Socialist Party (Ireland)

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This article is about the party founded in 1996. For the party founded in 1949, see World Socialist Party (Ireland). For the party founded in 1971, see Socialist Party of Ireland (1971).
Socialist Party
Páirtí Sóisialach
Leader Collective Leadership
Founded 1996; 28 years ago (1996)
Split from Labour Party
Headquarters 141 Thomas Street, Dublin 8, Ireland
Newspaper The Socialist
Youth wing Socialist Youth
Ideology Democratic socialism
Political radicalism[1]
Trotskyism
Political position Far-left
European affiliation European Anticapitalist Left
International affiliation Committee for a Workers' International
European Parliament group European United Left–Nordic Green Left
Colours Red, white
Dáil Éireann
2 / 166
Website
socialistparty.ie
www.socialistpartyni.net (Northern Ireland)
Politics of Ireland
Political parties
Elections

The Socialist Party (Irish: Páirtí Sóisialach) is a socialist political party in Ireland, active on both sides of the border. A member of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI), it altered its registered name in 2014 to Stop the Water Tax – Socialist Party.[2] Two of its representatives sit in Dáil Éireann, with a third Teachta Dála sitting as a representative of the Anti-Austerity Alliance (AAA).

The Socialist Party was formed by members of the Labour Party known as the "Militant Tendency" who were expelled in 1989. They formed Militant Labour which became the Socialist Party in 1996

The Socialist Party has been involved in the Anti-Bin Tax Campaign and the Campaign Against Home and Water Taxes. Members of the party were jailed for their part in the former, while members have been arrested for their role in the latter. The Socialist Party has also been credited with bringing to light the GAMA construction scandal. It sat in the European Parliament between 2009 and 2014.

History

Foundation and Split from the Labour Party

While at university, Joe Higgins joined the Labour Party and became active in Militant, a Trotskyist group that operated in the Labour Party. Militant was a strong opponent of coalition politics which included TDs Emmet Stagg and Michael D. Higgins. Joe Higgins was elected to the Administrative Council of the Labour Party by the membership in the 1980s. In 1989, Higgins was expelled along with thirteen other members of Militant. The group left the party and formed Militant Labour which became the Socialist Party in 1996.

1996–2002 (27th and 28th Dáil)

The Socialist Party came to wider attention among the general public in 1996 when Joe Higgins polled just 252 votes behind victor Brian Lenihan, Jnr in the Dublin-West by-election.[3] The following year, Higgins was first elected to Dáil Éireann.[4]

2002–2007 (29th Dáil)

Socialist Party TDs Clare Daly (left) and Joe Higgins (centre), pictured here during the Boycott the Household Tax campaign in January 2012, were jailed for their part in the Anti-Bin Tax Campaign.

At the 2002 general election, Joe Higgins retained his Dublin West seat in Dáil Éireann.[5] Clare Daly narrowly missed out on gaining a second seat for the party in the Dublin North constituency.[6]

The Anti-Bin Tax Campaign came about at this time. On 19 September 2003, Higgins and Daly were sent to Mountjoy Prison for a month after refusing to abide by a High Court injunction relating to the blockading of bin lorries.[7][8][9][10]

At the 2004 local elections, the Socialist Party gained two council seats, with Mick Murphy being elected to South Dublin County Council and Mick Barry being elected to Cork City Council.[11][12] The party also retained their two previous seats (held by Daly and Ruth Coppinger) on Fingal County Council.[13][14] At the European election held on the same day, Joe Higgins received 23,218 (5.5%) votes in the Dublin constituency, but did not win a seat.[15]

