ISN article on the general election

national | politics / elections | opinion/analysis Thursday June 07, 2007 18:47 by Colm Breathnach - Irish Socialist Network breathc at hotmail dot com

This article outlines an initial analysis of the general election results from the Irish Socialist Network.

MORE OF THE DEVIL WE KNOW: THE WINNERS AND LOSERS OF GENERAL ELECTION 2007

END OF (BOOM) TIMES

There’s no denying that this was a bad election for the left. Setbacks turn into major defeats in the absence of rational analysis of what went wrong. This is an attempt to start such an analysis.

The Fianna Fáil victory and the rise of Fine Gael’s vote happened for a number of reasons but the key element seems to be that Irish capitalism has convinced the majority of people that it alone can deliver prosperity. The problems related to public services, health, crime and transport are important to people but could not trump the notion that any progress on these issues could only be based on the continued health of the capitalist economy. Many people feared the future demise of the Celtic Tiger, which has delivered short term increase in the standard of living, more than they resented the massive inequality and dreadful state of public services. This does not make them selfish or part of the ‘contented majority’. Given the level of information available to people and the dominance of right-wing ideology in all social and political structures, it is hardly surprising that people took this view.

That said, it was not simply a matter of people voting out of fear of a fall. It would be a strange capitalist boom that did not produce a certain level of satisfaction with pro-capitalist parties, even amongst those on whose exploitation it rests. For relatively short periods of time, capitalism can simultaneously exploit people and satisfy some of their basic needs. As Marx correctly observed growing inequality can sometimes be accompanied by a rise in the absolute standard of living of workers. Previous capitalist booms, including the long boom of the 1950s to 1970s, led to an increase in the standards of living of workers in developed capitalist countries, though such booms are often based on increased exploitations of workers and peasants in underdeveloped or newly emergent regions of the world.

The Celtic Tiger has lasted a long time and, though the signs are ominous, it may have a few more years in it. In such long periods of capitalist prosperity, where all classes do well in absolute terms, the working class can be rendered largely quiescent, especially if the state is dominated by a right-populist party wedded to some form of corporatism, a characteristic of both the Asian and Celtic Tigers. FF is not as exceptional as some people think; one has only to look at the record of that Liberal Democratic Party in Japan or the Peoples Action Party in Singapore. Often in such cases the radical left and, if they’re not running the show, the centre-left, are marginalised while the boom lasts. This is not an argument for fatalism, nor a denunciation of working people as some sort of ‘labour aristocracy’, just an identification of a major brake on radicalisation of the class.

IT’S THE HEGEMONY STUPID!

Of course boom-time prosperity does not mean that inequality ceases to exist or that the super-profits of the rich are no longer based on the exploitation of workers. Nor does it mean that people are unaffected by quality of life issues such as poor services, transport chaos etc. The difficulty is that they do not connect everyday problems to the capitalist system nor do they see any genuine alternatives. This leads us to another factor in the victory of the right: the absolute hegemony of right wing ideas which ensure the dominance of the ruling classes in Ireland today. A large variety of agencies, including the education system, informal cultural practices and in particular the media, act as essential conduits for the transference and dominance of conservative ideas. The Irish media in particular is completely dominated by right wing ideology, whether the brash in your face version of Independent Newspapers or the softly-softly approach of the Irish Times. This is hardly surprising given the ownership structure of the Irish media. In contrast to other European countries there is no national media outlet that challenges ruling class ideology, even from a soft-left/reformist position.

This right wing ideological dominance goes a long way towards explaining why coverage of left-of-centre parties’ positions on coalition centred solely on their willingness to drop radical reformist policies. Few, if any, mainstream journalists questioned the logic of entering government with parties of the right. The abandonment of radical policies by Sinn Féin and the Greens were almost universally welcomed as signs of ‘maturity’ and suitability to enter government, while any resistance to this process was condemned as outdated and unpopular. To a certain extent this is what burst the Green and SF bubbles. The existence of parties that seemed to offer a more trenchant critique of the existing order was a glitch in the smooth TINA mantra, so they had to be brought to heal, and what tame little doggies they turned out to be!

