Fightback

Marxists would largely sympathise with Smyth’s criticisms of the Green Party, whilst posing as a left alternative it is clear to any thinking worker that they have only defended the needs of the bosses whilst in power. The growing dole queues and list of cut backs, alongside the bankers bailout shows the Greens offer no alternative to the Irish working class when it is needed most. (see http://ireland.marxist.com/ireland/politics/7670-greens-decide-to-go-down-with-the-ship) Words to such effect from Sinn Fein’s official organ can only come with a deeply ironic if not cynical tinge. Is this not the same Sinn Fein that is currently overseeing the implementation of austerity measures in the north?

This was demonstrated recently in a leaked memo from Sammy Wilson, the Executive’s Finance Minister, which declared the need for annual cuts of over £370m per year.  This would see £200m slashed from current expenditure as well as another £172m to be cut from capital expenditure, including schools and hospitals. The same statement went onto refer to the cost of deferring the hated water tax until 2011 as being £420m and warned of the need to make difficult decisions. Wilson may be a DUP minister but he is part of a government that is only made possible through the collaboration of

Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin strongly campaigned against the Water Tax, during Stormont’s suspension, yet could now face a situation when they are forced to implement it. Regardless of this precise issue it is evident that the logic of the crisis seen through the lens of the capitalist class requires a raft of cuts.

Sinn Féin shows no sign of breaking from this.

Smyth correctly points out that the Green manifesto “has nothing for the poor, the deprived, the low-income earners in rural and urban Ireland.” Yet what does Sinn Féin have to offer the working class in the North or the South of Ireland? Unemployment in the North has breached the fifty thousand mark and shows no sign of abating, whilst the best response the coalition could come with is an additional £15million for businesses, little more than a mini bankers bail out. In spite of speaking on the picket line at Visteon Gerry Adam’s utterly failed to save any of the jobs.

Smyth concludes his article by arguing that public ownership should be considered for industries such as energy in order that the profit motive is overcome in the interests of working people. This echoes the 1970s call for a democratic and socialist Ireland that the provisional IRA and Sinn Féin

espoused under pressure to win support in working class areas. Yet when in power Sinn Féin have been exposed as little more than a nationalist party defending the interests of big business.

Recent months have seen the emergence of a crisis in Sinn Féin's ranks as its divergence from its socialist and Republican rhetoric is all the more starkly exposed under the conditions of economic crisis. Three local councillors have already left the party in the South with one highlighting Sinn Féin’s departure from socialism and Republicanism. That this mood has also affected the North demonstrates this discontent runs deep. Most graphically the Fermanagh councillor Domhnall O Cobhthaigh defected to the Socialist Party, stating: “Over the past year, I have come to understand that the Assembly system itself only reinforces the sectarian divisions within our society. All five mainstream parties are doing little more than overseeing the long-term administration of senior civil servants and their right-wing agenda.”

It’s becoming increasingly obvious to working class people north and south of the partition that Sinn Féin offers no real left alternative. The politics of ‘our community’ have failed workers either side of the peace walls, and has only led to a puppet Stormont Government implementing cuts at the whims of Westminster. The only solution throughout Ireland is a united class struggle across the border and sectarian divisions.