A government for the 33rd Dail
Ramshackle stability for Irish capitalism
A government for the 33rd Dail was announced in Dublin on Saturday the 27th of June, made up of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Green Party. Despite their protestations and a large popular vote, Sinn Fein were excluded.
That government represents an historic crisis for Irish capitalism. It was hailed by former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar as the end of "Civil War politics," yet that politics, the alternation in government of former opponents in the Irish Civil War, has been the mechanism of State rule since partition.
The bankruptcy of the country to save the banks and bondholders was the end for Fianna Fail as the party of government. Austerity saw the demise of the Labour Party as the support for a Fine Gael government. The last government was an informal national government and we have now arrived at a formal national government, with the inclusion of the Greens in their second run in an austerity government which should end all the illusions that they are a party of the Left.
Some comic relief was provided by a report that Ireland was one of the world's richest countries, a comedy only made possible by misunderstanding the gulf between the billionaire minority and the mass of the population.
The working class have been living with increasing poverty and the last government fell because of crises in housing and in healthcare. Absolutely nothing in the programme for government suggests that any solution to these crises has been found.
The Irish political system is in decay, yet a curious apathy grips the socialist groups, who were on the edge of oblivion in the recent election. Their strategy hangs around the astounding idea of Sinn Fein as a 'Left' opposition and at the next election forming a Left government.
In reality a weakened capitalism
is attempting to continue down the road of austerity. The sovereign
debt will be bolstered by the Covid 19 debt and by the costs of Brexit.
The new government's failures on key issues will quickly become apparent
and victory or defeat will be decided by class struggle, not by slouching
towards the next election.