Letter From Richard Barrett re the People Before Profit national meeting …….. with no mention of the ULA. October 9, 2012
Posted by irishelectionliterature in Irish Politics, The Left.trackback
A letter from People Before Profit Dun Laoghaire TD Richard Boyd Barrett concerning the People Before Profit national meeting on Sunday 14th October in Cassidys hotel…….. with no mention of the ULA…. or maybe we’re just getting a bit too jumpy over the future of the ULA.
Many thanks to the sender
Which one is the “real left-wing opposition”? The People Before Profit Alliance, the SWP or the ULA?
What have the personality cracks in the LP to do with anything either?
The ULA has moved a long way down the list of priorities for the SWP, indeed it might even have fallen off the bottom…
[...] http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/letter-from-richard-barrett-re-the-people-before-profit-… [...]
In what reflects a truly bizarre situation, this may actually be useful in taking some of the excess steam out of the ULA while this latest campaign runs its course.
http://www.swp.ie/content/people-profit-conference-important-step-forward
SWP report on PBPA national meeting. They claim 100 in attendance, others say closer to 70, mostly SWP members including those from the North. Joan Collins did not attend.
Note that this report ends:
“The People Before Profit model provides a different way of doing politics which can help to re-capture the early dynamism that the United Left Alliance displayed.”
Seemingly counterposing PBP to the ULA with the ULA very much in the past tense as far as they are concerned…
They’ve been fairly clear that PBPA is their bigger priority for a while now.
They’ve been less honest about the reasons why, it has to be said. The main thing to remember when you read their list of comparisons between PBPA and the ULA in their article is that PBPA has none of the structures they demand in the ULA and indeed that this “national meeting” is the closest thing to a conference it has managed in seven years. Not even they believe that stuff. The real issue has been that they’ve been consistently unable to convince anyone else of their views and so prefer an “alliance” where they can simply call the shots as they see fit.
The idea is that under their dynamic leadership, without all those stuffy debates and “programmes” and “vetos”, and in the absence of any organised force which might stop them from getting their way, people will flock to People Before Profit and they’ll prove the stick in the mud “old left” wrong. Time will tell, although 70 people, including few who aren’t in the SWP isn’t a particularly encouraging start.