Ireland: United Left Alliance's electoral challenge strengthens

Cllr Pat Kavanagh, declares her intention to stand in General Elections for Wicklow Constituency
by Cllr Pat Kavanagh on Friday, January 21, 2011 at 4:28am

Elected to Wicklow Town Council in 2009 as a Green Party candidate, Pat Kavanagh resigned from the Green Party in March 2010, having campaigned within the party to vote against NAMA and the bank bailouts. Since then, Pat has been involved in the setting up of a new federated political party, Fís Nua (New Vision) which will be Ireland's newest registered party before the 2011 General Elections.

"Fís Nua is different to all other parties as it is a federated union for individuals, groups and organisations with a social justice, ecology and anti-corruption agenda to come together under one umbrella to get their causes and concerns on the political table. Fís Nua has no centralised leadership, but will be selecting spokespeople in the relevant departments who have an indepth knowledge and experience of their own areas. Candidates will be selected by their own constituency groups and not by anybody else. We believe that real democracy starts at the bottom level, and all of our representatives are accountable to the membership." said Pat

Originally from High Street, Wicklow Town, Pat is the daughter of Tom and Phil Kavanagh, formerly of Kavanagh's Shoe Shop in Wicklow. Pat has lived all her life in Wicklow and married local man Francis Murphy. They have two children who attended local schools. Pat is best known for her work as owner/manager of The Cave Steiner Preschool and Afterschool on High Street, where hundreds of children have availed of her care and attention for the past 11 years. Previous to this, Pat qualified with a degree in Social Care and worked as a Care Worker at St Kyran's Residential Care Centre, Rathdrum for 10 years, and with children with disability at the School for the Blind, Merrion Road, Dublin. Pat also spent some time working in child protection with the HSE.

Pat has a firm committment to environmental causes, as demonstrated by her re-establishment 4 years ago of the Friends Of The Murrough organisation which has campaigned for an SAAO and management plan for The Murrough in Wicklow, and her support for Wicklow Head Preservation Group. Pat is also a long term member of the Wicklow Community Resource Centre Committee, which has worked tirelessly for the restoration of the former Parochial Hall for use as a badly needed community hall and Youth Cafe. "I am delighted that after so many years of fundraising, the builders are now working on the hall and hopefully we will see the fruits of our labour in 2011"

Like so many others, Pat was motivated to become politically active by the ever increasing corruption and dishonesty she has witnessed in the political arena. "I am sick of it. Public servants are just that - servants of the public, and are very honoured to be elected. They should repay their voters by being honest and truthful, however difficult that may sometimes be. We don't need any more croneyism or golden circles. When I joined Wicklow Town Council, I refused to join any voting pact. My opinion, and my vote will remain my own, it can never be bought or sold."

Pat will be standing as a General Election Candidate for the first time in 2011, for the newly established federated party, Fís Nua. To read their manifesto, go to www.fisnua.com

Recent polls indicate the ULA could win around 5 seats. The Greens of course won 6 in the last election and held the balance of power, entering the government (they are set for oblivion and will be lucky to hold 1 or 2 seats this time).

The polls are very imprecise on the ULA because a) the pollsters don’t ask about the ULA explicitly but lump them under “Others”, b) STV elections are not actually as ‘proportional’ as is sometimes made out because it is very difficult to predict the final seat in each constituency due to transfers, which sometimes have more to do with individual identity than party political label and programme.

If you can decode all the complex information, there’s a useful set of predictions here:
http://irishpollingreport.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/redcpaddy-power-cons…
It predicts fairly comfortable victories based on a poll taken before this week’s crisis for ULA candidates Higgins, Boyd-Barrett, Collins, Daly for example.

With most key areas of economic policy already predetermined by our bailout commitments, and with such close agreement on political reform, once the two parties have agreed a compromise on the ratio of tax increases to spending cuts – which will be necessary to form their government – the argument about policy differences will have little substance.

