A New Left in Ireland? That’d be nice… and some thoughts on Richard Boyd Barrett and Keyser Soze. July 19, 2008
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Further Left.trackback
It may not have escaped peoples attention that at the weekend the CLR likes to kick of its shoes, put on the fluffy monster slippers with the plastic claws, sit down with some crisps and beers and leave behind the heavier stuff of the week. Hence you’ll see pieces about, ah, I don’t know, U2, or trains, or quite excellent 1980s new wave bands. And thankfully this weekend is no different for bringing tidings of non-too great seriousness. For entertaining to read in the Irish Times today that:
DISCUSSIONS AIMED at forming a new and united left-wing political party in Ireland are “ongoing” and such a group may be assembled in time to contest next year’s local and European elections, a prominent left-wing activist has said.
And the identity of this ‘prominent’ left-wing activist? Why none other than…
Richard Boyd Barrett of the People Before Profit Alliance [who] said the success of a broad coalition of left, anti-war and trade union movements in securing a No vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum highlighted the potential for an established left movement, and he is working to form a new left choice for Irish voters.
The analysis being based upon the not entirely innovative idea that:
“I think the Lisbon Treaty [General Election, European Election, latest crisis of capitalism - delete as applicable] vote clearly demonstrates the need for a new left because the entire political establishment, including the official left in Ireland – the Labour Party – backed an agenda for Europe which was rejected by the majority of Irish people,” he said.
And inevitably:
“This shows a massive gap between the political establishment and the aspirations of the majority of people in this country, and it is in that space we believe a new left is required, and now is the time to grasp the opportunity.”
This may be true, but no explanation as to how a mere 12 months prior to this election the electorate voted in representatives of… you guessed it… that self-same political establishment, as indeed they have at every election so far in this fine Republic of ours (and that polling data since the referendum indicates that that same political establishment is nowhere near the life-support machine). Nor, indeed, a thought that Nice 1 delivered a No vote and Nice 2 a Yes without somehow seeing a reformation of our political structures.
But despite these trifles…
Mr Boyd Barrett said Ireland currently had an “active but fragmented left” and he would like to see, for example, members of the Socialist Party, Socialist Workers Party, Independent left TDs and like-minded trade unionists joining in such a development.
Now, those of us with an interest in such matters will notice the key element of the above sentence, that being that the words ‘he would like to see’. As it happens so would I, but wishing ain’t going to make it so. Nor the cold hard fact that over the past four or five years in more propitious circumstances where, for example, within the Technical Group in the Dáil there were at least five TDs (and one or two fellow travellers who just might have been inveigled into a serious machine) who could loosely be described as leftist similar moves came to naught. Why the situation should have improved since then is unexplained.
Excitingly he moves from wish to… more wishes…
Mr Boyd Barrett said such a party would oppose privatisation and neo-liberalism, and fight for workers’ rights and a democratically planned economic system.
Yes. It’s a fine party alright.
And his ambitions for it are unconstrained:
He said he would like to see the new group in place in time to contest the local and European elections next summer, and indicated that “voting pacts” and “a broad manifesto” would be agreed upon between those involved.
Which is excellent.
Although a minor issue, ah no, it’s very small, no it’s hardly worth raising… well alright, if you insist… Joe Higgins, former SP TD, one of the members of this remarkable new political vehicle (and also not merely one of the finest left politicians this country has ever had, but also near uniquely one who was elected and has a small party of some substance – whatever my quibbles with aspects of their approach and programme), already kitted out in full, and ready to roll…
…said that for a long time his party has seen a vacuum in the left-wing movement and a need for a new mass workers’ party.
Yes! It’s moving forward, smoothly. Or wait, is there a certain slowing… someone lifting their foot off the accelerator?
However, he said the difficulty lay in how such a grouping would come about and over the past 10 or 15 years conditions for the formation of a new left-wing movement had not been favourable.
“Unless the conditions are correct it would be wrong to launch a new left party . . . We always co- operate in campaigns with groups from the left and community groups and in the run-up to the elections next summer we will discuss the possibilities of co-operation, and what could be achieved.”
Hmmm… That’s odd.
Now as it happens over at splintered sunrise there was an interesting discussion about a profile of the near ubiquitous RBB in the Phoenix. A profile which ended with the thought that:
Older and more aware Trots like McCann enjoy the lifestyle that such harmless and radical posturing amounts to, but Boyd Barrett may come to realise that he must make a choice between this leisure activity and serious politics. He may conclude that he has to make the plunge into mainstream politics, either as an Independent like Tony Gregory or Finian McGrath, or with one of the larger political parties.
