Ireland’s crisis: prospects for Sinn Féin
Posted on Wednesday 24 November, 2010
Filed Under Ireland, Politics
RIGHT, somebody run the distinction between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael past me again. I did used to know this one, honest. Something to do with the civil war, no?
I am being a little bit flippant when I joke about the similarities between Ireland’s two major parties, but only a little bit. British imperialism on Ireland over the centuries has generated a system built around an axis of nationalism rather than class.
But for those of us who utilise the conventional left-right yardstick as our main political metric, we do seem to be presented with a case of conservative and conservativer. Or, as one joke goes, the main difference is that FG supporters tend to wash more.
Allegiance is, as much as anything else, a matter of family tradition. It all hinges on which side great granddaddy fought on between 1922 and 1924.
Nobody seriously argues today that the gap between FF and FG is wide, or that the platforms on which they stand offer far-reaching choices about the kind of society Ireland should be.
Yet this is precisely the question posed by Ireland’s economic crisis, and a good crisis should never be allowed to go to waste. One key question for the left is which social forces stand to gain, in the first place in the general election that will come in January at the latest.
There are other players on the Irish political scene. Dublin is notably represented by a Trotskyist euro-MP. Sitting in the Dáil Éireann you have got a fairly ineffectual Labour Party that has never really hit the big time, some particularly rightwing Greens, and a sprinkling of independents. And of course, there is also an outfit by the name of Sinn Féin.
Sections of the far left will be standing candidates in the coming election, and I wish the comrades well, but inevitably they are running more in hope than in expectation. The chief beneficiary of any radicalisation in the wake of the bank bailout is likely to be the Shinners, who have organised most of the protests against the government in recent days.
One pointer to what is happening is the by-election due in Donegal southwest on Thursday. Sinn Fein’s Pearse Doherty is far ahead in the polls, in a constituency that has not returned a Sinn Féin candidate for half a century. He may be denied victory by the quirks of proportional representation, but he starts as favourite.
Gerry Adams is so confident of his chances in Louth that he has stepped down from his West Belfast sinecure in the Northern Ireland Assembly to run for the seat.
With the armed struggle at the very least in abeyance, if maybe not over for evermore, members and supporters will inevitably be asking themselves exactly what Sinn Féin is for.
Sometimes described as a socialist party, it remains programmatically committed to a 32 county socialist republic. Both Republican hardliners and Marxists will agree that this orientation has not exactly been the dominant strand in the post-Good Friday Agreement years.
It is a long time since I have been a cheerleader for Mr Adams party. But if Sinn Féin turns towards the articulation of popular discontent in the south from a broadly social democratic perspective, that can only be a healthy development.
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29 Responses to “Ireland’s crisis: prospects for Sinn Féin”
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If support for the main parties is still based on old civil war sentiments I think it is also the case that Sinn Fein support is still largely drawn from those with an uncompromising hatred of all things British. I don’t think advancement of this party is at all desirable now.
This is what the Republic needs. Murderous bigoted genocidal drug running money launderers running their country. NO CHANGE. Why not try it. It worked before.
Only about 20 years out of date. Wrong, as usual, Glesga.
SF are thoroughly compromised and discredited in hard-core republican circles.
Seats of power are now as important to them as they are to any careerist politician. Certainly more so than 32 county socialist republic.
Christ, they even sack council bin men now…
A return to the armed struggle, lead, supported or even grudgingly condoned by either Adams or McGuinness is about as likely as you contributing something other than your slippery, snakey, avoid-the question-ignorant flippancy.
And as for ‘bigoted’? Fuck me, stones, houses, glass anyone?
H. Maybe in socialist circles it is time for the real armed struggle in the Republic instead of killing non Catholics in the North for the fun of it. And do stop being a prick H with your glass houses comment.
Pleading for a bail-out, or “reparations”? You decide:
http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/features/46-video/7665-irelands-crisis-should-britain-pay-reparations
Gerry Adams is to Irish republican socialism what Tony Blair was to English socialism.
