Almost as important as a correct political programme in approaching the fuel protests is an accurate analysis of them – what sort of movement was it?
People before profit were clear that it ‘supports these protests’ but wanted ‘to go further’ and to ‘deepen the movement.’ Moreover, the politics of it were basically sound – ‘The basic demand is right!’
The protests themselves and the movement that created them were to be supported, and although PbP criticised the role of the far right, it asserted ‘let’s keep coming back to the real issue of unbearable price increases and where they come from.’ The point of this article is that the question that we started with is not one that can be skirted by ‘coming back’ to what provoked it; it is the correct response to the protests which is the question posed.
People before Profit were impressed by the fact that ‘for several days Ireland has seen some of the most militant protests in years: roads blocked, fuel depots and the Whitegate refinery targeted, fuel supplies thrown into chaos.’ It justified them by saying that ‘protest to be effective must be disruptive and polarising.’
In fact, the purpose of protesting is not to polarise – that may be a consequence – the intention is to win support, not to polarise it. And the same is true of being disruptive. Blockading Whitegate oil refinery helped create shortages of fuel supplies but it was unlikely the ultimate purpose of bringing the state to a standstill would have been widely supported. Its immediate purpose was to gain control and the question then becomes who is gaining it? What is the character of the protest movement achieving it? The same question arises in supporting ‘militancy’. The north of Ireland has undergone a huge number of very militant protests over many years and quite a few of them were entirely reactionary.
People before Profit say enough about this movement to point to a problem with simply wishing for it ‘to go further’ or to ‘deepen’ it. ‘We also have to be honest about the class character of these protests. This movement is led by people who own companies, employ workers and have access to expensive machinery.’
It was not therefore a movement led by the working class. ‘Some of the most visible leaders have made racist, misogynistic and homophobic statements publicly’ and ‘some of the loudest figures attaching themselves to these protests are cheerleaders for Trump, for racism, and in some cases for Israel.’ That is, they were supporters of those that caused the war that caused the fuel price increases.
PbP goes on to say that ‘Though workers and farmers are present in numbers, they are not dictating the pace or demands at this stage . . . many working class people [are] looking on sympathetically, in some cases inspired by the militancy of the protests. This has happened because the movement of organised workers, the trade union movement, has completely failed to give any lead on the cost-of-living crisis. In that vacuum, people will turn to whoever appears willing to fight.’
So, what we have is a movement of the petty bourgeoisie whose ‘most visible leaders’ are reactionaries but which has the working class ‘looking on sympathetically.’ This is not therefore a movement to be supported, to be deepened, or taken further. It is one to be exposed and challenged so that workers stop being onlookers and take matters into their own hands.
PbP itself puts one thing correctly: ‘a movement dominated by small business owners and owner-drivers, with far-right figures hovering at its edges, cannot win the demands that working people actually need’ – but this conflicts with its perspective of ‘supporting these protests’, wanting ‘to go further’, and to ‘deepen the movement.’ What was needed was an entirely different movement.
It attempted to defend its approach by stating that ‘The answer is not to sneer at that militancy. It is to deepen it, broaden it, root it in working class demands, defend it from repression, and stop reactionaries from hijacking it. We should take inspiration from the fact that the current disruption is forcing the government to act.’
The problems with this defence were that it was not working class militancy that was in evidence and what militancy there was, including in the movement that actually existed, should not have been deepened and broadened. Its class character had to be changed, which could not be done simply by attaching oneself to it, but only by creating an entirely separate one to it.
The article we quoted in the first part of this post that approved of People before Profit’s approach points to the experience of some socialists in the protests in France by the gilets jaunes and their engagement with it in order to ‘address the proletarian elements of the movement specifically.’ Unfortunately, its author has to recognise that when PbP TD Paul Murphy visited a protest in Dublin to offer support he was harangued and sent on his way by protesters that were described as ‘political grifters trying to drag this movement in a poisonous direction.’
This article criticises Sinn Féin for one of its members being photographed with a far-right figure supporting the protests, but seeking to deepen and broaden the movement would have seen People before Profit do the same. They would be standing beside the ‘political grifters.’ What would have prevented Paul Murphy being sent away, and framed any photograph as a right wing figure getting photographed with Paul Murphy, would have been him turning up at the protest with a couple of hundred workers with their own demands challenging the ‘poisonous direction’ being taken. But this begs the question.
People before Profit arrived at the wrong perspective because it sought to hitch a ride on the ‘sympathy’ that many workers had for the protests. It saw an opportunity and sought to harness it. In other words, it was an example of its opportunist politics: seeking a quick short-term gain at the expense of an immediately more difficult defence of principle that its correct characterisation of the reactionary leadership of the protests should have led it to.
It did state that ‘We must demand that our unions enter the fight. . . . . The unions have the membership, the resources and the leverage to force real change on the cost of living. It is time to use them.’ Unfortunately, the unions were too busy getting ready for a new pay agreement with the government. PbP called on ‘every trade union branch, every shop steward, every community organisation should be discussing what action can be taken and building for it now’, but this is precisely one role that PbP itself should play, not simply demand it of others.
The electoralism of PbP and its orientation to an NGO form of campaigning meant it had helped set up an ‘Affordable Ireland Campaign’, except it proved irrelevant. Even the British socialist who hailed its intervention acknowledged that this ‘was not given serious thought before the rush to support the blockades.’
He also acknowledges the leading role of reactionaries in the protests, ‘far-right figures were providing digital signal boosting, rhetorical defiance, and organisational presence that kept the blockades in place after the initial wave of genuine industrial grievance had done its work.’ ‘This movement is led by people who own companies, employ workers and have access to expensive machinery.’ Like PbP he does not examine the importance of the movement having no coherent and democratic character while saying that workers ‘are not dictating the pace or demands at this stage.’
Yet, while he praises People before Profit’s political demands; notes the reactionary leadership of the protests so that workers did not ‘dictate the demands’, and that ‘the political character of the movement’s organisational core was not incidental to its demands’, he leaves aside that PbP supported them. Even if he were right – and he’s not – about a ‘movement whose base was genuinely working-class’, it would only signal that the far-right had taken leadership of a working class struggle, a position which he appears to reject despite, and not because, of his analysis. This would have been a bigger problem than the working class simply being onlookers.
Back to part 1
Sráid Marx 