20 February 2006
 

Dear Socialist Democracy,

I was at the campaign for an independent left (CIL) meeting in Dublin on 6th December and I recently read Andrew Johnson's report on your website.

I must say I was very disappointed. I agree with a lot of your material and I even agree with a number of the points you made in the article, but at the end of the day the report appeared overwhelmingly negative. You listed the positions of other left groups simply to rubbish them.

I agree we should be trying to build a revolutionary party, rather than some bland labourite one, and that it should be based on political unity, rather than people just agreeing not to disagree.  My problem is that you don’t say what the political basis of unity should be. You make a point of people uniting around demos and marches, but surely they would do that anyway?

Your position seems a bit like the Socialist Party one.  The time is not right for a new party, but you don’t say what the conditions are that would make the time right.  You dismiss the list of points made by Colm Breathnach of the Irish Socialist Network, publishing them as an appendix and only dealing with the one about Coalition, which I agree is pretty weak.  Surely they deserve more discussion?

I don’t think we should be ‘curbing our enthusiasm’ for a new left party.  I think we should be enthusiastic and leave no stone unturned in our search to build unity on the left.

Yours,

Left Unity