IRELAND: A
ban on trade union donations to the Labour Party will not benefit
anyone other than the enemies of the working class and the organised
working class in particular.
The Green Party leader John Gormley has announced that the ban is to be
introduced, alongside a ban on corporate donations, so much for the
Green Party’s veneer of radicalism. This “radicalism” has become very
stale and particularly mouldy also. Of course the proposed legislation
is designed to appear even handed.
But the truth of the matter is that the link between Labour
and the working class is potentially very important and the bourgeois
understand that very well.
The Irish Times 26/7/10 reports:
“Is it really good for our society if the unions are hand-in-glove with the Labour Party and dictating policy?
“The
Croke Park agreement, which, extraordinarily, Labour did not publicly
back because of a possible backlash from some of their donor unions,
shows that public service reform is possible and indeed long overdue.
If Labour had been in power it might never have happened.”
What
does this mean? Could it be that the Greens are trying to protect the
poor old Labour Party Leadership from angry workers? Of course they are
not. Could it be that the bosses are worried about workers moving into
political action and putting pressure on the Labour Leaders to take the
lead in fighting the crisis? Sure, now maybe we are getting a bit
warmer. Could it be that they are frightened of the consequences of
Labour in power, potentially as the biggest party in a coalition,
coming under pressure to take action to defend workers? We think that’s
much more likely.
While
there are some on the left in Ireland who deny that the workers would
move through their traditional organisations, it’s clear that the
bosses don’t want to take the risk.
On
the other hand given the generally low level of political knockabout
that the FF and Greens generally stoop to, there’s a distinct
likelihood that the coalition are merely after scoring some petty
political points, claiming the Eamon Gilmore is tied hand and foot to
Liberty Hall.
The
reality is quite different. Gilmore and the Labour leaders have
consistently dithered over the key political issues. In truth what’s
needed is more pressure on the labour leaders and a greater input from
the trade union membership. If Labour is going to win the next general
election and it is not impossible that it could win a majority, then it
needs to develop a political programme that corresponds to the
aspirations and the interests of working people.
In
other words Labour needs a bold Socialist Programme and it needs to
build a mass membership drawn from the factories and estates, from the
offices and the agricultural workers. Capitalism has created a huge
crisis in Ireland. The task for the most active workers in the movement
has to be to strengthen the political edge of the movement and turn it
out towards the working class.
