On the 28th June the Irish Communist Party National Executive Committee approved the following statement.
North and South Irish workers are facing deteriorating social and economic situations, with unresolved crises in housing, health, employment rights and balanced economic development, while the resources we need are diverted to preparations for war and destruction.
While it is the political elites who insist on spending more and more ono what they laughingly call defence, it is workers and their families who will pay the price in loss services and quite possibly kin lost lives. Israel’s attack on Iran has brought the world closer to a nuclear conflagration, but the West continues to insist on backing the rogue terrorist Israeli state, no matter what it does.
Before it is too late, it is vital that workers raise their voices against this madness. In Ireland, in particular, it is now critical that the state’s commitment to neutrality be reaffirmed, not with sleight of hand verbiage, but with an active peace policy, encouraging an end to the arming of Israel and promoting negotiations to end the war in Ukraine instead of trying to prolong a conflict that NATO and Ukraine has already lost. But as Taoiseach Micheál Martin drives forward a programme to scrap the Triple Lock which ensures a UN mandate for any Irish peacekeeping activity and to tie Ireland into the EU’s and NATO’s military policies, British prime minister Keir Starmer turns his back on the social needs of the people of the North of Ireland and Britain, instead taking an active part in Israel’s aggression against Iran.
Meanwhile the crises gather force, with record homeless figures North and South, with families sunk in debt, with young people unable to leave the family home, and all against a backdrop of rising costs of living. To add to the urgency of this situation is the increasing tragedy of racism, seen in the vile attacks against immigrants in Ballymena and other towns in the North, and following on racist inspired violence in the South, as in Coolock last year. Racism is no answer to the problems faced by workers, because it isn’t immigrants who refuse to bring in policies for state construction of housing or employing sufficient staff to cut waiting lists; it is government policy that creates these problems.
But racists don’t direct their anger against the governments, in Dublin and Westminster, that are responsible. They divert people’s anger onto people who are themselves victims of the imperialist world order. In the South, parties of the Left, claiming to represent the working class have been divided against themselves, and often willing to take up junior positions in support of those who run the system.
But there are now signs that this might change, as tentative efforts to bring about a unity of the Left parties to present a coherent alternative to the failed capitalist policy programme of the current governments gather pace. This development is very much to be welcomed, but it needs more than a joint programme of political parties. To be effective it needs to involve the labour movement as a whole – trade unions, community organisations, social defence groups and so on. And it needs to break with the existing capitalist system that has failed and is It is no use looking to the European Union to save the day, because the EU, with its constitutional insistence that all member states pursue a market economy policy – the very policy that has failed – is part of the problem not the solution. Next month ICTU is holding its biennial conference, a centrepiece of which is the call for a new economic model.
The tariff war unleashed by US president Trump and his plans to repatriate US capital to its home base mean that the old development model of relying on foreign direct Investment will no longer be possible. Neither will the EU be able to take up the slack. The Labour movement, together with a united cooperation of Left parties needs to face up to this, and push for a democratised state to take control of the commanding heights of the economy for the benefit of the majority. No more handouts to bankers, to investors, to speculators. Instead, now is the time to produce a programme of social investment to raise living standards and to meet the needs of our people, North and South, in housing, health and employment.
Comrade Alex,we are not a Sovereign state we are a vassal state serving 2 masters IE USA and the EU. As a country we were once subordinate to the UK.The UK is no longer an Imperialist power, but still nostalgicaly pretends that it is so. As a people we have nothing in common with the above . They all have blood on their hands. The anti Imperialist Left on this Small Island of ours should be advocating for a disassociation from any ties with these genocidal entities. As a sovereign people we have much more in common with what is termed the “Global South”. As a Communist Party we should be advocating a severance of all ties , social and political from these psychopathic Pariah’s. To that end we should be calling for a withdrawal from the European Union and a severance of obsequious tie’s with the US. As a Communist Party we should be advocating for our membership of the BRICS organisation.It is a construct much more suited to our status as a neocolony. Membership of this organisation is not dependant on Ideological conformity.As a constituent member Ireland could be a Socialist, Communist country.We could be a Theocracy,a benign dictatorship.We could even be an “Enlightened Democracy”. From what I have read and observed Ideological conformity is not a barrier to membership.There appears to be a guarantee of Sovereignity. Alex is there any social group, political party or trade union that is sympathetic to the views expressed above?.If such entities exist, please sign me up.