Socialist Democracy

The dream of a left government in Ireland dies in the 2024 general election

06/12/24

The 2024 Irish general election saw a fall in the number of leftists elected to the Dail.  Despite achieving the same vote share (3%) as in the previous general election People Before Profit saw its parliamentary team reduced from five TDs to just three.   Richard Boyd-Barrett was easily returned in Dún Laoghaire; Paul Murphy was returned in the last count in Dublin South-West; while Ruth Coppinger was elected in Dublin West.    (read more)

No change in the Irish state following elections, but how long can it last?

05/12/24 

The general view in the aftermath of the Irish general election was that the ruling coalition had dodged a bullet. There was no mass outburst of rage against their policies and no emergence of a far-right party to destabilise society. Of course, the big fear was that Ireland would follow much of Europe in experiencing a mass right-wing revolt by a new anti-migrant movement. That didn't happen.   (read more)

Irish general election result: status quo on shifting sands

03/12/24

The recent elections in the Southern state have revealed a new state of play, which with some changes shows a strengthening of the two main bourgeois parties in terms of seats.  Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have 86 seats between them, just two shy of an overall majority.  They have little need for the Green Party which was slaughtered and reduced to just one TD.  Though both parties overall vote is down slightly in percentage terms compared to 2020.    (read more)

COP29 declares apocalypse and sets defeat of the working class as a target

29/11/24

Does anyone remember COP21? The 2015 climate change conference in Paris was hailed as a masterpiece of diplomacy when it set a limit of 1.5⁰C on global warming. Greenhouse gas emissions were to peak before 2025 at the latest and decline by 43% by 2030.  Unfortunately, the brilliance of the French diplomacy lay in getting everyone to agree to a text rather than getting any real action.    (read more)


Book Review: Shooting Crows

21/11/24 (The Pensive Quill)

Shooting Crows by Trevor Birney is a work of extraordinary importance and inestimable value. While focusing on his mistreatment by the state as a result of him investigating the Loughinisland killings, at the same time this book reveals the ruthless machinations deployed by Britain in the North of Ireland.   (read more)


Should we support the Ukrainian Left’s route to victory?

01/11/24 (​Sráid Marx)

At the start of the war in Ukraine various leftists in the West said that we should listen to the voices of Ukrainian socialists, which might have made some sense were these people socialist. Except they are not.  Two recent statements by them confirm their reactionary character and have value only to illuminate their political bankruptcy and, by extension, those in the West who follow them and have called for others to do so. (read more)

Videos

Gender identity ideology

Presentation by Orla Ni Chomhrai on why socialists should oppose a dogma which undermines women's rights, gay rights, free speech, and science.

18 October 2021