A Progressive Oppostion

 

 

It looks likely that there will be 14 Sinn Féin and up to 10 progressive left deputies in the incoming Dáil. 

 

These 24 progressive left Representatives need to eclipse Fianna Fail as the opposition to the incoming conservative administration and ensure that victory could be grasped from the jaws of defeat, so to speak.  This is a platform that we could barely imagine a few short weeks ago,

 

The election campaign was dominated bu the specific budgetary issues and the immediacy of the crisis facing the people.  Ideology struggled to feature.  It can now be a central feature of debate from the first day of the incoming Dáil.  The people can hear how and why we are in this crisis and just how similar FG and FF are.  It will also continue to force the members of the Labour Party to examine how best to use their political strength. 

 

I would make a particular appeal to the members of the ULA to resist the temptation to take an elitist view of what it means to be on the progressive left. The days of political sectarianism on the left need to be left behind.

 

The British Labour politician Tony Benn described British Labour something like this.  Labour is not a socialist party, but it has many Socialist within it.  SF could be described that way,  Certainly, the ULA should reach out to the membership of SF.  It would be good for both groups.  All activism is educational and it works both ways.

Unfolding

Watching the counts unfold.  If the ULA can put aside some of their sectarian antipathy to SF and build a progressive opposition inside and outside Leinster House, then we are getting somewhere.

Tough Negotiators

As opinion polls keep rolling in and showing either a FG/Labour coalition of a majority FG government, perhaps its time to turn some attention to what is likely to happen in the few months after the election.

If any of what FG and Labour is saying is to be accepted then the incoming government will be putting a negotiating team together to present to the big players in the EU.  So, what will they have behind them going into the talks?

A bad deal.  They will have the people who allowed the IMF/ECB walk all over them - it wasn't a negotiation - continuing to tell the 'other side' in the EU that they continue to stand over the 'deal' struck.  The supporters of the deal in the media - Stephen Collins, Shane Coleman et al - will continue their mantra that there is no other way.

Their stated position. An acceptance by FG and Labour that all that is required is an adjustment on interest rates and perhaps some extension in timetable for repayment.  There is disagreement on this between FG and Labour and this is likely to widen as the election campaign unfolds.

And thirdly, and I believe crucially, the knowledge that FG, at least, share objectives of the IMF in so far as the cuts imposed on services will disproportionally impact on the public sector.  This 'deal' actually furthers the agenda of those who want to continue the process of rolling back the state.  The pain borne by ordinary people (caused by those scoundrels in the previous administration, they will claim) is worth the maintenance of the deregulated economy with a weakened public sector and flexible workforce.

Ideology and vision has been absent from the public commentary of this election, but it is crucial in determining how future talks with the IMF and EU pan out.  I cannot trust FG any more than FF in this regard. 

Labour need to be challenged on all of this.  They have weakened their own position by voting through the finance bill and signalling a reluctant acceptance of the IMF/EU deal, whatever about their recent tough talking on renegotiation.  If they are serious about the future, they need to look a few weeks ahead and realise that they are going to be eaten up and spat out by both sides in that 'renegotiation'.

Can we decide please?

Fine Gael and a increasingly unsure Labour Party are saying that any alternative to compliance with the terms of the IMF/EU deal is a reckless gamble. Vincent Brown (whether mischievously or otherwise) rounded on Eoin O Broin of Sinn Fein on the basis that burning the bondholders and the strategy that SF is advocating would see us unable to pay public servants, including the Gardaí, within a year or so. Scaremongering, in other words.

None of us have a crystal ball, but it seems to be that it is entirely reasonable to go back to the major European governments - the movers behind the deal - and outline in clear terms that we are not going to subject our people to this level of misery over a prolonged period and we are not going to be restricted in our ability to invest in job creation, if the democratic will of our people is to vote for parties that advocate this approach.

And there's the rub. Are we saying that advocating anything other than an agenda suitable to the IMF - a conservative and deregulated economic approach - like the one that facilitated the runaway banks for example-is tantamount to a reckless gamble? So that's it. Its the same political and economic approach or nothing. That's the real danger here and it needs to be challenged. The IMF and EU don't see Fine Gael challenging and, alas, Labour seem to be moving towards the continuation of this right wing agenda too, though I suspect that they are wobbling. I hope so