Another manifestation of the hegemony of ruling-class ideas played a major role in putting the squeeze on all the small parties and independents. Every effort was made by the media to portray this as a battle royal between two presidential figures. Everything was reduced to Bertie versus Enda. This Americanisation of the election campaign is indicative of the hollowing out of democracy evident in many western countries: everything is reduced to personalities backed by two big parties which are almost identical ideologically and effectively represent the same class interests. Is it any surprise that many of those who feared for the future opted for FF, while those who wanted change opted for FG, when all other options on the menu appeared in small print at the bottom of the page?

RIGHT TURN AND CRASH

Although it would be foolish to write off the party, SF suffered its first reverse in many years. It is true that the party’s vote increased slightly overall but they suffered a serious setback in working class areas of Dublin. The extent of the defeat is evident from comparing the votes received in the local elections of 2004 with the general election result. A look at the Dublin North West constituency reveals this starkly. SF has been the major force on the left in this constituency since the demise of the Workers Party. It has a strong constituency machine and two hard-working and popular councillors. In the two wards that make up the constituency, Finglas and Ballymun/Whitehall, SF topped the poll in the 2004 local elections, gaining a combined total vote of 6570. Yet in the general election, with turnout up by 8%, the total SF vote fell to 4,873. In percentage terms the fall was even more dramatic. In the local elections SF got 32.9% in Finglas and 24.2% in Ballymun/Whitehall, yet in the general election the overall percentage fell to 15.7%. It is apparent here and in other areas that large numbers of working class voters abandoned SF and voted for the conservative parties.

The general factors already mentioned certainly contributed to SF’s losses but specific issues were also involved. Hammered by the media for being too left-wing and dying to get into government, the party rushed to the right. At the start of the election the party’s Ard Comhairle literally abandoned their mildly reformist taxation policy, replacing it with a ‘business friendly’ position of zero increase in corporation and higher earner taxation. This rush to the right damaged them: if all they were offering was the same economic policies as the right combined with an ever-so-slightly left-of-centre social policy then why not vote for FF?

For the first time the intervention of the Northern leadership was shown up as clumsy: forcing the move to the right on a partly unwilling southern cadre, imposing middle class ‘new Shinners’ such as Mary Lou on the grassroots, banking on a peace dividend that did not materialise because that had been cashed in long ago when they ended the armed struggle and thinking that Adams generalised rhetoric could compete with the detailed economic arguments of the right. While no one should underestimate the ability of the SF leadership to wriggle out of a tight corner, this time things may not go so smoothly as they have never dealt with internal opposition based on strategy in the south. On a positive note, it is possible now that the barely audible rumblings of internal dissent will become more open and that some elements of the party’s grassroots may begin to perceive how badly they have been mislead by the right-ward moves, even if these have been accompanied by the honeyed tones of the leadership’s revolutionary rhetoric.

If SF failed to make the expected break through, Labour just stood still. Too far right to feel the squeeze on the left but unable to make anti-government hay because FG had all the advantages, all Labour could do was facilitate the remarkable recovery of FG and its idealess, principle-free, clockwork bunny of a leader. While much of its recovery happened in rural and middle class areas, Fine Gael actually also made significant inroads in traditional working class areas, indicating that many working people saw them as the only serious anti-government alternative. The liberal middle and upper income groups who form a large part of Labour’s support base went for the bigger of the ‘Alliance for Change’ parties. This was also the case for the Green Party, now solidly embedded in the neo-liberal consensus along with Labour. That’s about the sum of it since both these parties are irrelevant to any debate about the future of the left other than the sad fact that small numbers of genuine leftists still cling to the entirely irrational hope that these parties can be miraculously transformed into engines of radical social change. And pigs will fly.

A QUESTION OF POWER

The failure of the centre left parties to make any progress once again raises the question of the location of power in a developed capitalist society. According to their script, you ‘get power’ simply by being in government: any government for Rabbitte, Adams and Sargent, a ‘left-majority’ government for the left-social democrats in Labour Youth etc. and a fully fledged left government for some on the far left. Once in power, you ‘deliver’, that is you bring in reforms from above to improve peoples lives. The idea that those with the real power in society, those who control the wealth of society, will allow you to ‘deliver’ anything that seriously endangers their hold on society seems not to have occurred to them. Not only do centre left parties in coalition inevitably fail to ‘deliver’ and end up paying the price, fully reformist governments often fail to deliver any serious reforms. Most reforms implemented are the result of campaigning on the ground or long term social processes and changes which eventually force concessions from above, concessions that are made in order to protect the long term interests of the capitalist class.