http://www.villagemagazine.ie/index.php/2011/01/interview-with-joe-higg…

Jan 25th, 2011
United Left Alliance

Michael Smith interviews Joe Higgins about a new electoral force on the left

I meet Joe Higgins over tea and a brownie, on a grim afternoon in December in Dublin City Centre. He doesn’t want to talk about his background – people are sick of it – he wants to talk about the United Left Alliance. When pushed he claims not to know what forged his politics: he just had a view – rather than any particular experience – of unfair structures and he saw socialism as a way of running society with justice and equality. I ask him what role he sees for the market in all this and he says none – at least for the international markets and the markets in commodities. He’d nationalise the commanding heights. He’d nationalise – and leave nationalised – the banks. And he’d nationalise other major infrastructure and major industries. He’d re-nationalise Eircom and Team Aer Lingus. I suggest that many people wouldn’t know what else he’d like to see nationalised and ask him to explain. He wouldn’t “prescribe that enterprises of a certain size would be nationalised. You’d start with the obvious candidates and then leave it up to democracy – workfloor democracy, participatory democracy, community democracy – to a proper debate as to how best to serve the needs of society”. He wouldn’t nationalise every “corner shop, bed and breakfast or chip shop”. The position is the same as he held in Militant Labour twenty years ago before he was expelled. “I’m a Trotskyist”. He’s always been a Trotskyist, though he draws also from Marx, Engels, Rosa Luxemburg and James Connolly – and times change so thinking evolves. It’s different from the totalitarian approach in former Eastern Europe. Stalinists in the Soviet Union jailed democratic socialists of Higgins’ tradition. I ask him what he thinks of the agenda of equality, sustainability, transparency that Village generally promotes. He wouldn’t disagree with them but you can’t have those agendas in a capitalist society. So what’s his own agenda and that of his socialist party?

His agenda would be not to pay a penny to the speculators and gamblers. He’d say goodbye to the IMF as the expression of global capitalism with a history of wreaking social havoc across the world and of acting as shock troops to facilitate multinationals. He’d default, not pay the bond-holders and while he won’t directly say he’d leave the Euro he’d prefer an arrangement that was less of a straitjacket, that allowed devaluation He’d like to see democratic control of the banks, infrastructure and major industries. Then he’d extend that Europe-wide. He’d promote investment in major infrastructure, including health and education, to provide jobs and enhance quality of life. He’d nationalise natural resources along the lines of what the ESB and Bord na Móna did years ago. Alternative energy is a priority. He’d like to see more unity of the working class in a non-sectarian way in Northern Ireland. . As to a United Ireland, democratic socialism would see sectarianism dissipate and the border cease to be an issue. The environment and climate change figure as priorities. Much of his agenda is impossible while capitalist structures remain in place but he’s determined democratic socialism would achieve nearly all the progressive views we discuss. At a local government level he was a robust opponent of developer-led rezonings and for thirty years he’s been lobbying for the Kenny Report which would penally tax the fruits of taxation and allow local authorities to buy development land without paying a premium price. Again it’s down to the process: “as long ago as the 1960s, when the developers bought Fianna Fáil, the problem wasn’t so much corruption as the clout they wielded over the process” of local government and rezoning.

On the EU, he believes the European Commission is hypocritical about the European model which is dominated by corporate power including lobbyists. He’s particularly concerned with their trade agenda and is on the EU trade committee. Still he’s open to European solidarity on the basis of democratic socialism. The main thing is to work out a workers’ society where this agenda prevails.

He doesn’t see scope for taxation for environmental or quality-of -life enhancing purposes. Taxing petrol or waste or water is a crude mechanism. He prefers regulation rather than taxation to environmental ends. You provide public transport, you insist on recycling, you stop waste of water. Perhaps inevitably for someone whose agenda is so solidly social he has little interest in harnessing economic mechanisms to environmental ends. But he is passionate about the environment and has innovative ideas – dual-flush toilets, reuse of rainwater and the like.

He has firm ideas about the current party-political line-up. A vibrant, left alternative in the next parliament will be opposed and dominated by FG and Labour, with a disillusioned FF in opposition. He notes in the context that Labour has certain progressive principles and yet will sacrifice them in the inevitable coalition, while carrying out the programme of the IMF.

I ask him about some of the forces on the left:

Labour, he says, like the Social Democratic and Labour parties all over Europe has bought into market capitalism. Blair is the prototype, “out-Thatchering Thatcher and going in to Iraq”. Their colleagues in Greece are carrying out the IMF agenda and in Portugal and Spain are implementing vicious cuts. When he first started out in the Labour Party it was very different

The Trade Unions are mostly in retreat. There’s no decisive leadership though he has some time for the Unite union. The rank and file needs to take back control. Too many of them do deals with government and are on wages like those of the top bankers.

The Greens were never on the left and he told John Gormley so a long time ago. This is because they could never say if they were left or right – leaving them exposed as opportunistic.

Sinn Féin takes a radical position on some issues. The Socialist Party differs with it on its past willingness to go into power with Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil. And in Northern Ireland Sinn Féin implements British government cuts and represents only a section of society, Catholics – objectively it will never become a force for the protestant working class.

He thinks ‘claiming the future’ should have clearer policies and say who they are supporting electorally.

He is promoting an alliance for the general election. It is an alliance of left-wing groups and individuals. The United Left Alliance includes the Socialist Party, the People Before Profit Alliance (consisting of the Socialist Workers Party – whose prominent members include Eamon McCann, Richard Boyd Barrett and Kieran Allen), the Community and Workers Action Group of south Dublin, as well as other individual members, the South Tipperary Workers and Unemployed Action Group and the Independent Socialist group of Declan Bree in Sligo.