And splintered made the summation that:
Happily, though, he [RBB] didn’t quite make the cut [gaining a seat at the 2007 Election], thus enabling himself to postpone the conflict between his electoral career and his organisation a couple of years more. But a day will come, and it won’t be long, when he won’t be able to duck the issue any more.
And weirdly reading the IT article I can’t help but feel that here it is and somehow the quote in the Usual Suspects referring to Keyser Soze comes to mind: Who is Keyser Soze? Nobody believed he was real. Nobody ever saw him or knew anybody that ever worked directly for him, but to hear Kobayashi tell it, anybody could have worked for Soze. You never knew. That was his power.’
For there is the odd fact that RBB, unlike most of us, doesn’t just have one political home, the SWP (curiously not mentioned in the IT article), but also PBP and who knows what other three or four letter acronyms to his name. And allied to that curious fact is that many of those votes so skillfully accrued down Dún Laoghaire way might not have come to PBP had the other, original, set of initials been on the ballot box (incidentally, can’t you just hear the knives being sharpened to cut that to a four seater at some point in the future?). And one can wail and bemoan that fact or one can say, well, them’s the breaks in 21st century Ireland, or equally reflect on the fact that another equally sharp and impressive slightly less upper middle class lad managed with the S missing from the acronym to do rather well, all things considered, in carving out a political career in just that constituency way back when and ever since.
In any case, it’s not that RBB feels the need to leave the SWP and start anew with some other formation, but that he (and the SWP) as usual think the way to do it is to start anew within some new formation. Which sort of squares the circle splintered points to.
Reading some of the contributions here on Politics.ie at this fabulous news one can’t help but wonder how this is going to pan out. No, wait a moment. I think I know precisely how this will pan out…
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. And poof. Just like that, he’s gone.’
Hmmm…
Where to start?
Some of us – real “lefties” – haven’t given up hope for a better world. It’s easy to write liberal critiques of the Irish Times at it’s most excessive, spin yarns about the good old days in the sticks, and make snide remarks about the various poster boys and girls of the left.
This piece is typically cynical. Cynicism, as distinct from (constructive) criticism, is a pillar of the establishment.
And allied to that curious fact is that many of those votes so skillfully accrued down Dún Laoghaire way might not have come to PBP had the other, original, set of initials been on the ballot box (incidentally, can’t you just hear the knives being sharpened to cut that to a four seater at some point in the future?).
Mm, already done…
http://www.constituency-commission.ie/Images%5Cmap_c.jpg
Bill it was the quote from the Usual Suspects that went around my head as I read the original IT piece that probably gave it a certain sort of edge and made me treat it humourously, and if that crosses a line I apologise, but I won’t for the central point which still stands…
It’s precisely because I haven’t given up hope that I’d write a piece like that – and if I had I’d have put it much sharper terms. It’s not cynical to reflect upon yet another new left [the others can be found referenced here http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2006/08/01/well-have-any-united-left-as-long-as-its-ours/ – supported by the SWP, how many efforts now over the past three or four years – bursting to life (in a not very well researched piece in the IT) without – y’know – doing the obvious like getting the ground prepared with the supposed constituent parts of it first. And again, if ones watched the SWP over the years (a better organisation, or at least with better members, in some respects than some give it credit, perhaps a bit worse in other respects) this fits straight into their M.O., particularly in recent times. Call for unity then when such unity fails to materialise ask why not?
As for cynicism being a pillar of the establishment – maybe, but an unthinking support, or indeed pointless boosterism, such as announcing a party which no-one intends to come to undermines the credibility of the further left.
What’s more destructive in the long run? A humourous and mildly critical piece on a blog which only a small group of people read and which none take a blind bit of notice of in terms of shaping their worldview, or an announcement in the Irish Times where one of the most (rightly) respected politicians of the further left makes it clear this ain’t even on the starting blocks?
Can I add that it’s worth making a distinction on some levels between RBB and his parties (although not too much, he’s clearly no opportunist – which is to his credit). I think RBB probably has what it takes to get into electoral politics – if that’s what he wants or indeed if that’s what the left actually needs. As it happens I think a serious left does need some parliamentary representation, although I’d be cautious precisely after the WP/DL experience on how that’s manifested. Could RBB be part of that? He sure could. Could the SWP? Perhaps – but as you’ll see from the P.ie thread SP members aren’t too keen, which strikes me as a problem.
