances poses an existential challenge to the interests of the working class, which, as Marx said, has no fatherland but can only assert its interests as an international class.

This means opposition to imperialist war, which currently means opposition to the imperialist conflict in Ukraine and the country’s proxy war on behalf of western imperialism against Russia.  It means rejecting the idea that an old slogan, and one not understood, of self-determination can be proclaimed as justification for supporting one or other side of this imperialist rivalry and the war it has generated.

That consciousness, including political consciousness, often lags behind economic and social development is nothing new and partly explains why many on the left have become enthusiasts for one imperialist alliance or the other.  This leads to hypocritical claims of opposition to oppression by the other side while ignoring the oppression of the favoured imperialism.  So, for example, the United States is claimed to be the key enemy of the working class of the whole world, including of Russia and China, while the role of these states in oppressing their own working class is a “separate question”, as one apologist for these states put it to me.

But let’s get back to the Murphy column in The Irish News.  He notes the recent ‘plan’ by Sinn Fein minister Conor Murphy to create 10,000 new student places centred on Derry.  He notes that it is based not on the purpose of new university facilities and what their wider role might have for development but mainly on where they will be sited.  Along with nearly all Stormont ‘plans’ it doesn’t have the money behind it to make it happen but promises to at least have some.  In this respect it is better than the new Health Service three year plan, recently announced while the first year was already three-quarters over and which promised new stuff if it had the money and cuts in the meantime.  This didn’t stop it being welcomed.

One of the many criticisms of the Conor Murphy plan was that it was a Northern Ireland plan that will reach full fruition by 2032, by which time his party leader has promised that Northern Ireland will not exist! Oh dear, nationalists revealing that they don’t believe their own hype?  I have to admit I almost laughed out loud.

Sinn Fein has been banging the drum on the ‘conversation’ about a united Ireland for years, demanding that the Irish government and everyone else start planning for it, lest the project suffer from the same lack of preparation as Brexit.  And here it is presiding over plans that ignore it!  Repeated calls for plans are followed by silence and their complete absence. Why? Because any plans would immediately confront obstacles that no one wants to talk about; assurances no one would believe, and promises that would invite the response of ‘why don’t you do that now then?’

Behind the empty rhetoric is the reality that nationalism itself has nothing to offer, which the utterly incapable Stormont regime has demonstrated in spades.  For socialists, the national question and a united Ireland is an Irish democratic revolution which cannot promise radical economic and social advance outside of an accompanying socialist revolution. All the limitations to an independent and united Ireland set out above would apply.

At most it is the act of uniting the country alone that would be justified as a democratic advance itself and during ‘the Troubles’ this was how it was implicitly understood.  Now, it is claimed by nationalists that it will have all sorts of other economic and social benefits that Sinn Fein says everyone else must plan for but which it can’t convincingly demonstrate exist and can’t plan for itself.  Instead, what political arrangements that are touted are flimsy and insubstantial – a new flag or national anthem – or actually undemocratic – some mechanism to guarantee continuing unionist power and influence.

All around us we see the pervasiveness of nationalist thinking and the failings of its nostrums.

First steps for the left in the new Dáil

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When the Dáil met following the general election the order of business included the nomination of a new Taoiseach and the position of a new Ceann Comhairle (Speaker of the Dáil).  The latter became part of the horse-trading between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and the Independent group of TDs (who are FF/FG in all but name) so that the three of them could form a stable administration.  With no principled difference between any of them the issues were all about divvying up the spoils of office, which included the role of Ceann Comhairle.  This comes with a salary of €255,000 a year, which is greater than that of the Taoiseach.

The Independent group let it be known that this was one bauble that they wanted and the two main parties thought about it.  Their wish was granted and their nominee, Verona Murphy, was approved following, rather appropriately, the proposal of Michael Lowry.  Murphy had previously lost the support of Fine Gael as a candidate following remarks about asylum seekers needing to be “deprogrammed”, as they may have been “infiltrated by Isis”, and further comments claiming that Isis had “manipulated children as young as three or four”.  Lowry had long ago been removed as a candidate of the Fine Gael party following a number of scandals.

