The ULA and the CAHWT September 24, 2012
Posted by irishelectionliterature in Irish Politics, The Left.trackback
Last week the United Left Alliance announced plans to launch a public campaign of resistance to property tax and austerity.
The ULA will be supporting with the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes (CAHWT) in organising public meetings across the country focused on mobilising resistance and protests against the property charge and austerity prior to December’s budget.
which sounds fine but it appears that some non ULA members of the CAHWT were not too pleased.
The following is from an article on wsm.ie
On Wednesday last, 19th September, the United Left Alliance held a press conference at which it announced “plans to launch a public campaign of resistance to property tax and austerity”. For those of us who have been working alongside ULA members for over 12 months now to build the broad-based Campaign Against Household & Water Taxes (CAHWT), this announcement came as something of a surprise. CAHWT already is a ‘public campaign of resistance to property tax’ so why do the ULA (who are part of CAHWT) feel the need to ‘launch’ something that already exists?
Also here’s something on the same topic but from a non aligned ULA perspective
It may well all be just a storm in a teacup….. but ….
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
It is indeed a storm in a tea cup. The ULA statement was a rather bland restatement of what its been doing anyway. The WSM complaints are predictable little group in a big campaign whining about nothing much.
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The WSM article raises legitimate concerns but to be honest these types of discussions are better held behind closed doors within the CAHWT steering committee meeting rather than being aired on the public interweb. And not on the SC maining list either it shoul dbe said. Not particularly having a go at the WSM in saying that by any means, as both the SP and SWP (listed purely in alphapetical order) are past masters at the megaphone diplomacy game.
Chill pill time. Let’s all just get on with the work and not steps on toes unless they’re FP/LP toes. Common cause etc.
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Looks like a storm in a teacup, but it tends to point to the kind of BS that seems to be an integral part of these campaigns. On the one hand, it is a credit to all involved in the ULA and the CAHWT that they manage to even occassionally speak as one in spite of the unfortunate attitudes that many individual members of their component groups have. On the other hands, you have to wonder just how far the ULA and the CAHWT can go, when something as uncontroversial as this ULA statement can lead to bitchy commentary from individuals within the coalition.
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I’d say the WSM have made the mistake of giving the ULA too much credit rather than just taking it as poorly worded, hashed together statement. Looks to me like the ULA, specifically the SP this time, trying to reassert themselves after the Wallace/Daly/Wexford CAHWT and Irish Independent debacles. It displays just how unsure of themselves they have become, a movement so unsure of where they’re going is no movement at all. Hopefully, this type of stuff doesn’t cause CAHWT to implode.
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So raising a genuine political concern about potential manipulation of the CAHWT to give part of it a greater profile than their real social weight would justify is “bitchy commentary”?
There is no reason we can’t all “get on with the work” while also remaining alert to this kind of thing. It would be extremely naive to imagine that any campaign of the size of the CAHWT will not have all kinds of semi-political/semi-bureaucratic manouvering going on. It is indeed completely legitimate to raise this kind of concern.
Mark’s comments that this is just a restatement of what the ULA has been doing anyway (what exactly has the ULA been doing as the ULA?) is disingenuous. The statement explicit refers to the launch of a “public campaign of resistance to property tax and austerity”. This is clearly a NEW initiative. An argument can be made that it is a logical conclusion of the general perspective of the ULA component organisations but that is more than a little bit different.
The idea that this is an issue which should be just kept “behind closed doors” in the CAHWT is also mistaken in my opinion as it directly affects the ULA and indeed the general project of political representation for the working class.
As regards implosion the more likely organisation to suffer that fate is the ULA and this launching of a “public campaign of resistance to property tax and austerity” is a reflection of that process as an attempt to pretend the ULA has more social weight and internal coherence than it actually does.
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AlanG, contaminating the CAHWT with the same public spats which infect the ULA does nothing to widen the appeal of the CAHWT amongst the ordinary non-political people whom the CAHWT is attempting to attract into the campaign. There are issues for sure, but they should be dealt with internally, not publicly so as not to scare people away. Just as the ULA or the SP etc should clear these types of announcements internally within the campaign steering committe before acting unilaterally as though the CAHWT was their private plaything.
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As you point out the SP/SWP (in their ULA guise) have made this public by making the announcement in the way that they did.
“Dealing with it internally” makes no sense as it has not been raised within the CAHWT in any way that would allow it to be discussed and dealt with.
I also note that disputes within the CAHWT, such as the relationship with Wallace, are not treated in this manner.
Why should people who with concerns about this public announcement should have to limit themselves to the internal structures of the CAHWT. That would effectively leave this announcement unchallenged and that might well serve the interests of the SP/SWP but in my opinion it does not serve the interests of the CAHWT.
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I don’t think that “people with concerns” about anything “should have to limit themselves to the internal structures of the CAHWT”, although I would generally advise people to have a bit of cop on about starting public rows over something rather bland and trivial. If someone in the WSM was genuinely concerned about the statement, it could have been clarified with a two minute conversation. I’m not sure that I believe that there was any real concern, mind you.
