Ireland: The decision of the Workers and Unemployed Action Group to withdraw
from the United Left Alliance is an unwelcome symptom of the growing
impasse within the ULA, previously reflected in the controversy over
Mick Wallace and the departure of Clare Daly from the Socialist Party.
The WUAG has a long standing base in South Tipperary and its departure
will have an influence on the development of the ULA at a national
level.
The decision of the Workers and Unemployed Action Group to withdraw
from the United Left Alliance is an unwelcome symptom of the growing
impasse within the ULA, previously reflected in the controversy over
Mick Wallace and the departure of Clare Daly from the Socialist Party.
The WUAG has a long standing base in South Tipperary and its departure
will have an influence on the development of the ULA at a national
level.
It is doubly unfortunate that the issue of Mick Wallace has again
been allowed to throw a spanner in the works. The fact that the public
face of the ULA at a national level in the Dáil has been thrown into
such turmoil by his shenanigans illustrates a fundamental political
weakness within the ULA.
For decades the Irish left has been looking forward to “a break in
the situation” to quote Lenin. What better opportunity than now to
develop a genuine socialist alternative than a right wing Labour
leadership carrying out anti working class policies in league with Fine
Gael; Ireland is in the middle of a deep crisis of capitalism, when the
government are imposing more and more austerity on the working class
people, the old and the youth, and when FF and the Greens have sold
Irish control over the economy to the Troika?
The statement by Seamus Healy TD lists a catalogue of issues that the
WUAG takes issue with in respect of the methods of the SWP and the
Socialist Party within the ULA leadership, for example:
“Immediately after Mick Wallace TD announced that he had withheld
tax from the revenue commissioners, WUAG proposed that the ULA call for
his resignation from the Dáil. This proposal was vetoed by the
Socialist Party. WUAG then publicly called for his resignation in its
own name. We have continued with our efforts to persuade our allies of
our point of view without success. A short time ago, we again formally
proposed that the ULA call for his resignation. On this occasion our
proposal was vetoed by People Before Profit/Socialist Workers Party in
addition to the Socialist Party. As an organisation committed to tax
equity and defence of public services, we now believe that we can more
effectively campaign for these objectives outside the United Left
Alliance.
In recent months we have become increasingly concerned by the
factional activity of the Socialist Workers Party which is a component
of the People Before Profit Alliance. The SWP has prioritised
recruitment to the SWP over building the ULA. This was clear from an
internal bulletin issued to its members on February 2nd last
which has received wide circulation. Our efforts to persuade our allies
to desist from this approach have been unsuccessful. A short time ago
WUAG formally proposed that the ULA call on the SWP to withdraw the
bulletin. This proposal was vetoed by the Socialist Party and People
Before Profit Alliance/SWP.
It is regrettable that our allies have refused to prioritise the
building of the ULA at a time when working people are being subjected to
unprecedented attacks and the betrayal of workers interests by the
Labour Party is being ever more clearly exposed.”
The political rivalries between the Socialist Party and the SWP and
the contradictions between their political perspectives and methods of
work are certainly a factor in the impasse within the ULA. This is also
expressed in the failure of the ULA to become a 32 county force
encompassing the North, where the absence of working class political
representation is a tragedy, especially under the current political
conditions.
The issue of the future of the ULA is not just an organisational
question. It is fundamentally a political issue from which
organisational conclusions should flow. The political programme of the
SP today is very different to the position defended by the Militant in
the past, when paradoxically the comrades were inside the Labour Party
arguing for a break with Coalition, while the SWP have argued that the
ULA should not present itself as an avowedly socialist organisation.
As we have commented previously in the article Socialist Party Resignations: Build a mass Socialist Alternative :
“Capitalism in Ireland and internationally is at an impasse. In
the absence of a mass socialist alternative this impasse will be
protracted. The workers are crying out for a genuine alternative.
There has never been a better time to fight for genuine socialist
policies; the nationalisation of the banks and big industry under
Democratic workers control and management, cancellation of the debts and
a 32 County Socialist United Ireland.
But to seriously put forward these demands the ULA needs itself
to be re-structured with open mass membership, a democratically elected
leadership , the end of clique politics from the current leadership and
its extension in to the 6 north eastern counties. Such a development
would then open up at least some possibilities of reaching out to those
workers who are forced into sectarian strait jackets because of the
sectarian structures of the northern state.
If the ULA were to become a genuine party of the working class, a
genuine continuation of the ideas of Connolly and Larkin then the task
of transforming society across the whole island of Ireland would be that
much easier.”
How would a united party the size of the ULA work? Certainly it would
not simply operate as an electoral force. Sure, it would organise
campaigns and public activity, but it could represent a significant pole
of attraction within the trade union movement and within the working
class as a whole. The task of the ULA should not merely be as a flag of
convenience at election time for the SP and the SWP, but a vehicle for a
political struggle to win the majority of the advanced layers of the
working class and the youth in the first instance and then the mass of
the working class to the programme of the Socialist revolution across
the whole of the island of Ireland and internationally.
As the austerity bites there will be dozens of battles within the
public sector and within the private sector also. A clear Marxist
explanation of the austerity and a programme to transform the trade
unions into democratic and fighting organisations worthy of their
members, could massively increase the potential of the unions to defend
their members.
Keynesian economics, rival campaigns and sectarian sniping will not
solve the problems of the Irish working class, but a mass party armed
with a socialist programme and a Marxist perspective would represent an
unstoppable force.