This has passed without much fuss as par for the course for bourgeois politics in Ireland. Unfortunately, the Socialist Party TD Ruth Coppinger missed the point by stating that “in rallying behind its selection for Ceann Comhairle, it could be the first and last rally for women that the next government is likely to do when it comes in.”  The point of Murphy being the first woman to be elected Ceann Comhairle was really beside the point, but pretending to make it so reflected the influence of identity politics on Coppinger and the Irish left.

More importantly, Coppinger registered her abstention on the more significant business of the nomination of Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Fein as the new Taoiseach, “simply because we do not have a real prospect of an alternative government.”  It is beyond doubt that Coppinger will vote many times over her next few years in the Dáil on motions that will have no chance of being passed or against others she will have no chance of stopping. Why is this an obstacle now?

If her rationale was a cop-out, People before Profit’s support for a Sinn Fein Taoiseach made no sense at all.  Its leader, Richard Boyd Barrett, stated that “People Before Profit will be supporting the nomination of Deputy Mary Lou McDonald, not because we agree with Sinn Féin – we disagree with it on many things, not least its refusal to rule out coalition with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael – but because we believe parties on the left have an obligation to end 100 years of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and put together the first left-wing government this State has ever seen.”

Besides the absurdity of supporting an alternative government based on a party you do not agree with, or doing so on the assumption that this is a ’party of the left’ – what exactly constitutes being left-wing? – how could this party ‘put together the first left-wing government this State has ever seen”? So focused and fixated is People before Profit on ‘ending 100 years of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael government’ that what it is replaced with appears to be utterly secondary – even admitting Sinn Fein’s potential to go into coalition with either (or both?) of them anyway!

If Coppinger’s remarks were an admission of failure of the ‘left-wing government’ project, Richard Boyd Barrett’s were a judgement on the retrograde consequences of pretending to pursue it in circumstances in which it is impossible.  The only good thing in this case about writing a blank cheque for a Sinn Fein government is that it cannot cash it.  While Coppinger cops out on what is a question of principle – what sort of administration a Sinn Fein Taoiseach would preside over? – Boyd Barrett votes in principle for a principle he cannot possibly support – a Sinn Fein Taoiseach leading a government that is not committed to opposing either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael participation within it.

The whole performance is political theatre, which – with the season that is in it – is a pantomime.  Grubby deals accompany political posturing that reflects no good on any of the participants and is of no educational value at all to workers looking in.

People before Profit’s Paul Murphy says “What should the left do now? Rule out coalition with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and put forward left-wing policies”; except the first has been determined irrelevant by the recent election while ‘putting forward left-wing policies’ begs the question of what is meant by ‘left-wing’ and what is meant by ‘policies’?

People before Profit stood on a manifesto saying that “The first step in bringing about fundamental change will be the formation of a Left Government – one that excludes FF and FG.”  That is now stuffed, with no elections likely for a few years, even were it the case that working class struggle should revolve round them, or that it need start with the actions of TDs in the Dáil.  Were we now to take them at their word we would have to wait to the next general election to take “the first step in bringing about fundamental change.”

Such change does not come from parliament, not from ‘left’ governments and not even from the state, which People before Profit seems to pretend is governed by the first two.  The first step is never the action of ‘left’ governments, parliaments or the capitalist state but from the independent action of the working class.

It is not the role of the ‘left’ to lead in the Dáil while the working class is a supporting act outside.  Some part of the People before Profit thought process knows all this but has not the first idea how to operationalise it.  Even were it only able to identify it at a very general level, it would be a good first step to doing the first thing about it, a good New Year’s resolution perhaps.

A beautiful wonderful victory in Syria?

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Photo: OMAR HAJ KADOUR/AFP/Getty Images

The sudden and ignominious collapse of Bashar al-Assad revealed an utterly bankrupt regime so hollowed out that its army would not fight for it, its Russian and Iranian supporters could not save it, and it prepared for its own collapse by reportedly transferring $250mn to Moscow. Its passing is no cause for mourning, but it is no cause for rapturous celebration either.