Quite apart from anything else, the ULA is not a coherent enough organisation to be undertaking a campaign takeover even if it wanted to. ULA affiliates and members regularly vote on opposite sides of issues in the CAHWT, as you would expect. That’s not about to change. ULA members have a great deal of influence in the CAHWT, of course, as a simple function of activist numbers. But the ULA isn’t attempting to take anything over, isn’t capable of doing so, and as the WSM is well aware of that, the article strikes me as disingenuous posturing over trivia.
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Which all avoids the question of why the statement explicitly refers to the launch of a “public campaign of resistance to property tax and austerity”?
I do agree with you about one thing. As I argue in my blog piece this is clearly not a real announcement of a new campaign because, as you point out, the ULA couldn’t actually do that,.
This is a fake announcement which only makes sense as being designed to give the ULA (well really primarily the SP & SWP) a higher profile in the campaign than their real social weight would actually justify by pretending there is a separate “public campaign of resistance to property tax and austerity” they should get to speak on behalf of.
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RP, the Socialist Party and People Before Profit are perfectly entitled to claim some public credit for the key role their activists play in the CAHWT. If they did it under their own name, you would no doubt moan that they weren’t putting enough emphasis on the ULA. When they do it collectively under the ULA banner, you moan about something else.
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In defence of RP, and as I commented above, the ULA or the SP etc should clear these types of announcements internally within the campaign steering committe before acting unilaterally as though the CAHWT was their private plaything.
It’s not moaning or whining when people object to procedural shortcuts that are taken for party political advantage. Such actions erode trust, not just with other organisations involved in the campaign but also with ordinary unaffiliated members of the campaign.
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There are no procedural shortcuts involved, the ULA is not treating the CAHWT as its own “plaything”, and nobody, the ULA or anybody else involved in the CAHWT needs to run an announcement that they are campaigning against these regressive taxes by the steering committee.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen so much fuss over so bland and routine a statement.
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Well here’s the question, did the CAHWT ask for the support of the ULA or SP “in organising public meetings across the country focused on mobilising resistance and protests against the property charge and austerity prior to December’s budget”?
Answer: No it didn’t.
People will draw their own conclusions. The WSM have, RP has, and no doubt other component organisations of the CAHWT will do likewise.
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“did the CAHWT ask for the support of the ULA or SP…etc?”
Huh?!?
Since when have political groups needed permission from a campaign to do activity in support of the campaign?
I presume when the Workers Party held branch meetings or public meetings against the Austerity Referendum they asked permission from the relevant campaigns before doing so?
Bizarre stuff LATC!
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Mark P, I have no problem with the ULA collectively coming to a decision but that didn’t happen here.
There was no discussion in the wider ULA and it didn’t even get discussed at the national steering committee according to the non-aligned reps!
And you continue to ignore the central issue which is the announcement that the ULA is supposedly launching a “public campaign of resistance to property tax and austerity” that will campaign alongside the CAHWT calling joint protests.
This is a fiction and its only purpose can be to give the ULA (SP/SWP) a special profile and right to public speakers etc when that would not be justified by the actual social weight of the organisations concerned.
This is the political method of the labour bureaucracy not the revolutionary socialism you claim to stand in the tradition of.
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neilcaff, of course political groups don’t have to ask the permission of the CAHWT, or any other campaign, before announcing they want to support that campaign.
But there have been plenty of those statements made. This is something different.
It is the announcement of the launch of a NEW “public campaign of resistance to property tax and austerity”.
If that was real and there was going to actually be this separate a “public campaign of resistance to property tax and austerity” then it would have been usual for this new campaign to have a least some preliminary discussions with the CAHWT rather than unilaterally announcing the joint organising of “public meetings across the country focused on mobilising resistance and protests against the property charge and austerity prior to December’s budget”.
But of course it is a fiction as the ULA is in no position to launch such a campaign and therefore the announcement of the launch of this bogus campaign has another political purpose – as I have outlined above and on my blog.
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“This is the political method of the labour bureaucracy not the revolutionary socialism you claim to stand in the tradition of.”
I think you’ll find the more recent methods of the labour bureaucracy is to do roll over and play dead rather than get involved in a serious struggle. The latter would seem to be the methods of the SP and for all my criticisms of them the SWP.
“But of course it is a fiction as the ULA is in no position to launch such a campaign and therefore the announcement of the launch of this bogus campaign has another political purpose – as I have outlined above and on my blog.” (emphasis mine)
*Sigh* You know, I’m all for vigorous debate and people expressing themselves but sometimes I really wish folks would have a little think for themselves about the accusations they level at people before they hit ‘Post Comment’.
Believe it or not but the Socialist Party don’t spend most of their time dreaming up ways to do over small anarchist groups or excitable bloggers. I know I’m a bit distant from things but It seems like an odd notion to me that the SP or the SWP would hatch a scheme to get more people on platforms when it seems to me most CAWHT platforms will usually have an SP or SWP on the platform by dint of the role they’ve played locally in getting the campaign off the ground.
