IS policy on the Irish election

national | miscellaneous | news report Sunday May 05, 2002 18:57 by Me - Ex SWP

Statement by the Organising Committee of the International Socialists, 2nd May 2002.

The International Socialist call for support for SP/SWP and then where there's no socialist standing or as 2nd preference for Labour, Greens and Workers party but not SF.

The Dáil election on May 17th will not result in any significant changes for workers no matter which right-wing party comes out on top. There is no difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Both parties are equally committed to hammering the working class. Likewise it would be folly to believe that any of the reformist parties who may join them in government – Labour, Greens, Sinn Féin – are going to put up a fight against social partnership.

As revolutionaries we do not believe that society can be fundamentally changed through the Dáil. The real power in Irish society lies elsewhere. Social partnership will not be broken except through class struggle. Nevertheless revolutionaries can use parliaments and parliamentary elections to promote the cause of the working class. In this election voters in twelve constituencies will have the opportunity to vote for revolutionary socialist candidates representing the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party. We strongly urge them to do so.

We do not give an uncritical endorsement to the platforms of either party. They are not the platforms we ourselves would have written. We have serious political differences with both the SP and the SWP, and we believe it would be dishonest to deny those differences. But our support for the SP and SWP in this election is not dependent on the programmatic stances taken by the leaders of those parties. It is based on the recognition that they are genuine socialist tendencies. A strong vote for the candidates of the revolutionary left would boost the confidence of working-class militants and be a shot across the bows of the Irish ruling class.

In the thirty constituencies which have no revolutionary candidate, and as a second preference in the twelve which do, we recommend a vote for the reformist left. That means Labour, the Workers Party, the Greens and left-wing independents. It does not include Sinn Féin who are the deadly enemies of any attempt to build independent working-class politics in Ireland. The Irish working class has problems enough already without being diverted down yet another nationalist dead end.

Vote revolutionary where you can, vote reformist where you must. Deliver a strong mandate for the left. But be under no illusion that voting is enough. The real struggle for socialism will take place in the workplaces and on the streets of Ireland, not in Leinster House or Stormont. For that, building a strong and principled revolutionary communist party, rooted in the working class, is essential. That will be a long and hard process, but there are no short cuts on the road to socialism.

Statement by the Organising Committee of the International Socialists, 2nd May 2002.