The overthrow was achieved mainly by the reactionary Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) and other militia groups, including the Turkish-sponsored Syrian National Army (SNA).  HTS is the previous al-Qaeda affiliate in the country and its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, is still subject to a bounty of $10mn by the US while the HTS is considered a terrorist organisation.

This hasn’t stopped western imperialist governments from swiftly moving to recognise the regime.  Why wouldn’t they, since they did so much to enable its victory?  Unlike some simpletons on the left who have welcomed the fall of the Assad regime, the imperialist powers recognise that this involves putting someone else in his place.

Now the Western media is questioning the designation of HTS as terrorist and Abu Mohammed al-Jolani as a wanted man.  The BBC has carried articles – ‘From Syrian jihadist leader to rebel politician: How Abu Mohammed al-Jolani reinvented himself.’  In reality, reinvention is only possible with the connivance of the Western media, such as the BBC itself.

The state broadcaster was only following its government, which has promptly raised the possibility of taking HTS off the terrorism list.  The US also moved quickly to claim that it had made “direct contact” with HTS, as if this was something new, as a start to securing the stability of imperialist interests. The EU announced it would meet the new government to ensure “it goes in the right direction” while threatening Georgia (which has actually had elections) with possible sanctions. It appears some elections are bad and some terrorists are good.

The reported role of Ukraine in assisting the Islamist victory is a pertinent reminder of its role as an ally of Western imperialism, previously in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and Mali.  This may seem unsurprising, but it hardly corresponds to the pretence of the country as an innocent bystander, forced into a purely defensive war.  If Russia is successfully expelled from Syria, how will this advance the particular interests of Ukraine? Where might all the expelled Russian forces be deployed to?

The role of Ukraine is also a reminder how quickly and successfully western imperialism kisses the frog and makes a handsome prince.  In Ukraine the neo-Nazi Azov movement, subject to US sanctions, became freedom fighters when they received US weapons.  HTS is well on the road to such beatification.

Most importantly, the role of Ukraine illustrates the overthrow of Assad as an episode in a wider inter-imperialist conflict that is setting light to different hot wars that threaten to escalate into a single world-wide catastrophe.  On one side, Western imperialism illustrates its ‘progressive’ credentials through support for Islamist reactionaries while, on the other, ‘anti-imperialist’ certificates are endorsed by support for a vile dictatorship, the establishment of military bases on the Mediterranean, and facilitating the robbing of the country by the fleeing dictator.

The left supporters of a ‘multipolar’ world have the inevitable results of this project thrown in their faces – a world of competing and antagonistic imperialist rivalries in which war is inescapable.  Syria is dramatic demolition of the illusions contained in support for a multipolar world within which there are unipolar states.  The multipolar dismemberment of Syria is the multipolar world writ small.

Yet somehow, compared to others on the left, even these illusions seem half sane.  For these others, this world-wide inter-imperialist conflict is so circumscribed and defined by their support for Ukraine that it becomes no more than background noise.  Their effective capitulation to Western imperialism arrives via the road of bourgeois democracy, or the claims made for it, that they extol even as its content is evacuated in reality.  This now reaches grotesque levels in their support for the overthrow of Assad that in linear fashion tail ends Western imperialism.

Even the ideologues of imperialism offer a more accurate and honest view of the HTS than this left.  Foreign Policy notes that they are “cut from the same cloth as Assad” and that protesters against their regime in Idlib who described Jolani as a “tyrant . . . were directed to mass graves of those killed inside prisons—eerily resembling allegations against the Assad government.”

“In Syria it is kind of a monster-versus-monster conflict,” said Aron Lund, fellow with Century International. “Ordinary Syrians don’t have any choice in regard to who rules them. Groups come to their area with guns, and people just have to get along. Depending on who you are and where you are, either Assad or HTS may have pockets of support, but neither side allows any real free expression or elections.”

HTS success was achieved with the assistance of its many foreign Jihadi fighters and was at least partly the result of Turkish and US sponsorship.  It was accompanied by and enabled another invasion by the Zionist state with massive destruction of the weapons and military facilities of the Syrian state.  All this leaves no room for repeating false phrases about ‘self-determination’ as employed in support for Ukraine.  Neither can Islamic fundamentalism be held up as some sort of democratic movement of any kind.