While we old farts argue about which Irish nationalist party has the answer the students are in the streets again. Maybe we should be learning from them. The answer may not be with the political class anymore.
Sorry, Glesga, your stereotyped and typically ill-informed comments, not least regarding Muslims, could spring straight from a Daily Mail editorial.
While it may not be pleasant to read, it *is* I’m afraid, the truth; you *are* a bigot.
More generally, John Scott pretty much sums up the situation regarding the Republican leadership.
By quirks of proportional representation, you mean he could end up with less votes than the guy who beats him.
Let us suppose, the sake for the argument, that H and john scott’s observations are correct.
Perhaps they would like to outline what Sinn Fein could have done instead, bearing in mind the changed circumstances that occurred in Six County Republican politics after 2001.
Are we meant to believe that Republicans could still be continuing the “armed struggle”?
And if so, how ? And what exactly would that achieve?
I agree with Modernity.
Surely it will be to the benefit of Ireland as a whole if Sinn Fein concentrates on radical social struggle rather than continuing the division and bloodshed that are created through aggressive nationalist politics. Also, a continued detente in Northern Ireland is surely an essential step in creating a unified class-based politics in the province.
Don/t vote for Sein Fein my father was Irish
Their acts of individual terrorism have divided protestant and catholic workers in Northern Ireland when the real policy should
be to build working class unity in Northern Ireland,
Also the provisional i.r.a carried out kneecapping etc against people whose face did not fit.
Also they have a middle class businessclass membership as well they take on a conservative stance in rural districts.
Finally the national irish question is more complex than it seems at first. My father was from Kerry and he was opposed to a united ireland, in fact one of results of the provisional ira campaign was to turn alot of people in the republic of ireland
off the idea of a united ireland.
Last time I looked at an Irish Newspaper Labour were comfortably outpolling both FG and FF by double figures – and I doubt this has changed.
Their fundamental problem is the same as that faced by PASOK in Greece – they can comfortably win the election (at least in so far as any party can comfortably win an election under Ireland’s Byzantine PR system) but will then be forced to implement the full austerity programme imposed by the ECB and IMF on their predecessors – and Irish electors being as imbecilic (not too strong a word given the politicians they have happily voted for since 1922) as their counterparts anywhere else this will destroy Labour for a generation…
As I’ve said before the real solution is the Argentine one of defaulting on the worst loans and letting the banks die – the result would be catastrophic but can hardly be that much worse for ordinary Irish citizens than the shock treatment about to be imposed.
But can Labour suddenly convert itself to full-on Peronism given their historical phobia of nationalism – I very much doubt it.
And if you really think a gang of semi-reconstructed terrorists and gangsters are the best likely representatives of the Left in Ireland you really do need to read a book or two.
However one rather tiny consolation prize is that the Irish Greens will be completely annihilated in the next election – if only Caroline Lucas could be persuaded to join the coalition we’d soon be rid of ours as well.
By far the most sensible thing I’ve seen on Ireland’s real options recently is this post from last week’s Baseline Scenario blog:
The Debt Problems of the European Periphery
By Anders Åslund, Peter Boone and Simon Johnson
Last week’s renewed anxiety over bond market collapse in Europe’s periphery should come as no surprise. Greece’s EU/IMF program heaps more public debt onto a nation that is already insolvent, and Ireland is now on the same track. Despite massive fiscal cuts and several years of deep recession Greece and Ireland will accumulate 150% of GNP in debt by 2014. A new road is necessary: The burden of financial failure should be shared with the culprits and not only born by the victims.
The fundamental flaw in these programs is the morally dubious decision to bail out the bank creditors while foisting the burden of adjustment on taxpayers. Especially the Irish government has, for no good reason, nationalized the debts of its failing private banks, passing on the burden to its increasingly poor citizens. On the donor side, German and French taxpayers are angry at the thought of having to pay for the bonanza of Irish banks and their irresponsible creditors.
