Why is left 'purity' working in favour of the right in Ireland?
There are two ways to critique others on the left.
- I can criticise the party I'm in, the party others are in, and equally I can not be a member of any party and highlight areas where parties or individuals fail to be left-wing 'enough'.
- I can remove the affiliation of individuals and parties to the left. I can make their status on the left equal to the status of a conservative party or individual.
While I can see the temptation with the second method, just remove those people from my left-wing clan, disown them, I can also see the potential damage this causes. This has the potential to damage all causes requiring a united left front, the most pressing of which in Ireland will be in anti-racist/anti-fascist groups. Followed closely by the need in Ireland to disrupt the established 100 year rule of majority conservative governments under Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
What is left purity? Left purity occurs at the point when real or perceived grievous error/s have been made in the opinion or policy of a political party or individual. The opinion or policy instead of aligning with left-wing values is perceived, rightly or wrongly, to align with right-wing values.
Left purity is a reactive and subjective ideology, which typically includes disowning the party or individual from the left, by excluding 'non-pure' individuals or party members from united left fronts.
What does left purity hide? Left purity can hide authoritarianism as it emerges from the left applying it. Rather than be perceived as authoritarian, the application of a 'purity test' can obfuscate the true intention, which is to control left-wing groups in an authoritarian way.
Why does this phenomenon occur in some groups but not others? For example some groups tolerate less 'pure' left parties or individuals, in order to reach a greater common goal, like the coalition groups countering the far-right effectively on a local and also national level. Campaign groups like the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, are open to all party affiliations and none. Workers unions, open to all party affiliations and none. Local community groups, open to all party affiliations and none... etc.
These groups & campaigns favour method one above, critiquing the party but without disowning them. This construct allows for honest criticism, but also allows for a broad left front to be formed. These broad left fronts have achieved major social changes in Ireland, even when working with successive conservative governments. They create mass movements that exert enough pressure on the government to move on the issue. The socialists in such movements pull the campaign left, while the non-socialists bring popular support. Not to say socialism doesn't bring popular support, but in Ireland we have needed all hands on deck to affect any change, and that meant all increment of leftist; from moderate liberals to socialists and communists.
If people remember the mass protest for housing in 2018, the inclusion of the Labour party caused huge division when rallying people to the mass mobilisation in Dublin. Even I myself did not feel ready in any way, to look at Labour banners on a housing protest given they had betrayed their vote and their membership who deserted them in huge numbers after they departed the conservative Fine Gael government only in 2016, with the organising of the housing campaign starting in 2017. However People Before Profit, a party in Ireland considered left of all non-socialist parties, made the below statement on their website:
While we object to and challenge the Labour Party, we reject an approach that states that genuine left wing people should call for a boycott or refuse to participate in movements or protests where the Labour Party is present. ...Any other approach is a recipe for continual sectarian division that can only benefit the right wing in Ireland. https://www.pbp.ie/build-for-a-major-housing-protest-on-april-7th/
So even at a very heightened time for an Ireland still suffering the devastating effects of austerity, People Before Profit, a radical left socialist party favoured the approach of method one. Critique the Labour Party and rightly so, but do not refuse to stand with them.
If this is the case, and the parties of the left all seem happy to work as part of a united front, why am I writing this article?
People Before Profit (PBP) Cork as a branch wrote to their leadership in Dublin, to request that Sinn Féin no longer be recognised as a party on the left. This was uncovered via an Irish Independent article quoted below:
“Sinn Féin can no longer be regarded as a party of the left. Continuing to present Sinn Féin as a left-wing party will seriously damage our credibility with the electorate.” https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/people-before-profit-members-want-party-to-end-support-for-a-sinn-fein-led-government-over-racist-immigration-stance/a1250639681.html
Paul Murphy PBP TD is proposing an alliance with Sinn Féin to go into government together, so PBP Cork seem to be off kilter with even their own party.
What are the implications of such a motion, that Sinn Féin would officially be, for PBP purposes, not a party of the left? Would this, if passed, then allow for the exclusion of Sinn Féin from any broad left groups with majority PBP membership? I sincerely hope not. This could never stop at a single party.
With this emerging exclusionary culture being supported and defended by multiple political party members and individuals on the left locally, we will need to also raise our voices in opposition to it. This article is an attempt to do just that.
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