But look, the bottom line is, people (RBB and the SWP) shouldn’t say stuff like this unless they mean it and can deliver. Because if they can’t even organise the party/parties structures before presenting them to the world – or at least square it with the other quoted serious fraction of the proposed new party that all will express enthusiasm for this venture – then how on earth are they expected to seriously get votes (and that’s often been an element of the left that in the absence of actual support there is an excessive and pointless tinkering with party structures and forms to no great purpose other than keeping the troops occupied)? And how are others meant to take them seriously enough to give them support? Good basic left-wing politics. And I’m sorry, that does deserve criticism. Not least because it’s so obvious it shouldn’t need saying at all.
Paddy, well spotted, I should have checked before hand.
The thing is that the SWP has been flogging the “Time for a new left” horse for almost a decade now, and in the course of that period have managed to severely piss off nearly everyone who’s come into contact with them. And there’s a certain inevitability to Joe’s “the time is not yet right… when it is we’ll let you know”.
That said, I prefer Joe’s position. As Tony Cliff used to say, you can make all the grandiose declarations you like if you don’t intend doing anything about them.
Just so I know, how old was the author of the original piece?
I was at a well attended meeting in Wynnes on Thurs night. People before Profits. Paddy Healy was there representing the brother. In Tipp he feels that Seamus is on the way back and his group should do well in the locals. He was positive about People before Profits. Joan Collins committed herself to the project.
Even to my cynical yes there appeared to be a momentum.
As well the SWP retreated recently in a dispute between them and others in the projeect. A good sign as they are not very diplomatic with prospective allies.
I was told a similar meeting in Tralee attracted 30 plus people. Thats a lot for Tralee.
Who knows there might be a bit of wind in the sails. Hopefully they will not blow it with a megliamaniac rush of blood to the head.
A shadow of a shadow of a left alternative in the locals would be a major step forward.
Hmm… Bill, it seems it is the case that ‘real lefties’ never die or fade away but are instead resurrected under the auspices of new umbrella organisations.
‘… would like to see’ is that the political equivalent of ‘would like to meet’? I would ‘would like to see’ RBB have the courage of his convictions and stand for election as a SWP candidate if that is what he really is.
Tony Cliff had some degree of understanding of these matters, as does JH.
ejh, the same though probably rather unworthily (in my case, not yours) crossed my mind…
Jim, I don’t want to diss these things at all. If there was as you say a left alternative that would be great. It’s just that to do it let’s leave the grand statements at home – that RBB makes – until they’re ready to be used. I would genuinely love these different groups to combine to generate say something like the SSP during its heyday. That – to me – would be a significant achievement and something worth pitching in behind.
One small further point re the Indo TDs. There’s only two in the Dáil at the moment and Finian isn’t budging from his support of the govt. and while I hope I’m not doing him a disservice TG is not focussed on the broader picture for various very good reasons. So, how, precisely does RBB arrive at Independent left TDs plural? Unless I’m missing out on someone. And I’m not.
This kind of megaphone diplomacy is par for the course, I’m afraid. The SWP think that they can bounce everyone else into an alliance of their creation, on their terms and with very watery politics.
I am curious about this dispute between the SWP and the small number of others in their unity project though. I am guessing that it wasn’t something particularly significant that the SWP retreated on.
Mark P, that’s an issue you raise which gets to the heart of this. And you’re right about both megaphone diplomacy and watery politics. Again I think the SSP is instructive – for both good and bad… but… the opportunities do exist if this sort of thing is done properly, seriously and across a time period considerably longer than the dash to the next set of elections to whatever forum.
Alliances, of course, tend to require “watery politics”, since the whole point of alliances is that they bring together people who disagree.
I tend to agree about suspicion of the SWP. I think the same goes for the SP. But I feel there is a market for Left unity and this can cause the various Central Committees to retreat and stop manouvres.
The independent lefts such as Des Derwin feel that it is possible. Des is someone I have a great deal of time for and he represents a lot who want to have a broad left alternative.A straight and honest militant with an open and friendly personality.
I would guess that if a questionaire was designed based on differences between the groups and administered to the membership the answers would not reflect the differences.
Aside form say 5 or 6 SWP and SP leaders the rest do not have the foggiest idea about the differences.
With the National Struggel in abeyance for at least a generation there is room for a unity in action and maybe more.
Oh at the meeting mentioned the Workers Party spokesperson was alos positive.
Real unity will be driven by a momentum which will hopefully overcome the tinpot Trotskys around the place. Case in point Socialist Democracy who annoy even when you see points you agree with them on.
Oh Des and I agreed that membership of a group was mostly on who recruited you. His first was the Young Socialists (Peter Graham). It could have been the Connolly Youth as he had bought their paper too.
