Labour Youth Reject Constitution
national |
eu |
news report 
Monday February 21, 2005 13:33
by Jonah
De Rossa Humiliated as Labour Youth Reject Constitution
In a somewhat remarkable turn of events Labour Youth have decided to oppose, and campaign against, the EU Constitution. At a special conference on the subject in the Teacher’s Club they voted by quite a narrow margin to reject the Constitution and pledged to campaign against it.
The conference was addressed by Brendan Young of DAPSE and Labour member Roger Cole of PANA opposing the Constitution and on the other side Pronnsias De Rossa and the Labour Party’s International officer. Ivana Bacik chaired the meeting and indicated her support for the Constitution as she wrapped up.
Despite both Labour European candidates for Dublin supporting the Constitution there seems to be a shred of left-wing principle in Labour Youth and the membership, in one or two cases helped by De Rossa’s extremely arrogant manner, voted to take a completely different position to that of the main party.
What this will mean in practical terms about campaigning against the Constitution remains to be seen.
Comments (11 of 11)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11The statement that De Rossa was humiliated is utterly untrue. Labour Youth took a principled position on the proposed constitution based on an honest reading of the document. Despite a disagreement on the constitution, Labour Youth remains steadfast in its support for De Rossa. Information on De Rossas activities in Europe can be found at www.derossa.com. Incidenatly,none of those who spoke could be desribed as arrogant in in their presentation.
I wasn't at the meeting and you clearly were so if you say he wasn't arrogant then I'll grudgingly accept that clarification but I spoke to two people present at the meeting who described De Rossa in particular as having been very arrogant. I wasn't there though, so fair enough.
As for being humiliated, I'm not saying that Labour Youth members threw eggs at him or anything like that. I'm not saying people deliberately humiliated him, but I think it is very fair comment to say that De Rossa, Labour's Dublin MEP, spoke to a Labour Youth Conference and lost the vote, despite pushing the Labour party line against two speakers he has contempt for and politically this is humiliating, like it or not. It is a slap in the face to the man.
This is a good development which all serious socialists should welcome. The hallmark of european social democracy in the last decade or so has been its enthusiasm for the neo-liberal european centralisation project, so for members of LY to reject the new constitution is an important break with that right wing trend.
Radical socialists should have the maturity to welcome a development like this instead of sniping at the genuine members of LY who have bucked the party leadership on this issue. I happen to believe that they are wasting their time in Labour and could play a more positive role by helping to build a new party of the working class but that does'nt blind me to the genuine basis of their political activity.
Well said Colm, it is a positive development and should be welcomed by people on the left.
The question is how seriously they will campaign.
All you need to do is look at the work they did during the last citizenship referendum. Labour Youth members put more graft in than the whole of Sinn Fein for example on that referendum!
Whether Labour Youth campaigned actively against the racist referendum or not is a debate for another thread and I'm not going to comment on it.
I would point out though that in that case Labour Youth were reflecting the position of the main party. Now they are in complete opposition to it. I think this allows people to put honest questions to Labour Youth about their ability, or their will, to really campaign on this issue.
It does not surprise me that De Rossa failed to convince the youth section of the Labour Party of the case to vote yes to the European Constitution.
It seems remarkable that the most prominent MEP for the Labour Party can not convince members of his own party to vote yes to the neo liberal agenda of the proposed E.U. Constitution.
I recall a Dublin Regional Conference of SIPTU in October of 2003, in which De Rossa spoke in favour of second yes vote in favour of the Nice Treaty.Again he failed to convince members of the Dublin Region of SIPTU as to why they should vote in favour of it.A resounding rejection of a yes vote was passed at the conference.
Ordinary members of SIPTU refused to believe the leadership of SIPTU and the leadership of the Labour Party that a neo liberal driven Europe is the way forward, and it now seems that youth members of the Labour Party refuse to believe a further tightening of the neo liberal agenda in Europe is the way forward.
How long more can they wheel out the likes of De Rossa to peddle the myth that the neo liberal agenda of capitalism in a "new" Europe is to ordinary working peoples benefit.
I welcome the position adopted by members of Labour Youth.Lets hope at least some of the members of Labour Youth make the leap to socialism and that they realise that the Labour Party do not represent the interests of ordinary working people.
When De Rossa has convinced:
1) He managed to convince a large amount of members that the Workers Party wasn't worth saving.
2) He also managed to convince a jury that he wasn't involved in or tolerated serious crime.
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."
Any truth to the rumour that frankie has established a consultancy firm based on his ability to refute a silly article in the sindo?
He would make a bundle offa da provies sharing his defence strategies(although the sterling payment might prove difficult to lodge).
Frank Ross was interned during the 1950's. He denied any knowledge of the activities of the official IRA despite there being solid evidence of a connection/overlap between both it and the WP.
He chose to ignore a plethora of expose's from various sources including RTE, the Times, Hibernia, Magill, UTV etc, etc. That started after 1972 and went on for 20 odd years until he suddenly realised in the early 90's something was not kosher. Interestingly this epiphany coincided with an internal bust up over his leadership bringing the WP closer to social democracy.
BTW when Frank was in the trenches with Dunphy he stated to the world that it was not the money but defending his character that was important and went on to say that he intended to donate the court award to a charity.
Any DL/Lab hacks care to ask him to whom the donation of £170,000 was made?
DeBossa still holds a seat as an MEP. Unfortunately, he seems to have fooled a sizable section of the voting population most of the time.
The Forum on Europe is on again - this time about the EU constitution. Anyone at all with any comments should make a submission. If you are interested you may get a chance to speak on one of the panels during the forum. Check out the link below. There was an advert in some Sunday papers looking for submissions. Think the deadline is in about two weeks.
http://www.forumoneurope.ie/index.asp?locID=87&docID=-1
Please let others no. It is one way to voice opposition to the EU constitution and to enter into the debate.
Will LPY be supporting the candiacy of Gerry Browne in the Kildare North by-election. He seems to share your views on the EU constitution and the pact with Fine Gael?
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