Councillor Mick Murphy was responsible for bringing the GAMA construction scandal to light in October 2004.[16] This involved a group of Turkish workers being brought to Ireland by GAMA, a Turkish construction company. They were illegally underpaid and forced to work hours in breach of the EU Working Time Directive. Murphy discovered the workers living on the building site where they were employed. After contacting the local council, GAMA and trade union officials and remaining unenlightened, Murphy wrote a leaflet in English, had it translated into Turkish "mainly to say that we had no problem with them being here, and saying what GAMA had said", then threw it over the hoarding surrounding the site.[16] Murphy brought it to the attention of his party colleague Joe Higgins, who was then a TD for Dublin West, and Higgins raised the matter in Dáil Éireann on 8 February 2005, bringing public awareness to the workers' plight.[17] The exploitation included migrant Turkish construction workers bring employed on state projects, being paid as little as €2.20 an hour[18] (the minimum wage in Ireland was €7.00) while being forced to work up to 80 hours per week. This led to a strike by immigrant workers in Ireland.[19][20][21] The exploited workers each won tens of thousand of euro worth of unpaid wages and overtime.[22]

2007–2011 (30th Dáil)

At the 2007 general election, Joe Higgins lost his Dublin West seat and the Socialist Party was left without a TD for the first time since 1997.[23] The Party campaigned for a "no" vote the 2008 and 2009 referenda on the Treaty of Lisbon.[24][25]

At the 2009 European and local elections, Joe Higgins won a seat in the Dublin constituency with 50,510 (12.4%) first preference votes, as well as gaining a seat in the Castleknock local electoral area of Fingal County Council.[26][27] The party held its seats on Fingal County and Cork City Council (Ruth Coppinger and Mick Barry respectively), while gaining one seat each on Balbriggan Town Council and Drogheda Borough Council.[28][29][30] However, the party lost Mick Murphy, its only councillor on South Dublin County Council.[31]

2011–present (31st Dáil)

At the 2011 general election the Socialist Party returned two TDs to Dáil Éireann. Clare Daly was elected for the Dublin North constituency, while Joe Higgins regained his seat in Dublin West. The Socialist Party contested this election as part of the United Left Alliance (ULA), a political alliance which included both PBPA and WUAG, as well as independent activists. The Alliance won five seats in the national parliament.[32] Paul Murphy then debuted on the national and international stage when he was selected to replace Joe Higgins in the European Parliament, as is customary when MEPs leave during their term.[33] Following the death of Brian Lenihan the Second, the Socialist Party contested the 2011 Dublin West by-election, with its candidate Ruth Coppinger coming in third.[34] The Socialist Party also called for a referendum on the December 2011 EU deal, and said it would reject that same deal in such a vote.[35]

In 2012, legal advice was sought when it emerged that the expenses given to Higgins and Daly as TDs may have been used for travel outside their constituencies and journeys to the Dáil.[36] Public expenditure minister Brendan Howlin subsequently confirmed that TDs were, in fact, entitled to claim expenses for travel outside their constituencies and that Daly and Higgins were guilty of no wrongdoing.[37] The Socialist Party and ULA said the story was a "manufactured controversy", part of a "vindictive smear campaign by Independent Newspapers", owned by billionaire Denis O'Brien, the truth of which was indicated by the number of sensationalist pieces run by the newspaper company.[38][39][40]

Clare Daly resigned from the Socialist Party on 31 August 2012.[41] The Socialist Party associated Daly's resignation with the claim that "she placed more value on her political connection with Independent TD Mick Wallace than on the political positions and work of the Socialist Party"; however, this statement has been contested by Daly.[42][43] The Socialist Party left the ULA in January 2013.[44]

Socialist Party members contested the 2014 local elections as part of the Anti-Austerity Alliance.[45] Of particular note was the gaining of multiple seats on Limerick and Cork City Councils, "making it a national rather than Dublin-centric alliance".[1] The Dublin West by-election of the same day returned Ruth Coppinger to Dáil Éireann, giving Dublin West two Socialist Party TDs.[46] Paul Murphy was unsuccessful in retaining the Socialist Party's European seat at this time but was elected to Dáil Éireann that October after a "sensational" result in the Dublin South–West by-election, which the Sinn Féin candidate had been "hot favourite" to win.[47]

In 2015, water charge protestors, including party elected representatives Paul Murphy, Kieran Mahon and Mick Murphy, were arrested.[48][49][50] The arrests led to accusations of "political policing" and sparked minor solidarity protests across Europe, including in London, Berlin, Vienna and Stockholm.[51][52][53]