Des is modest I think he would have developbded the same independent way in spite of whatever group he joined.
“I feel there is a market for Left unity and this can cause the various Central Committees to retreat and stop manouvres.”
Hmmm, there’s more than one way to exploit a market opportunity and all the evidence to date suggests that the various central committees are not taking the path you hope.
I mean, this type of “megaphone diplomacy” is designed to exploit the market for left unity by creating the impression that Left unity is on the agenda and we all have to get on board (the train is leaving! Everybody on board! splitters to be left behind!). It’s obviously an incredibly poor way of actually creating Left Unity in any meaningful sense. Nobody likes being told what they must do by megaphone.
At this stage, I don’t think that the whole thing is anything more significant than trying to get people to join PBP – in the usual “oh my god its so exciting” way.
Nobody likes being told what they must do by megaphone.
Rowers?
“Nobody likes being told what they must do by megaphone.”
“Rowers?”
Film & TV actors?
Jim:
The “independent lefts like Des Derwin”, by which you mean the same small bunch of lads who’ve been knocking about the left for many years hoping for some kind of left unity project would have told you exactly the same about the late, unlamented Irish Socialist Alliance and every other such wheeze or doomed front organisation. I know who you are talking about, and I by and large respect them as activists but they are inveterate recidivists on this kind of thing.
They ALWAYS “feel that it is possible” for the left to just get together. It’s their defining trait. They are politically homeless and they want the existing left organisations to provide them with an organisational home without them having to sign up to the politics of those organisations. And this makes them perfect fodder for the SWP to use as the acceptable face of whatever their latest front is.
You are right that there is “a market for left unity”. There is always “a market for left unity”, which doesn’t stop particular factions from maneuvering at all. In fact, as Chekov notes, it provides all the more opportunity for certain types of skullduggery. At the same time the market for left unity for the sake of left unity and screw the politics tends to be naive or old and tired or both and at the moment it just doesn’t appear to be all that substantial.
The SWP’s plan here is simple. Pull together the usual suspects from the independent left and the smaller groups with nowhere left to go (in this case the CWAG). Announce enthusiastically that left unity is here and then try to use this sense of momentum to either force others on the left into their premade alliance or marginalise them. So we get the megaphone diplomacy and we also get insinuations in the press that unless some kind of deal is agreed that they will stand against Joe Higgins in the European elections.
As for the differences between the groups and the inability of the average member to explain them to you, I think that you are very much wrong on that.
I have to admit that the omens are not great. But the committment of Joan Collins must amount to something. She is not naieve. I find her and some like her who have decided to give it a go as impressive. One leading SWPer left due to their manouvres and they had to accept him on the PbP committee. I hope that the SWP cadres are acting as a brake.
But my advice to all is that in dealing with the SWP and SP keep a tight hold of your political wallet.
Maybe the debacle in the UK might make the local franchise a little less stupid.
Without something the field is left to Sinn Fein et al who will go in the same direction as the Greens.And they were in the market last time out.
I started in Left politics as anti coalition with bourgeois parties and still find myself saying the same.
For me it is the bottom line.
I have a great deal of respect for Joan Collins and no she isn’t particularly naive but her joining PBP is more about a weakened left huddling together for warmth than some step forward.
The CWAG’s perspectives were based around getting Joan into the Dail and then using the credibility that would give them to pull something broader together. They were resolutely sceptical about PBP, regarding it as an SWP front, and were central to pulling together the rival unity project the CIL. Then the general election came around and Joan did a lot worse than they expected, the CIL collapsed and the kind of odds and ends of the independent left you were talking about earlier drifted towards the PBP. Where else can Collins go at the moment? All of the reasons the CWAG had for being unwilling to get involved in PBP remain valid, but their horizons have been lowered.
As for the people who were around the Irish Socialist Alliance who now want to get involved in a new SWP-led formation, but this time with significantly watered down, not explicitly socialist politics, show all the wisdom of the old Bourbon monarchs: They forget nothing, but they learn nothing. In five or six years time, no doubt they will signing up to some new project, with even less useful politics and telling us all that this time it can be different.
I presume that your reference to a “leading SWPer” leaving is to the same character someone mentioned on Indymedia recently. A pleasant, enthusiastic lad who wouldn’t give the impression of being the sharpest tool in the box. What you are forgetting though is that it costs the SWP nothing to keep him on the PBP committee. They have complete and total dominance over the organisation on the ground because in so far as there is any organisation at all, it’s the SWP’s own infrastructure. They will keep their “allies” sweet just as long as they need them to provide the acceptable face of PBP to the outside world. They are absolutely no threat to the SWP inside the alliance.