Higgins says, “there’s no one agenda but a fairly comprehensive founding statement of purpose and a pledge”. I ask if there are policy differences between the component members. “At the level of detail, there may be different analysis – for example on Northern Ireland”. He’s reluctant to define the differences of ideology between the component parties, especially when the capitalist media misrepresent. But in the current circumstances “it’s essential that there’s a basic unity on a principled and honest basis as a more significant force, especially in the context of the likely composition of the next Dáil with the obvious scope for a radical alternative, after years where people’s comfort was facilitated so leaving them with little reason to look elsewhere”. He does not accept we are a conservative society. “The alliance has been welcomed by a lot of people not previously associated with any of the component parties. But the alliance must stop the forces that are destroying our society”.

Is he concerned that the Soclalist Workers Party is ambivalent to violence? I mention .reports of concerted riotings at the end of some of the recent marches. He says he can’t speak for the Socialist Workers Party but he saw a few students brutally attacked by the Gardaí after a sit-in in the Department of Finance,as a rehearsed warning to the rest of society and the state. As to whether the Socialist party takes a different stance on violence, he can’t speak for the SWP but the Socialist Party is in favour of well-organised disciplined mobilisations and industrial action since the greatest power workers have is the power of their labour.

The United Left Alliance (ULA) in its own words:

The Alliance is opposed to the government’s bailouts and the slash and burn policies which are only making the crisis worse. In the general election they aim to provide a real alternative to the establishment parties as well as to Labour and Sinn Féin, who also accept the capitalist market and refuse to rule out coalition with right wing parties. The approach of a Fine Gael /Labour government in power would not be fundamentally different than this government’s.

The ULA will be standing candidates throughout the country and they are inviting all people, campaigns and groups that want to fight for real change and who agree with their demands to become part of the Alliance.

They reject the so-called solutions to the economic crises based on slashing public expenditure, welfare payments and workers’ pay. There can be no just or sustainable solution to the crisis based on the capitalist market. Instead they favour democratic and public control over resources so that social need is prioritised over profit.

Those elected as part of the alliance will not do any deals or support any coalition with any of the right-wing parties, particularly Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. They are committed to building a mass left alternative to unite working people, whether public or private sector, Irish or migrant, with the unemployed, welfare recipients, pensioners and students in the struggle to change society.

This report chooses to focus on the fact that one participant got cold feet, rather the bigger story a section of the Labour Party joining the ULA

http://www.leinsterexpress.ie/news/Splits-on-the-left-continue.6703229…

Published Date: 26 January 2011
By Conor Ganly
A SPLIT within a split has emerged among left wing election candidates in Laois Offaly.

In the wake of a revolt over John Whelan's selection by the Labour Party, it emerged last week that Liam Dumpleton was due to run for the United Left Alliance. However less then seven days later this arranged marriage has already broken down.

Mr Dumpleton has refused to sign the ULA's pledge and will instead run as an 'Independent' Labour candidate. Rathdowney man Ray Fitzpatrick has will replace the Birr jounalist as the Alliance's candidate. The announcement was made last Friday at the so-called Laois/Offaly Leftwing Initiative (LOLwI) meeting.

Mr Dumpleton reportedly told the meeting that he had no problem with Labour Party policy. The group said the group was "somewhat taken aback" but the moved straight away to select Ray Fitzpatrick. who said he was standing to break the mould.

"It is a huge task that needs to be done now because the next Government will surely be despised every bit as much as the present one within a couple of years. We need to build a progressive force for the future, a movement that might only start to blossom long after this election is over. We have to break the mould of conservative politics, not just in Laois/Offaly but throughout the country," said Mr Fitpatrick.

Responding to the news the Labour's John Whelan said there was no such thing as Independent Labour. He also took a swipe at Mr Fitpatrick.

"Even Che Guevara himself would not be left wing or militant enough for Ray Fitzpatrick..,The last time I saw him was bolting through a door at the Labour Party convention stealing a ballot box. I would respectfully ask him to return the ballot box so that labour can restore democracy in this country," he said

There are also unconfirmed reports the Jim O'Brien is considering running. The former Labour 2007 candidate strongly opposed Mr Whelan's candidacy.

The United Left Alliance has had 5 TD's (members of parliament) elected!!

Joe Higgins, Dublin West, Socialist Party (received 19% of constituency votes)
Clare Daly, Dublin North, Socialist Party (received 15.2% of constituency votes)
Joan Collins, Dublin South-Central, People Before Profit Alliance (received 12.9% of constituency votes)
Richard Boyd-Barrett, Dun Laoghaire, People Before Profit and Socialist Workers Party (received 10.9% of constituency votes)
Seamus Healy, Tipperary South, Unemployed and Workers' Action Group (received 21.3% of constituency votes)