Workers Solidarity Movement

WHO REMEMBERS when Democratic Left was formed? It was only two and a half years ago when they arrived on the scene trying to convince us that they were like an anti-coalition Labour Party. Their founding policy statement said "we see no role for our party as a partner of a right wing government". And some were convinced, like the Labour members who uprooted themselves and joined DL, thinking it more left wing.

*1 In February 1992, Emmet Stagg - a self-proclaimed "socialist" closely identified with the left wing of the Labour Party - resigned from Labour's Parliamentary Party, claiming that Dick Spring was preparing to lead the party into coalition and proclaiming that he would "never vote for a right wing Taoiseach from Fianna Fail or Fine Gael."

IRELAND IS a conservative country. Since the founding of the southern state 70 years ago, church has been intertwined with state. The majority of its citizens belong to the Catholic Church. Catholic ethos is enshrined in the constitution, in the laws, in the education system. Catholic tentacles make there way into most areas of public policy.

FEW GENUINE socialists would claim the Irish Labour Party has any sort of glorious socialist past, outside of Connolly's involvement in setting it up. It's record is one of abstention from real struggles, attacks on the left and, in coalition, attacks on Irish workers. Many of its supporters believe Labour can come to power in Ireland in the long term through an alliance with the Workers Party.