An interview with a Swiss Syrian, Joseph Daher, posted by this left, notes that “We have to face the hard fact that there is a glaring absence of an independent democratic and progressive bloc that is able to organize and clearly oppose the Syrian regime and Islamic fundamentalist forces.”

He goes no to say that “Looking at HTS and SNA’s policies in the past, they have not encouraged a democratic space to develop, but quite the opposite. They have been authoritarian.”

Yet on Facebook, two of the pro-war and pro-Ukraine left said this about the events in Syria:

“Assad is gone! Victory beautiful wonderful victory to see a tyrant crushed like that. Damascus is under the control of the rebels.” 

And:

“The butcher Assad’s departure to Moscow is a great day for the Syrian people and it is hard to conceive of a new government which could be more brutal, reactionary and corrupt. The hope is that the urban movement which nearly brought down the dictatorship is able to take power.”

A “beautiful wonderful victory” for Islamic fundamentalism, one sponsored by Western imperialism and accompanied by another invasion by Israel! 

“A great day for the Syrian people” –how more wonderful could it be?  How greater a day could the Syrian people enjoy than to be subject to the rule of Islamic fundamentalists?

In the interview, Joseph Daher says that ‘Only the self- organization of popular classes fighting for democratic and progressive demands will create that space and open a path toward actual liberation” but that “the main obstacle has been, is, and will be the authoritarian actors, previously the regime, but now many of the opposition forces, especially the HTS and SNA; their rule and the military clashes between them have suffocated the space for democratic and progressive forces to democratically determine their future.”

So where does the “hope” come from that “the urban movement which nearly brought down the dictatorship is able to take power” as a result of this new “main obstacle”?

Daher goes on to say something that the left supporters of Ukraine, and now Islamist rebels, have set themselves against: “To choose one imperialism over another is to guarantee the stability of the capitalist system and the exploitation of popular classes.”

There are many ways of arriving at this, but celebrating the victory of HTS throws all the light you need in order to see the even greater betrayal involved in supporting Ukraine and its war to join NATO.

The Irish general election (2 of 2) – what lies beneath

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When five political commentators were asked for the main moment of the election campaign, they all mentioned the TikTok Taoiseach’s snubbing of a disability care worker when he was on one of his many walkabouts.  It “cut through” to the public, as the saying goes, and probably did lower the Fine Gael vote a little.  However, in the grand scheme of things all it demonstrated was the irrelevance of the campaign, which has been described as a non-event.  Unlike recent general elections in many other countries, the incumbents were returned to office, providing evidence of political stability that does not exist elsewhere.  This stability rests on uncertain foundations.

The election was called following a large give-away budget of tax reductions and increased state spending, followed by a campaign where everyone promised even more tax cuts and increased spending.  This included the previous austerity-merchants in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Halfway during the campaign, when Sinn Fein joined the club, Fine Gael launched hypocritical denunciations that it was about to break the “state piggy bank”.

On the surface, the only difference between the governing parties and the different varieties of opposition was how much they would spend. People before Profit claimed that their clothes were being stolen by everyone, at least for the election, while media commentators claimed that the widespread consensus on increased state intervention showed what an essentially leftwing country Ireland was.  Since PbP argues that such intervention is an expression of socialist politics these claims would be right – if PbP was also right, which it’s not.  The view of politics as a spectrum from left to right implies no fundamental difference between the government and opposition but only shades or degrees of difference.

If this didn’t provide the grounds for major change, and the existing alignment of party support made it unlikely, the most important reasons for continuity are the foundations of the state itself and the economic success that has satisfied a significant part of the population, if only on the grounds that it could be a lot worse and recently was.  The ‘left’ appeared as wanting to share the gains more equally.  Unfortunately, those seeking equality inside the Irish state have to reckon on the giant inequality outside on which it would have to be based and which determines it.

