Lasair Dhearg’s Pól Torbóid delivered a short address to a seminar in Armagh [Saturday 28th May] organised by the Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum where he detailed Lasair Dhearg’s view on the current state of Socialist Republicanism across Ireland, the political and economic context within which we are all currently organising, and where we think the future direction of Socialist Republicanism should be.
In attendance were organisers from the PODSRF, the 1916 Societies, the Communist Party of Ireland, trade union representatives, a number of independent Socialist Republican councillors from across Ireland and more.
Pól Torbóid delivered the following address to those attending:
We all know the reality of the situation we face and the context within which we all currently organise.
Though both failed statelets on this island would have you believe that peace has been achieved and therein lies our salvation, the facts tell us otherwise. The Ireland of today is one firmly wedded to imperialism and the capitalist economic system.
Thousands of British combat troops continue to occupy the Six Counties, supported by over 7,000 members of the paramilitary police and hundreds of British military intelligence agents. Combined, there are over 20,000 British security personnel maintaining Britain’s occupation of Ireland – fuelled by a yearly security budget of Billions from the British exchequer.
Dozens of republican political prisoners continue to be held in prisons where they are regularly beaten and strip searched. Denial of visits is a common occurrence. And the prison regime in the Six Counties continues Britain’s policy of criminalisation.
A British Tory government, ably assisted by the Stormont puppet parliament when seated, continues to impose a regime of real-term wage cuts, poverty, and a declining health service.
International military flights continue to ship soldiers, machinery and heavy weaponry through Irish airports on their way to other global conflicts.
Hundreds of thousands are living without a home as hundreds of thousands of homes lie empty.
Poverty, food banks, hunger and malnutrition. Capitalism.
This is the Ireland of today.
Collectively, we believe that we have the answers needed to fix all of the issues in society. A 32 County Socialist Republic. And arguably, we are in no position to affect any meaningful change on our island in the here and now, or indeed, in the near future.
The Socialist Republican political base is severely fractured. Pockets of activists across the island organise under a variety of different banners. All doing meaningful work, but none of us yet able to bring about a new and radical departure from the status quo. We are but fleas on the body politic and there are not yet enough of us to cause concern to either failing state or their capitalist pay-masters.
Such a fractured base is as a result of the supposed ‘peace-process’ and the absorption of the once militant Republican Movement into the state apparatus and constitutional nationalism.
The Good Friday Agreement and the subsequent surrender of arms will go down in history as one of the greatest defeats for Irish Republicanism.
The pacification process is now in full flow and with it, the flow of capital continues unabated.
If not yet firmly embedded in the military alliances of global imperialism, it is abundantly clear that the Twenty Six County state is playing a full and active role in the economic processes of imperialism. Not just in terms of the extraction of our own resources, but in the funneling of capital through Irish banks and postcodes in order to reduce taxation and increase the profit margins of the super rich.
In the Six County state, sectarian politics reigns supreme with the stop-start shenanigans of the Stormont regime, shored up by hugs and handshakes from each new US president and kept on life support by London and Dublin. Stormont too wishes to advance a neo-liberal economic agenda, laying off public sector workers and artificially inflating housing costs through a lack of new homes.
We can be in no doubt that neither government has the interests of the working class at heart, as we continue to suffer the effects of the economic system imposed on us all.
In advance of today we were asked, like all of you, how might we make Connolly’s vision a reality rather than suffer another reversal under the illusion that uniting Ireland is of itself sufficient?
My immediate thought was of course, a Border Poll.
At present, a significant portion of the Socialist Republican community on this island are pro-active in their calls for such a poll. Though Lasair Dhearg would caution against this.
We do however believe that there are two considerations when it comes to such a poll.
Firstly, the outright demand for a poll.
And secondly, if a poll were called, how then do we interact with it?
Regarding the former, we are lucky in that we have another significant constitutional vote in recent years to reflect upon, the effects of which are still playing out as we speak. There was however no real definition given to ‘Brexit’ beyond a ‘British exit from the EU’. It lacked real economic outcomes for the working classes, and no materialist concepts, beyond the odd lie on the side of a bus or two driven around Britain by ardent capitalists.
The result was multiple definitions being given to Brexit. Arguably, most of those definitions failed to foresee the current calamity as it plays out in the public arena. Those Socialist Republicans who justly argued for a leave vote did so knowing full well that it would have a serious effect on the constitutional nature of the state here in Ireland, and as it sought thereafter to define what Brexit actually meant.
A border poll in Ireland runs the serious risk of becoming another constitutional culdesac within which the radical tendency still existing within the Republican community could be absorbed. Drawn into a campaign with no real definitive economic outcome for our class.
In order to be ‘successful’, such a campaign must build the broadest movement possible with support not just from the working class but also the business community and the interests of capital. There is no mechanism to ensure a socialist outcome, material conditions will remain unchanged regardless of which class in society makes the demand for a border poll or brings it about. The material outcomes of a single issue campaign such as this are inevitable – it will not have dealt with the single cause of concern that underpins the inequality of both the Stormont and Leinster House governments; capitalism.
The demands made for a poll are largely absent of any materialist analysis; acknowledging this, and pursuing it anyway, with the notion that we can later pursue socialism is a mistake. It is, in essence, a ‘labour must wait’ attitude. Our position is that expounded by Connolly, where ‘The cause of labour is the cause of Ireland, the cause of Ireland is the cause of labour.’ Any negotiations, pre or post border poll, would allow our enemies to give us as much ‘freedom’ as is convenient for them to give.
To those comrades who do advocate for a border poll – we do wish you well.
The second consideration for Republicans is if a border poll were to be called (and it’s a big IF).
If it were clearly inevitable – we must then take stock of the situation and consider how we might interact with it – presuming of course, that it is given an adequate definition in advance of the vote. How then, in such a situation, might we collectively campaign for an outcome sufficient for our class?
Arguably, and setting all of that aside, a border poll is not even on the political horizon. The campaign for such a poll however runs the risk of marching what forces can be mustered into another political culdesac and another effective ‘reversal’.
The question then is ‘what is to be done’?
We accept that the revolutionary potential that existed just some decades ago has now been subverted, and we acknowledge the weak condition within which Irish Socialist Republicanism now finds itself. We do believe however that this is only temporary.
The challenge facing us all today, is the acknowledgement that the road that leads to the achievement of our objectives begins with the development of a Socialist Republican Movement. A Movement firmly embedded in the politics of Connolly and Carney.
Imagine a Movement able to take control, not of one or two city centre buildings, but of whole housing estates. If the vast resources and people power that might be built for a border poll were instead channeled into community ownership of the very streets within which we live then a Socialist Republic might well be at hand.
Not-for-profit economic alternatives developed within the community can serve as the catalyst for a new democratic economy, providing goods and services without the added profit margins. Such a venture will no doubt take several years to develop, but if the people take control of the economy, they take control of the community. It is on this basis that a new social order could be established in favour of the largest class in society – the Irish working class.
Development of community alternatives running parallel to each other – Justice & Policing, Housing, the Economy – and the consequent support for these various non-profit substitutes, could provide the basis of the Socialist Republic. Their very establishment and subsequent growth, could slowly chip away the old order to a position of non-existence. The emerging dominance of a new economic, social and political system could assert itself across Ireland with the creation of a new, united, Socialist Republic.
Only an effective Movement can create this and ensure its survival.
The immediate task at hand is the rebuilding of Republicanism and a radical Socialist Republican alternative. Such a Movement could emerge from any one of the organisations now sitting in this room, or indeed from a collective approach from all of them.
ENDS