Even if we accept that reformist leaders are not just cynical careerists, what’s missing in this ‘stand and deliver’ strategy is any understanding of where the real centres of power lie: in elite domination of the economy and of cultural and social structures. Being in government is not inconsequential but it does not overlap exactly or even predominantly with being ‘in power’. Secondly, the fundamental assumption underpinning this reformist concept of power is that you take power on behalf of people and ‘deliver’ to them. In other words you follow the exact path to power permitted in a capitalist democracy, because the other path involving the participation of the mass of people in their own emancipation threatens the very foundations of the capitalist system. According to this view it simply is not possible to do anything other than to reform from above within the bounds laid down by the current system. Even the prospect of radical reforms is eschewed since these would not be acceptable to the local ruling class, multi-national capital and the imperialist powers.

Unfortunately, with its simplistic ‘betrayal narrative’ of the constant rightward shift of former radicals, most of the far-left has failed to come to grips with this question. If we are to seriously challenge this reformism-lite, as well as its now largely defunct parent social democracy, we have to outline how an alternative strategy rooted deeply in the participation of the mass of people and aimed at the revolutionary transformation of society would work. We also have to answer the difficult questions with something other than generalisations. What about the flight of capital and consequent economic crisis? What about the embeddedness of state structures in the EU super-state? What about the blockages to radical changes inherent in the Irish constitution? What about the crucial role of the judiciary, the legal system in general and the coercive forces of the state?

We need to come up with convincing answers to these questions if we are to fully expose the failure of what passes for reformism in Ireland. If we, correctly, argue for a seizure of power from below, for the secondary role of electoral activity, for a radical democratic restructuring of the political superstructure and a socialisation of the economic base, then we better work hard on coming up with convincing and detailed arguments to these questions.

ONE STEP BACK

One thing is certain about this election. It was a big set-back for the radical left. Right across the board left candidates did badly, falling back significantly from the promising progress made at the 2004 local elections. In most cases they lost support to FF or Fine Gael. Thousands of working class voters abandoned socialist candidates and voted for the parties of the right. Now much of this can be explained by the factors already discussed: relative prosperity, the big two scenario etc. But other more left-specific factors may also have come into play. It seems that many left groups simply had not put down deep enough roots in working class communities. The bin tax campaign, which formed the solid basis of the 2004 local election successes, had ended and the roots put down by the left during that campaign proved too fragile. By and large, the left failed to campaign consistently on issues that effected people directly.

Without any finger pointing, since the Irish Socialist Network was as guilty as others, one could fairly ask: where were the on-going left campaigns on housing, health, public transport or social partnership? By this I mean real campaigns mobilising and involving masses of ordinary people rather than ephemeral ‘petition and poster’ ones mainly aimed at recruitment? Basically it seems that there was no mystery to this failure of the far-left: real campaigning involving people in their own communities and workplaces did not happen on a consistent basis.

In relation to specific organisations, the loss of Joe Higgins’s seat is undoubtedly a heavy blow, not just to the Socialist Party but to the working class as a whole. He epitomised in the eyes of a large number of Irish people what socialists stood for: principled, hardworking, standing up for the underdog. He was a lone voice in the Dáil, exposing and criticising the right wing parties, showing up the docility of the centre left parties, attacking the system rather than just those who administered it. Why he lost the seat, why Clare Daly failed to win one in Dublin North and why the other Socialist Party candidates did poorly in relation to local election results, was in my view largely a product of the general circumstances though some specific elements particular to the SP may have also contributed. It is to be hoped that this will lead to some reassessment on the part Socialist Party rather than a retrenchment and battening down of the hatches.

Turning to left-independents, the loss of Seamas Healy’s seat in South Tipperary and Joan Collins failure to win one in Dublin South Central were also heavy blows to the struggle. Their strong advocacy of class politics and their immersion in working class communities made their election important for the development of the radical left. Once again they were swept aside by the unstoppable tidal wave of the right. Though there are no simple answers (except for the religio-marxists who always have the right answers), one thing is certain: whatever we have been doing so far has not been good enough, so we have to analyse developments carefully and look at what changes we need to make in our strategy and tactics.