Such lopsided burden-sharing is rightly angering both donors and recipients. Rising public resentment is testing German and French willingness to promise more taxpayer funds. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s hasty and ill thought out plan to demand private sector burden sharing, but only “after mid-2013”, marks a first response to these popular demands. We should expect more.
Financial crises are actually not rare, and the rules for their resolution are clear. The fundamental insight is that huge amounts of financial losses, of seemingly real value, need to be distributed across creditors, debtors, equity holders and taxpayers. The first step is to bring the current budget deficit under control to achieve a primary balance, which both Greece and Ireland are now attempting. The second is to attract sufficient emergency funding, which the IMF and the EU essentially have done. But in neither Greece nor Ireland is that sufficient. They still have unaffordable debt burdens. Therefore, one more measure is needed, namely a reduction of the public debt.
The public debt can be contained in two ways. The first and preferable option is that the state never nationalizes private bank debt as Ireland has done. For Ireland, this opportunity has probably passed, but other countries should be warned not to make the same mistake. Kazakhstan’s refusal last year to bail out its major banks, despite strong demands from the senior creditors of these banks, has proved a far more successful path. Banks can and should go under if they have failed . The state should only defend small and medium-sized depositors.
If the state has taken on too large debt, sovereign default is the natural outcome. In their excellent book This Time Is Different, Carmen Reinhardt and Kenneth Rogoff argue that 90 percent of GDP is the highest sustainable level of public debt for a developed country. This limit is not absolute, but there is little reason to believe that Greece and Ireland would belong to the exceptions. As Germany and France so sensibly, though perhaps not very cautiously, have argued in public, the EU needs a facility for sovereign debt default.
Sovereign defaults are always contentious, but they don’t need to end in catastrophic financial collapse. This is especially so in Europe, as Lee Buchheit and Mitu Gulati have argued in a well-read paper on “How to Restructure Greek Debt,” because over 90% of these debts are issued under domestic law. Troubled nations, as part of their rescue plans, can and should introduce legislation that permits a qualified majority of creditors to change terms on outstanding sovereign and bank debt, while protecting bank deposits. Such rules could, for example, require 2/3 of non-protected creditors agree to a restructuring plan. This reduces the risk that holdouts can prevent a deal from being reached, but still gives creditors clear powers to negotiate terms.
Well-planned debt restructuring will not cause a systemic financial collapse. It is misleading to draw parallels from the chaotic liquidation of Lehman Brothers for the outcome of debt relief in Europe. The direct impact of debt relief for Greece, Ireland and others is easily measured and managed. The debtors and creditors are well known.
If Greece’s reform program included a write-down of 50% (in net present value) on its debts, and they received an additional 20% of GDP in bridge financing over the next three years, its debt burden in 2013 would be a comfortable 80% of GDP. As Greek debt already trades below face value, the total additional losses to creditors could amount to 35% of debt, or approximately 100bn euros. Ireland is smaller so total costs should be less. This debt relief could be conditional on successful implementation of IMF monitored programs, similar to traditional Paris Club debt restructurings. Fears that debt relief could spark panic selling and contagion in other debt markets can be arrested through temporary interventions by the ECB, and the EU needs to publicly declare strict criteria when debt restructuring may occur.
Opponents to debt relief for Greece and Ireland are wrong to think that Europe’s current strategy makes Europe safe from systemic collapse. The implied risk of default on Spanish, Italian and Portuguese debt rose sharply during the last month as concerns over Ireland and Greece spread, and this in turn caused yields on related bank debts to soar. The potential economic time bombs left in Europe’s periphery are growing. They can and must be resolved. Otherwise the economic and political risks might become overwhelming.
