Irish elections: another setback for the hard left

14 Responses to “Irish elections: another setback for the hard left”

1. Mark

   on May 29th, 2007 at 15:09

   I would be careful of generalisms…Each case highlighted different failures organisationally, politically, personnel, etc. In Ireland it may be a return to the FF vs FG/Labour of the 60s to mid 90s reasserting itself.

   True the Irish results are disappointing, but the PDs were wiped out – About time too!

   Disappointing that the Socialist Party didn’t hold on to one seat and gain another, but…Ireland has been waiting for a Left breakthrough since about…1922! I won’t hold my breath just yet. I am hoping that the Greens and parties to the Left of Labour can form an electoral agreement in future and challenge FF, FG and Labour.

2. andy newman

   on May 29th, 2007 at 15:24

   Coming after the wipeout of both the Scottish Socialist Party and Solidarity in the Scottish elections, and the far left’s loss of ground in the French presidential contest, the Irish results underline just how hostile the climate is for revolutionary socialism right now.

   This is an exagerated conclusion, especially as it raises the whole question of what is a “revolutionary” socialist.

   Dave needs to be much more meaured in jumping to a conclusion, the electoral results prove only that in the conutries being looked at, the hard left are not very electorally successful. We are neither closer or farther from “revolutionary” socialism than we were 5 or 10 years ago. What we are further away from is winning elections in the English speaking world.

   Although the social democratic parties have moved to the right, generally accross Europe the broadly progressive social democratic base has been maintained, although less likely to turn out to vote (and 10% of Labour party members voted for another party in the local elections!)

   What is more, there is growing articulation of opposition to neo-liberlaism by trade unions.

   For example look at the Norwegian example, where the unions demanded commitment to returning services into public ownsership as a precondition for supporting candidates.

   An excessivley electoral focus leads to too much elation and too much depression based upon quite marginal swings in voting numbers.

3. Red Deathy

   on May 29th, 2007 at 15:35

   Andy,

   In Ireland, though, those aren’t slight swings, it’s an ongoing and thumping majority for the centre right (FF + FG) – maybe Labour might now be tempted to break out of the cul-de-sac of FG-tailing, but maybe not.

4. Last of the Blairites

   on May 29th, 2007 at 16:04

   In Ireland the left – in the very broadest sense from the remaining social democrats of Fine Gael onwards – has no alternative narrative to the FF consensus of “tax cuts equals big growth and a rising tide lifts all boats”.

   The country doubles in wealth every decade and unless the left has some way to make itself relevant in that debate it loses and badly.

   This time round the “Alliance for Change” (ie FG + Labour) attempted to make public services the central issue but because they knew they couldn’t promise a rise in taxes to pay for it (as that is electoral suicide given where the voters think the wealth comes from) they fell to pieces in the final 10 days.

   There is also a strong Irish particularism here. Centuries of poverty and colonialism and a chronic weakness of the Labour Movement means that the attitude of “I’ve got mine and to hell with the begrudgers” runs deep in the Irish psyche. I think you could make the case quite convincingly that it has had merely 3 – 5 years of centre-left government in the 80+ years since independence

5. andy newman

   on May 29th, 2007 at 16:05

   I am not sure what point you are making Red Deathy.

   There has been a lot of detailed discussion on this at the first class Cedar Lounge blog.

   From what I can gather, with regard to the hard left, very marginal shifts in votes did cost the SP their TD, and as Osler points out just 20 second preferences could have won them another seat! And Sinead Cusack’s little boy might have won Dun Laoghaire with just a few more votes.

   By any definition these are slight swings.

   I also understand that the shinners came very close to gaining a seat they didn’t hold before (Galway)

   Now over all, the electioon shows us that Iirlaend is basically a centre right to right country.

   But that still doesn’t justify Dave’s extrapolating from the result, and bundling it up with the Engish, Scottosh and French electiosn into some grand narrative of pessimism.

   heaven knows i am pessimistic enough myself, which is whay i can see dave has gone too far.

6. Last of the Blairites

   on May 29th, 2007 at 16:09

   And, yes the PDs getting the bum’s rush was a small ray of light, though you gotta love McDowell for his put down of Gerry Adams’s hypocrisy – in the TV debate Adams claimed he was only living on an average industrial wage. McDowell then asked him how he managed to own a holiday home worth about a million euro then. To which Adams replied it “own by the bank”. McDowell – quick as flash – “the Northern Bank?”

   It was the first time in many years that anybody has landed a punch on Adams and it was in the George Foreman class.