One organisation that, on the face of it, fared rather better was the Socialist Workers Party. A more detailed look at the evidence reveals this exception to be more apparent than real since only two out of the five SWP/People Before Profit Alliance candidates made any impact in the election and those two owed much, though not all, of their success to local factors. In Dublin South Central, Bríd Smith increased her vote substantially. A glance at the last local elections results explains this gain: Smith’s base in Ballyfermot ensured that she gained about half of the 1,920 votes received by the Gregory-style independent and Lord Mayor of Dublin, Vincent Jackson, who did not stand in the general election. This brought her vote up to 2,086 from 1,094 in the local elections. This is not to take away from the fact that effective campaigning work in the area ensured that she was in a position to do so. In Richard Boyd Barrett’s case, an impressive record of local campaigning also contributed to strong support in the working class enclaves of the Dun Laoghaire constituency, though the existence of a large left-liberal section of the middle and upper income groups in that constituency, impressed by his anti-war campaigning and work on the Dun Laoghaire Baths issue, also contributed significantly to his vote.

Despite the unique local factors involved, the manipulative antics of the SWP should not blind us to the fact that that these two candidates weathered the storm better than the rest of the left partly because of their involvement in local campaigns and, in contrast to the usual SWP on-off attitude, their ability to stick with them. A possible negative reason for their relative success was their failure to identify themselves as socialists: standing as PBPA candidates and only mentioning their socialist allegiances in the small print. In fact their election literature was little different to that of SF and left-leaning Labour candidates. This moderate disguise probably also helped to save them from the deluge that washed over the rest of the far-left. It is ironic that the neo-trotskyists of the SWP now follow the ‘popular front’ tactics usually associated with the orthodox communist parties in the past: you set up a front organisation in alliance with naïve intellectuals and liberal-lefts and win popular support on that basis. If and when you win significant support you face a real problem because that support is based on, at best, reformist illusions, and you can hardly suddenly take off the mask and switch to radical socialist policies.

This critique is not based on out of date workerism. Of course we recognize that the majority of what are called the middle class are workers, though capitalist societies are not divided simply into proletariat and bourgeois and there are many class fractions and intermediate groups with differing and shifting interests. Whatever view one takes of these middle groups, taking the short-cut of appealing to them on a populist basis is a dead end. A slower but more fruitful strategy in the long run is to win middle income workers over to socialism via an open commitment to class politics based on campaigning in the community and workplace, using a modern articulation of the language of class.

The ISN did not escape the overall trend in this election. Our vote in Finglas did not collapse but, in line with most far-left candidates it was reduced significantly from the local election result, falling from 845 to 505. But rather than taking the usual head in the sand ‘the working class really support us, they just didn’t show it in the privacy of the voting booth’ attitude, it is incumbent on us to try to analyse the result honestly. This fall in support was to a large extent related to broader factors outside our control but it also indicates that the ISN is not sufficiently rooted in the working class communities of Dublin North West. Despite the hard work of local members, including the regular production and delivery of a local newsletter and action on various local issues, there was a certain decline in active work on the ground after the last local election. This was partly due to our efforts to build the ISN and clarify our politics, tasks which reduced the time available for local campaigning work. Another contributing factor was the fact that the only major local campaign we were actively involved in, the bin tax campaign, had effectively ended as a mass campaign after 2004. We were correct to stick by the people who refused to pay (indeed we still do) and correct to refuse to abandon the campaign but perhaps we should have been more realistic about putting a lot of work into a campaign that had lost mass support.

Of course we could have done things differently. We could have directed all our energies towards electoral work; we could have dumped our decision to encourage people to deal with everyday problems through collective campaigning rather than aping the clientelism of the major parties. We could have toned down our explicit class politics. We could have done all these things and possibly added a few votes but at what cost? If we were going to go for wishy-washy, vaguely left-of-centre, ‘I looked after you, now you vote for me’ politics, we might as well join the Labour Party. No thanks!

Let there be no doubt about it the radical left has a hard struggle ahead. Some, sitting on the sidelines, will demand instant answers of us. The ISN, like the rest of the far-left, must ask ourselves some tough questions. One advantage that we have is participatory democratic nature of our internal structures, which allows for open and critical debate, while precluding the ready made, top down decision making process of hierarchical organisations. However, this alone will not ensure that we have learned and absorbed the lessons of this defeat. Engaging with working people in campaigning work, learning from that engagement and developing our politics on that basis: this is key to healthy renewal. Revolutionary politics grows in the mass struggles of working people or dies. It’s as simple as that.