H. British so called socialists disgraced themselves by giving apologetic lip service to the IRA who were genocidal towards working class non Catholics in the North. Any unity that socialism could have had was blown in 1969. Working class and trade union leaders in the North were murdered and tortured by the so called republican/national socialists. We now have recession North and South and no chance of workers unity.
‘Murderous bigoted genocidal drug running money launderers running their country.’
Do you mean the British?
Jimmy, in all seriousness, your last remarks have stunned me! Surely even you know better than that?
The persecution, bigotry, institionalised discrimination, not to mention conditions of appalling poverty and a legacy of several hundred years of the most disgusting persecutions gave birth to the I.R.A. and, frankly, if we want to describe their methods in such moralistic terms, then tell me the difference between them and the Maquis?
And not a word, I notice, of condemnation for the acts of utter barbarism carried out by loyalists. Even the most frothing and demented republican would be hard pushed to match the atrocities of, say, the Shankhill Butchers.
Of course, I shouldn’t surprised…
resistor. It would have been helpful to the Irish if the British did run the Republic. Most Irish would perhaps be in Ireland instead of moaning about being hard done to from afar. Pity no one has told them the famine is over.
H. It is a simple fact of history that if a mob of brainless religious thugs like the IRA go on the rampage then the other mob will react. There would not have been the likes of the Shankhill Butcher if the IRA had not gone on their mission against the loyalist working class. The British did stand back and allow this to happen. They should have sorted it out immediately. In 1969 most of the urban people of Ireland were living in slums. Why did the IRA not take their campaign to the Republic.
Again, I’ll ask the question, which H and others are avoiding:
What could Sinn Fein have done instead?
In your view, should the “arm struggle” be continued, if so, how and to what end?
H. WHAT ABOUT THE NAIL BOMBS IN THE BELFAST BUS STN SHELTERS. BUSES GOING TO WORKING CLASS AREAS. WOMEN AND CHILDREN OUT SHOPPING. That seems slightly demented and before the time of the Shankill Butcher. Your veil is slipping H.
Jimmy, what on earth are you blabbering on about now?
Either you’re terminally stupid or terminally dishonest but no one is going to buy bollocks like this below
“…if a mob of brainless religious thugs like the IRA go on the rampage then the other mob will react”
Reversing the cause and effect doesn’t fool anyone with even a modicum of knowledge of Irish history.
H. You are blabbering. And with no modicum of Oirland! I note you have retrieved your Teddy fae ra pram.
Glesga, don’t you ever fancy discussing politics?
It’s kinda what we do here…
H. Labour are on course to winning a majority at the next Scottish elections. Not bad for a dead duck. We have to defeat the Lib/Cons and the SNP Tartan Tories but we are getting there. H you lefties and the BNP are kind of similar. Pedantic and lacking a sense of humour. Some Scottish news H. The SFA referees are on strike tomorrow. The first ever. Polish referees are refusing to scab. The Catholic Church are accusing the head of referees of passing on an email that is offensive to Catholics about child abuse. A nice timely diversion for the masses. There is life outside Engerland.
H, the poster we speak of is like a soiled and well read soiled copy of the Sun. Bored and ignorant/confused with politics. So just goes to the tits and sport Murdoch/Blair trained him to. The bastards even tell him this is some kind of celebrity status. Loving to be hated.
Give me a spade. I could choose to either dig up or bury his Mother. His choice. A few of us left who can rise above the front page.
I take it this is a Socialst space. Fuck knows we need that.
Get rid of soiled copies of the ‘Sun’ please.
martin. Given a choice would you know a spade from a shovel.
I despair sometimes when I see people talk about SF deriving a vote from people who all things British. Its the typical knee jerk ill-informed assessment that makes politics so hard.
People who are voting Sinn Fein dont hate Britain or the British. Its tiring to have to point this out and maybe futile to challenge such laszy thinking but thats the role of people interested in politics to do.
Please take the time to understand what you are commenting on people rather than regurgitating some half baked misconceptions.