7. Last of the Blairites

   on May 29th, 2007 at 16:28

   Incidentally, Clare daly was eliminated from the count by 2 votes, she did not lose the seat by 2 votes. She probably would have performed even worse than the Labour candidate in that regrard. And yer man in Dun Laoghaire was almost 2k shy of the quota in the final count, so I don’t know where you got the idea that he could have won from.

   Speaking personally I don’t regard SF as part of the left

8. andy newman

   on May 29th, 2007 at 17:33

   LOTB

   Firtsly, Richard BB is certiaily not my man.

   Neither is it here nor there whether you regard PSF as part of the left or not.

   The point I am making is that in this election, as in the Scottish election, the majority of voters followed the big battalians. The Irish system is further complicated by STV, so a party like PSF that doesn’t do very well on transfers is underrepresented compared to its first preference tally.

   Therefore relatively small absolute numbers of voters make the difference for the minor parties of either gaining seats or oblivion.

   The overall conclusion to which is that the vagaries of this or that election aside, you cannot really put too much strength on whether Joe Higgins is elected as a TD or not.

9. Last of the Blairites

   on May 29th, 2007 at 19:03

   Reading Andy Newman’s remarks above I am reminded of the famous joke about St Andrews Uni, where a hung over Glaswegian staggers into the lecture theatre and asks yer man next to him “What’s the time Jim?” Only to get the reply “It’s James, actually, and it’s five past nine.”

   Someone else explain it to him.

10. Southpawpunch

    on May 29th, 2007 at 21:06

    I’m afraid that the phrase, from Dave, that this result (shows) ‘just how hostile the climate is for revolutionary socialism right now’ can’t pass without comment.

    I don’t know about Dave but as an international socialist, I’m not going to get upset about the electoral results for 0.06 (Ireland) of the world’s population or even 0.15% (Scotland) or 1% (France). (All figures approx.)

    I’m not suggesting the climate for revolutionary socialism is good anywhere so I wouldn’t mention that, for example, in the Netherlands (0.25% of the world’s population) a Left of the Labour Party (whose equivalent, is the PvdA) called the Socialist Party has 25 out of 150 parliamentary seats as being significant.

    But I’d say generalisms never work. So, also, translated from the Irish, “I’ve got mine and to hell with the begrudgers” could be heard, or the sentiment implied could be seen, in many different languages.

    Away with the non-scientific blarney, all remains to be played for.

11. chris Paul

    on May 30th, 2007 at 08:58

    Grounds for not allowing a second recount seem ridiculous – unless that is an express provision in the electoral law there. Though now I notice it was an elimination not a near election.

    Andy Newman’s point that 10% of Labour members voted for other parties comes with no source but is also a bit of a bald statement. While he implies they voted to their left for fun they are more likely to have voted to their right (the Libs) to try to stop Tories. And in many cases may have had no LP candidate in their ward, parish or whatever.

    In the Netherlands Southpawpunch are this left party to the left of the McDonnell SCG? Or merely left of Blair’s Dutch cousins?

12. Alan Inkpin

    on May 30th, 2007 at 11:55

    I remember a discussion held in my local Labour Party branch after the 1987 general election to discuss why the Tories had won an increased majority.

    A right wing Councillor said something that applies equally to the political situation in Southern Ireland as well as England.

    He said that people will only learn about the need for socialism when things are very bad in the economy as happened during the Great Depression.

    The coming crash in the UK economy is discussed by Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson in their recenty published book : Fantasy Island:

    http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/WEBSITE/WWW/WEBPAGES/search.php?key=Fantasy%20Island&by=title

    The same description can be applied to Southern Island.

13. orla drohan

    on May 31st, 2007 at 14:30

    Looks like many in the Labour Party have finally realised their error in playing monkey to Enda Kenny’s organ grinder. Not only was it a bad election for labour – but they may not even get into coalition government now (the raison d’etre of the labour party). Labour hack David Leach in todays Irish Times comes to the conclusion that the party should concentrate on “a modern social democratic message different from that offered by Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael”. What would this “modern social democratic message” look like? Why the British New Labour Project of course! Leach underlines that this project has won elections for labour in Britain.

    Whatever about the labour party’s frustrated desire for office, the space for election candidates to the left of labour got squeezed by the popularity contest between Fianna Fail on the one hand and a false “opposition” on the other which the labour party helped construct and which only succeeded in breathing life into Fine Gael.

14. Dave

    on May 31st, 2007 at 14:44

    Hi Orla, nice to hear from you.