Your hopes about SWP cadres forcing them to remember their manners are similarly misplaced. One of the notable changes in the Irish SWP over the last ten years or so has been the near disappearance of their experienced cadre. There is very little between their top leadership and their close associates and the rawest member on the ground. Certainly nothing that can be expected to hold the leadership in check if it gets a rush of blood to the head.
show all the wisdom of the old Bourbon monarchs: They forget nothing, but they learn nothing.
You lose a style point here for use of this particular old Marxist cliché.
Certainly nothing that can be expected to hold the leadership in check if it gets a rush of blood to the head.
Just so I know –
(a) has the membership of the SP ever held its leadership in check?
(b) has the leadership of the SP ever had a rush of blood to the head?
(A): Yes.
(B): I probably wouldn’t put it in such unflattering terms, but they’ve had a few less than inspired ideas in their time. In general though the SP tends, for better or worse, to be a bit more stable and less prone to sudden and dramatic “turns”.
I forgot to ask Jim:
What did the person you were talking about actually resign over?
You wouldn’t favour me with some specifics re: (a) and (b)?
I won’t favour you with any specifics about anything recent, no. As far as things that took place a while back, and thus can’t cause anyone any particular embarrassment, no problem. Here are four examples of things that the SP or its leadership did or argued that don’t in retrospect look too sharp:
1) We took the view, and argued within the SA solidarity movement, that apartheid in South Africa was so deeply integrated into capitalism there that it could only be ended by a socialist revolution.
2) We were very slow to recognise the importance of gay liberation and gay rights generally and essentially ignored the issue until the late 1980s.
3) We stayed in the Labour Party for significantly too long.
4) In the early years of the boom in Ireland we produced some frankly embarrassing documents about how it was a shallow boom that wasn’t really going to change very much.
That should be enough to be getting along with for the moment, as I’d rather not derail the thread any further.
Mmmm. Kind of you, but none of those really involve “holding the leadership in check”, do they? And none of them really involve taking dramatic decisions or changes of line that would perhaps have been better not taken. In fact none at all seem to come under either of the two categories into which I enquired.
Right, I thought that you were looking for examples of times when the SP leadership or the SP as an organisation got some significant issue wrong in my view. I’ve no problem discussing that. However, if you are asking about something much narrower, I’m not going to discuss the ins and outs of particular internal disagreements here.
As far as “dramatic changes of line” are concerned, the SP isn’t very prone to that. As I said above, the organisation for better or for worse takes an unusually steady approach by the standards of the far left. For instance, the archive here has a lot of documents about Northern Ireland from thirty or more years ago. There was very little in the underlying analysis of Militant publication someone scanned from 1971 that the SP would disagree with today.
The only really dramatic shifts in overall line that the SP have engaged in in the last twenty years, I think were broadly correct although I might quibble with the timing or the details. These are: gay liberation, the decision to leave Labour, the later analysis that Labour had ceased to be a part of the working class in any meaningful sense.
There have been some changes in approaches on the ground that I think were ill advised though. After the success of the anti-water tax struggle for instance, the Socialist Party wrongly assessed the possibilities open to it and went into a period of overly ambitious activism in various communities, based on a mistaken perspective of dramatic growth. This was perhaps the incident that most closely resembles one of the SWP’s “turns”. And given the backdrop of the boom (a boom that we were still very wrong about as mentioned above), it wasn’t the best idea.
[...] More on this over at the Cedar Lounge [...]
I gather the resignations were over the operation of the PbP.
I actually was quite impressed by the independent Chair. I am having a memory lapse.
To be honest what is need is a lot less of the mini Lenins. I think that the model used here and in most places woes more to Zinoviev and Stalin than the actual proctice on the ground in Russia.
The rise of Syndicalism and Anarchism owes a lot to the revulsion a lot of activists have for the petty manouvres of the far left sects.
Still things change and surprises occur. The challenge for the Allens and their SP rivals is: do you want to be a Lenin or a DeLeon.
If anyone of them had being running the Bolsheviks in 1917, Trotskys application to join would hve been longfingered and a probationary period suggested for say 10 years.
For genuine democracy and openess to debate
Resignations plural? I really wouldn’t have expected him to be able to take others with him.
I’m quite baffled by what you describe as “the rise of Syndicalism and Anarchism”. There has been no rise of syndicalism in Ireland at all, and the “rise” of anarchism has been very small and largely fuelled by international fashions.