Policies

According to its website, the Socialist Party "stands for the socialist alternative to the dictatorship of the markets – namely real democracy whereby ordinary people take centre stage in running society, with democratic public ownership of banks, of key sectors of the economy and industry, and a democratic plan of the economy to provide for the needs of people". It opposes the so-called "Social Partnership" deals and those in the trade union movement who advocate them, considering the agreements detrimental to the well-being of workers.[54] It also holds influence in the Northern Irish branch of the FBU, where its members played a key role in encouraging the FBU's split from the British Labour Party in 2004,[55] as well as influence in NIPSA with members in the NIPSA Broad Left faction.[56]

The Socialist Party is involved in many community campaigns, including the 1996 Anti Water Tax Campaign, the 2003–2004 Anti-Bin Tax Campaign and the current Campaign Against Home and Water Taxes. It opposes the U.S-led wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, the occupation of Palestine, targeted killings and drone warfare in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere and continues to be active in campaigns against fascism, racism, low pay exploitation and religious sectarianism. They claim to advocate on behalf of, and support, workers, women in the home, LGBT people and ethnic minorities.

Regarding the divided north, the Socialist Party opposes sectarian divisions between Protestants and Catholics and seeks to bring working class unity to both sides of the border. They argue that capitalism is incapable of overcoming sectarianism. They have opposed paramilitary threats with peaceful protest in a movement that set in motion the "peace process", a turn of events they resolutely support.[54] However the Socialist Party take a critical view of the Good Friday Agreement and other subsequent initiatives, claiming it further entrenches and institutionalises sectarianism and doesn't work towards solving the fundamental causes of the conflict.[57]

Youth wing

Socialist Youth is the youth wing of the Socialist Party.[58]

List of newspapers and publications

  • The Socialist (formerly Socialist Voice, The Voice, and Militant) – Monthly newspaper
  • Socialist View (formerly Socialism 2000) – Quarterly Theoretical Journal
  • International Socialist Voice – E-Zine
  • Fingal Socialist – Free paper distributed in Northern and Western Dublin
  • Cork Socialist – Free paper distributed in Cork city

Election results

Dáil Éireann

Election Dáil First Preference Vote Vote % Seats
1997 28th 12,445 0.7%
1 / 166
2002 29th 14,896 0.8%
1 / 166
2007 30th 13,218 0.6%
0 / 166
2011 31st 26,770 1.2%
2 / 166

Northern Ireland Assembly

Election Assembly First Preference Vote Vote % Seats
1998 1st 789 0.1%
0 / 108
2003 2nd 343 0.0%
0 / 108
2007 3rd 473 0.1%
0 / 108
2011 4th 819 0.1%
0 / 108

Local

Election Country First Preference Vote Vote % Seats
1999 Republic of Ireland 5,312 0.4%
2 / 883
2004 Republic of Ireland 13,494 0.7%
4 / 883
2005 Northern Ireland 828 0.1%
0 / 582
2009 Republic of Ireland 16,052 0.9%
4 / 883
2011 Northern Ireland 682 0.1%
0 / 583
2014 Northern Ireland 272 0.0%
0 / 462
2014 Republic of Ireland Contested the election as part of Anti-Austerity Alliance

European

The Socialist Party has contested European elections in the Republic of Ireland but not in Northern Ireland..

Election First Preference Vote Vote % Seats
1999 10,619 0.8%
0 / 15
2004 23,218 1.3%
0 / 13
2009 50,510 2.7%
1 / 12
2014 29,953 1.8%
0 / 11

List of elected members

14 party members were elected as part of the Anti-Austerity Alliance in 2014.

See also

References

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  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Ibid.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  31. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  32. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  33. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  34. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  35. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  36. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  37. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  38. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  40. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  41. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  42. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  43. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  44. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  45. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  46. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  47. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  48. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  49. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  50. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  51. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  52. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  53. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  54. ↑ 54.0 54.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  55. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  56. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  57. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  58. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  59. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  60. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  61. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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