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Eamon Gilmore’s First Labour Speech
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I think that Harry is right in that this conference is primarily for internal consumption. Most conferences are about posturing these days but this one has more of an air of regrouping about it. Eamon Gilmore used his speech to outline that Labour’s new position politics is not all that radically different from its old one, universal health care, an end to poverty, strong communities and safer communities were all the major themes of Labour’s election campaign.
As a speech it was quite good and no doubt by now you will have seen, heard or read the hook lines from the speech where he compares Bertie unfavourably to previous Fianna Fail leaders. If you cant be bothered reading the whole speech then scan the twitter (which has been an excellent service throughout). Gilmore made a clear effort to tap into the socially liberal strand of Labour’s own politics, not the only approach to social issues in the party but increasingly a dominant one, despite what Simon might have to say on it. “Labour made modern Ireland” said Gilmore, the rights and privileges we take for granted were won by Labour and their progressive allies.
It was Labour who gave women the right to the same pay for doing the same jobs as men;
Labour which brought in the laws which protect our rights at work;
Labour which introduced the legislation on equality, on standards in public life and freedom of information;
Labour that freed separated people from the dogmas of the past and allowed them remarry if they so wish.
It was Labour that made it legal to buy a packet of condoms!
The many people who watch the Labour party though would argue that the socially liberal element is no longer sufficient, if it ever was, to win an election. The Labour approach to the economy has been topic of discussion in a number of areas for some time now. At the last election Fine Gael/Labour were tentative on the economy. They accepted the ‘prowess’ of Fianna Fail in managing the celtic tiger for the past ten years and in effect gave up the vital contest on the economy. Why in the world would a voter vote for the opposition if the government have done a good job?
That future lies in Irish firms being able to appropriate ideas, commercialise them, and turn them into world leading products.
But the young researcher tonight, with a new idea needs more than just encouragement to turn innovation to commerce. She needs start up capital. So we need a shift in policy and in culture, away from providing
tax-incentives for low-risk speculation in property towards the higher-risk investment in start ups that will create jobs in the decades to come.
Our purpose is to build the new economy, and to be a voice for enterprise, business and aspiration.
That means investing more in education, research and innovation. We need to take Irish education to new heights.
This is similar to the policies seen in last election’s manifesto. There will no doubt be a long way to go for the Commission looking into Labour’s purpose to come up with a viable economic critique in Gilmore’s social democratic vein. The ideas behind funding research, incorporating development and financing entrepreneurship are where Labour should be looking. All in all it was a speech which was designed to steady the ship, no nuclear option and no radically new policies.
Instead it was a message directed at the troops. Five years to get it right, get the ideas, policies and organisation in place and make sure that this version of the Labour rebranding or revolution or what have you will actually take hold. It is too early to tell if this will work. this New Purpose but it may do. It will need far more than a media savvy election and perhaps more than many in the party can give at this late stage of their political careers. Indeed it would seem that the Senators will play a far higher profile role this term than many before them.
This is where the web is so vitally important for Labour more than any else need to be able to tap into a generation of younger people who might be motivated to get the local organisations functioning, who may be more interested in knocking on doors than defining socialism around a fire (fun though that is). That is the top-end of what the web can do for them and it is not the only avenue they need to pursue but perhaps the message that the web, the speech, the conference itself was designed to convey to those who made the trip to Wexford or Ustream was ‘there is hope’.
At this stage of the game, hope is what they need.
The really sad thing is that the Labour Party is really a bankrupt thing of the past inhabited by aging place seekers who just want to increase their pensions. Look at the indecent rush to grab the Leas Ceann Comhairle job! Quinn ( why in God’s name is this aging careerist still hanging around ? ) was gagging for it. Howlin put more energy into trying to get it than he ever did in his whole career to promote social democracy in this country let alone socialism!
Yes, it did all the things that Gilmore said but that was nearly a generation ago now. Labour had a chance after the 1992 election and the Robinson election to become a major party but they blew it big time.