The largesse of recent budgets, and the promises of more during the election, rest on the existence of the Irish state as a tax haven where many US multinationals have decided to park their revenue for tax purposes alongside some of their real activities.  Over half of the burgeoning corporate tax receipts come from just ten companies, with the income taxes of their employees also significant.  Trump has threatened tariffs on the EU, which threatens the massive export by US pharmaceutical firms to the US, and has promised to reduce corporate taxes, which also reduces the attractiveness of the Irish state to multinational investment.  It is not so long since the shock of the Celtic Tiger crash, so very few will not be aware of the vulnerability of economic success and the finances of the state.

This vulnerability was ignored in recent budgets and election promises while the electorate is blamed for seeking short term gains that are all the political class can truthfully promise.  Failure to invest in infrastructure has weakened the state’s long term growth with the major shortfalls ranging wide, across housing, health, transport, childcare and other infrastructure such as energy and water.  This has led to calls for increased state expenditure as the existing policy of throwing money to incentivise private capital has fallen short even while the money thrown at it has mushroomed.  Bike sheds in Leinster House costing €336,000, and a new children’s hospital that had an estimated cost of €650m in 2015, but costed at €2.2 billion at the start of the year – apparently the most expensive in the world – are both examples of the results of a mixture of a booming capitalist economy and state incompetence.

The consequences are an electorate that wants change but doesn’t want or can’t conceive of anything fundamental changing.  Government and opposition differ on degree but avoid the thought of challenging the constraints their lack of an alternative binds them to.  Trump is only one of them; Irish subservience to the US has already destroyed all the blarney about Irish support for the Palestinian people.  Gestures like recognition of a corrupt Palestinian state are nauseating hypocrisy beside the secret calls to the Zionist state promising lack of real action; selling Israeli war bonds to finance genocide by the Irish central bank, and the three wise monkeys of the three government parties ignoring the use of Irish airspace to facilitate the supply of weapons employed in the genocide.

The Irish state is not in control of its destiny and its population is aware of its vulnerability.  For a left that bases itself on the capacity of the state this is a problem; involving not just the incompetence, the bottleneck constraints on real resources, and the international subservience to Western imperialism.  The fundamental problem is in seeing the state as the answer.  Were the Irish state stronger, it would have joined NATO and more directly involved itself in the war in Ukraine; it would have intensified its support to US multinationals, and perhaps been a bit better at building bike sheds and a children’s hospital.  

Parts of the left seems to think the current Irish state can oppose NATO, oppose war and perhaps tax US multinationals a bit more.  It is, however, currently on the road to effective NATO membership; is more or less unopposed in its support for Ukraine in its proxy war; and already taxes multinationals on a vastly greater scale than almost any other country I can think of. 

The left doesn’t have an alternative ‘model’ because its alternative isn’t socialist, but simply development of the state’s existing role, presided over by some sort of inchoate left government, the major distinguishing characteristic of which is that it doesn’t include Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.  This is so anaemic a strategy it avoids all the above reasons why it has minority support.

The terms in which this is popularly understood do not go in the direction of a socialist programme because of the generally low level of class consciousness, but a genuinely socialist path requires rejection of the current statist approach of ‘the left’.  That this too is currently very far away reflects not only the very low level of class consciousness but also how the forces that are responsible for this have also debased the left itself, especially the part that thinks itself really socialist.  Instead, we have the stupidities arising from the commonality of increased state intervention among all the parties repeatedly declared to be proof that Ireland is a left wing country.

These constraints explain the difficulty in creation of a left alternative to a Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael government; the fragmentation of the left and its Oliver Twist policies of simply asking for more.  There are numerous permutations possible before any purported left government would arise, with Sinn Fein, Independents, Social Democrats, Labour Party, and others all willing to go into office with either (or both) of them.  About the least likely is a ‘left’ government (in any meaningful sense) that excludes them and is composed of Sinn Fein – the austerity party in the North – and the Labour Party and Social Democrats whose whole rationale (as the good bourgeois parties that they are) is to get into office – they don’t see the purpose of being involved in politics if you don’t.

All the calls for a ‘left’ government free of the two uglies is based on the same bourgeois conceptions.  Even if only on the grounds of the Chinese proverb – to be careful what you wish for, the failure in the election to achieve such a government is not grounds for mourning, even if the result invites it.

