18th Nov 2007
We’ll keep the red flag flying here?
I have been following the Irish Labour Party Conference in Wexford this weekend with interest. I owe my political training to the oldest party on this island and still have many many friends amongst its members.
Conference took a wise decision to establish a commission on potential organisation in NI. I am told the speeches were passionate and none more so then from the long term campaigner for Labour organisation north of the border, Mark Langhammer. But this is not a matter of the heart. It is as Eamon Gilmore rightly stated on RTE radio this lunchtime, a duty of all progressive parties (including Labour) to think not just about tomorrow but about the next decade and the decade after that. The political sands of our small island are shifting and with the shift there will be an inevitable realignment of the political parties of this island. The SDLP analysis as adopted at its conference two weeks ago is that alignment will take place along the left - right divide and I agree. There is therefore a huge opportunity for progressives across this island to begin exploring common ground.
A number of Labour delegates commented in a vox-pop for RTE radio today that the left - right divide in Ireland has been blurred since the twenties. Why? because Fianna Fail captured the traditional left in Ireland during the early year’s of the State and built the most successful political movement in Europe on it. Gilmore was right when he said DeValera would be well unimpressed at some of the actions of modern FF and that Lemass would not have let the health system get to the state it is in. But in politics, as in life, possession is 9/10’s of the law and the soldiers of destiny still have the support of the natural Labour voter.
When Ronan Farren, a delegate at the Labour conference, said any splintering of the nationalist or unionist votes to accommodate another party would only benefit the two party’s most entrenched in the sectarian divisions of this region, Sinn Fein and the DUP, he was right. As no major southern party, not Labour, not FG, not FF are suggesting an abandonment of the Good Friday Agreement then the outcome of discussions about realignment will have to be about much more than simple organisation.
As the SDLP working party members, the Labour Party commission and Fianna Fail’s northern committee sit down to begin their respective deliberations, the question facing them is not simply to organise or not. They need to consider the impact of debates about unity, the challenges presented by two jurisdictions, the opportunities of greater economic and social integration and the fact that no matter what they may believe, anything coming from the south will be perceived as nationalist by the one million or so British people who live on this island. Gilmore hit the nail on the head when he said its not just about tomorrow, its about the next generation.
Real Irish republicanism and Irish labour share common roots, they look back to 1798 and have shared political platforms since. They could ignore each other as they look into the glare of twenty first century Ireland alone but I think that would be short sighted indeed.
The issue is not simply that we keep the red flag flying but that we recast Irish politics and Irish republicanism in language and polices that really can take us to a new Ireland.
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