Labour under Spring “jumped the shark” when they put FF back in in 1992. They have never been forgotten for this infamy by the voters. They have never worked out that in broad terms the voters are divided into those who either want a FF government or don’t want want one.
Even wackier still was to allow the Stickies to use Labour as a lifebaot. The post DL/Labour merger party. Was a lot less than the sum of its parts. Taking in a bunch of failed Official Sinn Fein/Official IRA opportunists was hardly a political masterstroke.
The notion that the Senators are the future is baizzare. Lets look at one as an example - Lady Ivana Backik of the Campanile. You’d think that she be better to take her massive 80,000 Euro wage for her TCD 8 hours a week sinicure plus her 60,000 wage for the senate and buy a house in Tallagh and win a seat in the Dail! Not a chance. No Trinity liberal would live in Tallagh! Why should she any way ? Lady Backik of the Campanile knows Labour under the Stickies is stuffed. Anyway one Mary Robinson was a joke - another would be a tragedy.
When history repeats itself it repeats itself as farce!
The political radicalisation currently taking place across Europe is beginning to show itself in Ireland. In the south the free-market ‘neoliberal’ Celtic Tiger has created massive wealth for an elite minority but created poorer public services and an increasing cost of living for the majority while many are still living in poverty. People are fed up and are starting to fight back. Just look at the outrage over the nursing home scandals, the protest over Shell and the tens of thousands who took part in the recent demonstrations against the war, poverty and environmental destruction caused by the neoliberal policies of the G8 leaders like Bush, Blair and Berlusconi.
Public outrage has resulted in support for Fianna Fáil falling dramatically. Instead of galvanising this wave of opposition and offering a real left alternative, the Labour Party and others are busy making pre-electoral pacts with ‘free-market’ Fine Gael. The official trade union movement is wedded in “partnership” to the government and bosses.
Those genuinely committed to building social movements need to unite and create a new left alternative. The votes at recent local and by-elections demonstrate this has a real possibility of success.
Important steps in the process of creating a new left are, as Andy Storey (Afri) has noted: “meetings, discussions, participatory practices, trust and openness”. The Trade Union forum, anti-capitalist mobilisations and local community campaigns amongst others are opportunities to move this forward. Public ‘New left alternative’ forums could be another step.
It was an alliance of the radical Left parties in France that won a majority of votes to defeat the neoliberal EU constitution in France. In an exciting breakthrough in Germany a new radical left party, the Left Party, is winning 10-15% support in polls, mainly from former members and supporters of the German labour party, the SPD.
In Britain it was the newly formed Respect alliance and George Galloway that most vocally opposed Bush and Blair’s war. From Bolivia to France it is the new Left movements that provide a real opposition. Our vision is of a new ‘left alternative’ that is an alliance (on a local and national level) similar to such new alliances emerging across the world like Respect in the UK and Left Block in Portugal.
It can be much more than the existing left. It must also involve those who are currently unrepresented by mainstream politics such as anti-capitalists, migrants, women and community workers. The new left alternative should actively support campaigns that build the confidence of people in local communities and workplaces and aim to politically represent them.
The recent elections in Northern Ireland confirmed that one of the main outcomes of the Good Friday Agreement has been the institutionalisation of communal politics in Northern Irish society. The Socialist and Environmental Alliance (SEA) is building an alternative to that communalism and the acceptance of neo-liberalism. When it comes to the airport, the rail link, poverty wages, water charges or the Iraq war, all the main parties are at one in bowing down before big business.
Left unity and vision brought about the mobilisations against the bin tax and the Iraq war. What was missing was a left alternative to represent the thousands who came out to reject those neo-liberal and imperialist policies. We cannot let this happen again.
People want to fight back. The left can break the stranglehold of the right and an ineffective Labour Party. Now is the time to take bold and imaginative steps and apply unity and vision to create a new left alternative in Ireland.
Desmond keep dreaming.