Ireland faces the biggest crisis in
world capitalism since the 1930’s and for that reason there’s never been more
need for a socialist response to solve the problems workers face. With that in
mind, how do the Labour leadership stand up to scrutiny?
While no
doubt Eamon Gilmore will be satisfied by the latest polls that give him a 54%
per cent poll rating and Labour 29% of the Dublin vote, it seems that Labour’s
support has fallen to around 19% lagging behind the Fianna Fáil on 27%. The
Fine Gael are well ahead of both and it seems likely that Labour will end up as
the junior partner in a coalition lead by Enda Kenny.
The European
and County Council elections in 2009 revealed a shift to the left in the Dublin
area in particular. Clearly that reflects the workers drawing political
conclusions from the crisis. The Labour
leaders have prevaricated over the question of the cuts, and particularly the
public sector strikes. But periodically they have been forced to move under
pressure, for example in relation to the call for the (temporary)
nationalisation of the banks.
Despite the
lack of a socialist programme, Labour is swimming with the stream and is likely
to gain a few seats come the next general election. This represents the line of
least resistance. However, nobody should be under any illusion that a change of
government will solve all the problems. The next government will be a
government of crisis. The Irish economy, when it eventually comes out of
recession will be a government of crisis. It will be deeply indebted and will
face mass unemployment, emigration and industrial struggle as the economy goes
into an upturn. It is most likely that economy will follow more closely the
pattern of the 1980’s rather than the Celtic Tiger years.
Under these
conditions, any Labour/Fine Gael coalition would come under contradictory
pressures from the Bourgeois and the working class. There will be a
differentiation in the party and the emergence of a more critical left wing.
Gilmore has a certain standing in the party at the moment. That’s no surprise
given his standing in the polls, but there’s a country mile of difference
between riding on a wave of opposition to the government and delivering your
programme.
The lessons
of Déidre de Búrca’s resignation and the recent crisis in the Greens are that
the major party in the Coalition will rule the roost. Labour in coalition with
the Fine Gael, would be a minority partner, albeit with more seats than the
Greens and is likely to be landed with all of the more “exposed” jobs in the
cabinet.
But, there
is another way for Labour and that is to fight for a socialist alternative.
We’ve argued that the only way to solve the banking and economic crisis is for
the nationalisation of the banks under workers control and management. Also any company that threatens redundancies
must be nationalised under workers control and management. The recent decision
to ship the production of Waterford Crystal out of Ireland illustrates this
point.
The
nationalisation of big industry and the land would provide the economic basis
to solve unemployment and wage cuts at a stroke. Capitalism has no solutions
and it needs to be replace with a rational system of socialist planning under
the control of the working class. We can’t afford to pay for the bosses’
crisis.
The
best activists in the Labour Youth and the Labour Party and more importantly at
this stage in the unions are looking for a socialist solution to the problems
in Irish society. Its our role to try and link up with them and build a genuine
Marxist tendency that can help to accelerate that process.