Sometimes things really are just what they seem, you know.
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Hmm, in my last post I only wanted to italicise the word “bogus”.
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neilcaff, maybe you are right but then we are left with the conundrum of exactly what “things really are just what they seem” means.
Is the ULA really about to launch a “public campaign of resistance to property tax and austerity” as the statement explicitly announces?
But everyone agrees that is not possible in any real sense.
So what else could “things really are just what they seem” mean?
Defenders of the statement would like us to believe that all it means is that the ULA supports the CAHWT.
Presumably the announcement of the launch of this new campaign that would organise joint events with the CAHWT was therefore just a typo.
If so I look forward to seeing the publishing of a simple correction of this unfortunate example of editorial incompetence.
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The empty headed yapping of sectarians looking for something to complain about fills my days with joy.
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you really are politically weak aren’t you.
it is almost as if you don’t take the things your own organisation (and this does smell like SP to me) writes seriously.
there can be an explicit announcement of the launching of a new “public campaign of resistance to property tax and austerity” which is going to organise “public meetings across the country focused on mobilising resistance and protests against the property charge and austerity prior to December’s budget” but when various aspects of this are questioned you have no substantive answers and only jokes instead – pathetic.
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RP, it’s not that I don’t take the Socialist Party seriously. It’s that I don’t take Spartoids seriously.
You are an incorrigible sectarian who is going through an utterly routine press release line by line looking for things to take offence to. If the ULA was to cease putting out that kind of routine press release you would simply shift to using that as evidence of the lack of priority put on the ULA. The important thing for you isn’t whatever it is you are complaining about at any given time. It’s that you have something to complain about. I simply don’t care enough about routine press releases restating something that the ULA is already doing, nor about your opinions on any subject when you are going full Spart to get into more detailed arguments about it than that. The press release is just your issue of the day to whine about and something the WSM are using for a bit of disingenuous posturing.
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So am I an “incorrigible sectarian” when I am participating in meetings of the steering committee of the Cork branch of the ULA? Am I an “incorrigible sectarian” when I am participating in meetings of the Cork Regional Co-ordinating Committee of the CAHWT? Am I an “incorrigible sectarian” when I am participating in activist meetings of Cork Women’s Right To Choose?
I think you will find that your comrades in Cork actually take me quite seriously. Certainly your most senior comrade in Cork, Mick Barry, was taking me very seriously when he and I worked very closely together as two of the three central figures in the Cork CAHWT in the run up to the March 31st deadline.
But of course you are not using “incorrigible sectarian” in any serious sense but instead as a throw-away to try to justify your refusal to deal with the substantive issues I have raised. This says more about you than it does about me.
So we are meant to believe that a press release announcing the creation of a “public campaign of resistance to property tax and austerity” that will organise “public meetings across the country focused on mobilising resistance and protests against the property charge and austerity prior to December’s budget” is a “routine press release” is it?
When was the last “routine press release” which announced the creation of anything like this?
It is simply factually incorrect to claim that this is merely “restating something that the ULA is already doing”. The ULA is not organising a “public campaign of resistance to property tax and austerity” that is organising, alongside the CAHWT, “public meetings across the country focused on mobilising resistance and protests against the property charge and austerity”.
The ULA is heavily involved in the CAHWT and its activities that is quite a different thing from content of this press release.
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“It is simply factually incorrect to claim that this is merely “restating something that the ULA is already doing”. The ULA is not organising a “public campaign of resistance to property tax and austerity” that is organising, alongside the CAHWT”
I guess I must have imagined those pictures of ULA TD’s holding up signs opposing the charge…
http://bit.ly/SQLmnA
The ULA has never publicly campaigned alongside and in support of CAHWT? Sounds legit!
“But of course you are not using “incorrigible sectarian” in any serious sense but instead as a throw-away to try to justify your refusal to deal with the substantive issues I have raised. This says more about you than it does about me.”
You don’t think it’s the tiniest bit sectarian to publicly accuse the SP and the SWP of lying (“bogus” campaign etc) and of trying to take over the CAHWT?
I seem to remember the Independent News (you know, the actual enemy) not too long ago sniffing around CAWHT looking for evidence of SP skullduggery as part of their witch hunt against the left.
Did it ever occur to you (or the WSM) that putting your own particular spin on a routine statement might not be very helpful? That it might be more a case of you putting your own organisations need to make a big noise as the guardians of democracy against the wider need to keep the campaign focused? Clearly not.
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neilcaff, so your argument, like Mark P, is that this is a non-story and just business as usual.
The only problem with your account is the content of the actual document this thread is about.
It starts:
“At a press conference today TDs for the United Left Alliance announced plans to launch a public campaign of resistance to property tax and austerity.”
There is no way to interpret that as meaning anything other than an announcement of something new, hence the use of “plans” and “launch” which refer to the future.
So your narrative breaks down I’m afraid…
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Whatever about the merits of the statement as interpreted above, it’s not very well crafted. That first sentence is a real hodge-podge.
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