Crisis? What crisis? April 28, 2014
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
On the day that Joe Higgins announces his decision not to run at the next election it is interesting to compare and contrast with Labour MEP Phil Prendergast’s cri de coeur this morning in relation to the Labour Party leadership where she ‘calls for the resignation’ of Eamon Gilmore and effectively the instatement of Joan Burton as new leader and she says something very telling.
Ms Prendergast admitted that she has yet to voice her concerns to the Tánaiste, but has spoken to him about the “tough” conditions Irish people are living through.
And she continues:
This is a crisis that’s gone on for a year and a half…
A year and a half? Surely it’s been longer than that…
…we’re not making changes in the polls, we’re not getting the benefit of the positive changes that Labour has implemented in Government,” said Ms Prendergast. “I think now is the time to realise this and that we need to take urgent action.”
Oh… that crisis!
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Voters are deserting traditional parties in droves
The call by Phil Prendergast MEP for Eamonn Gilmore’s resignation in the middle of an election campaign highlights the depth of the political crisis which exists in Ireland.(Phil Prendergast is a defector from WUA- mea culpa, I directed the bye-election campaign which launched her career). The national poll published in the Independent to-day also reinforces the nature of the situation.
In Dublin when 530 people were asked, 70% did not indicate that they would vote for Fine Gael or Labour or Fiann Fail.
There is a crisis for the Labour Party but not only for the Labour Party.
People do not spontaneously move towards a theory or analysis or an “ism”. Typically, they discard political instruments which they have learned to be useless for them or are oppressing them. They then attempt to use any instrument which they think might relieve their plight in the near future and with which they have a degree of political agreement. Their choice is informed by a whole range of factors from the fact that a particular party has never been tried before and might work to the fact that the political party with which they agree most is not a credible vehicle to immediately relieve their plight and there may be many other factors.
It is the task of the marxist left who seek to change the property relations in society to organise the oppressed politically in an effective credible way and on a principled basis. People are now faced with the situation where the social democracy is oppressing them, the “communists” are virtually non existent and the “trotskyists” are obsessed with competing with each other. Indeed, the left is not fit for purpose. The prerequisite for remedying this situation is TO ADMIT THAT THE PROBLEM EXISTS.
This is not an academic matter. The disaster on the British left, populated by the same actors as in Ireland, has given rise to the situation in which the semi-fascist UKIP are heading the polls this morning!!! It is no accident that the Lucinda Creightons and the Michael McDowells are now pushing themselves forward.
All history shows that if the left fails to show a way forward, the road is opened to fascism as political crisis continues.
The continued competition among Trotskyists in Europe and the reorganisation of the former communists (eg French CP) into a fast-disappearing social democratic dead end is fraught with danger for the working class. There is an urgent need to recognise that there is a serious problem on the left so that we can set about remedying it. Those denying that there is a problem are plying with fire.
History also shows that the strength of the working class gives the left significant time to show a way forward. Hitler eventually came to power after the social democrats and the communists had failed dismally to show a decisive way forward several times and over several years. Let us begin now.
We had Blueshirts in the 30′s, we may see them again if we do not act now!
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Telling, that Phil Prendergast seems more agitated about the potential loss of her own job than about those who have suffered under austerity since 2011. And interesting (if not delusional) that she would think that the Minister for Social Welfare Cuts would be the person to revive the Labour Party’s reputation.
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Not forgetting the Minister for JobBridge, Gateway and JobPlus. There are tens of thousands of, angry, ‘graduates of JobBridge and many on slaving on these schemes. Hopefully they’ll vote out Labour.
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[…] foot of yesterday’s revealing intervention by MEP Phil Prendergast criticising Labour leader Eamon Gilmore he might have had every expectation that the response from […]
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