Back to part 1

The Irish general election (1 of 2) – As you were

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A continuation of the status quo is the result of the general election in the Irish state, with the two main capitalist parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, gaining 42.7% of the first preference vote.  Falling just short of the 88 seats needed for a majority there are enough independents, who are FF and FG in everything but name, to prop them up.  The only surprise is that Fianna Fáil topped the poll, the same party written off following it presiding over State bankruptcy and Troika vassalage after the crash in 2008.

Their main opposition, Sinn Fein, gained 19% and is more than willing to go into a coalition but ‘the left’ by which it might form an alternative one is too small and fragmented, and FF or FG will only consider it as a partner if they have to, and they don’t, so this route to government participation is also closed off to it.  It has pulled its familiar trick, practised to perfection in the North, of claiming victory, which is only possible if you accept the disastrous previous local and European results as the benchmark. At one point, in the summer of 2022, an opinion poll put it on 36% but in the election its vote fell by 5.5% on the previous general election.  Beyond the various figures, it will be staying in opposition, which is not at all where it wants to be.

The third leg of the existing government – the Green Party – collapsed from 12 to only 1 seat, that of its leader who now has no followers in the Dáil. Its previous participation in office led to its complete wipe out in 2011, following its collaboration in the bail-out of the banks and imposition of austerity.  Like its fellow Green parties across Europe, its ‘left’ alternative credentials are to be taken seriously only by the terminally naïve.

On what is called ‘the left’, two parties did reasonably well in terms of their expectations.  The vestal Social Democrats gained seats and 4.8% of the vote, while the shop-worn Labour Party staged its own return from near-death by gaining seats and a 4.7% share.  They too have no justifiable route into government since FF and FG don’t need them that much and they would have little leverage on policy. They know they would likely suffer the fate of the Greens for their inevitable disappointing of the hopes of their supporters, busting the illusion that they are in some way ‘an alternative’.   The unsullied Social Democrats are relative latecomers, which will be their major USP until they see their next career move as being junior ministers, while the problem with the Labour Party is that having nine lives as a junior partner in government has required suffering the same number of deaths. It could nevertheless still be a hard habit to break but this time probably just deferred.

The People before Profit – Solidarity alliance will continue to get state-funding with 2.8% of the vote, an increase of 0.2% but with a loss of two seats from 5 to 3.  The core objective of being part of a left-alternative government to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael might be said to have been destroyed except that it never existed in the first place. Neither formally nor informally was it advanced and ‘failed’ not only because of the continuing success of the main capitalist parties, even if much reduced by historical standards, but also by the weakness and incoherence of what PbP-Sol thinks of as ‘the left’.  To its credit the Solidarity section of the alliance is less inclined to consider Sinn Fein as left but either way, the perspective of a left alternative government as a realistic alternative to the various permutations of the current bourgeois groupings has been exposed again.  State funding, speeches in the Dáil and political social-work by TDs and would-be TDs are not only not a socialist alternative but not even a credible means of achieving the PbP-Sol reformist project.

On the right, the Catholic Aontú party made an advance with two seats and 3.9% of the vote while the Independent Ireland grouping won 4 seats and 3.6%.  Beyond these more openly right-wing groups, a couple of independents made ground with anti-immigrant politics and the far-right also stood candidates in a coordinated attempt tom unite by not standing against each other.  None were elected but what was noteworthy was their presence.  They have not yet congealed into a movement with a leader and have been stymied by the absorption of the anti-immigrant message by the main bourgeois parties and independents to varying degrees.

The result then is a return to government in some form of the existing main capitalist parties and the continued exclusion of the fragmented opposition, which was always the most likely outcome and partly accounts for the reduced turnout –down from 62.9% in the 2020 election to 59.7%.  The lowest in the history of the state. Almost as many didn’t vote as will have supported the two parties dominating the government. Some commentators, and the opposition, have attempted to explain that there are bubbling undercurrents waiting to have their effect but it is better to start explaining the apparent stability before explaining that something very different is really going on.

Forward to part 2