Gilmore resigns but nothing really changes.

national | politics / elections | news report

Monday May 26, 2014 16:12

by Andrew - WSM

Labour Party spokespeople after the enormous rejection their policies received in the elections have been trying to spin this as being down to some flaw in leadership. The implication being that there was no real problem with their role in imposing savage cuts on workers and marginalised people. No, instead we are to believe it was all a problem of the current Labour leaders not being skilful enough at 'selling' these cuts to the electorate.

While many people will be delighted with the resignation of Labour leader Gilmore for legitimate reasons let us be clear this does not represent any change of policy, much less any acknowledgement that the cuts & tax hikes were wrong. Far from it Gilmore has to go to allow the Labour Party to continue to implement these policies in the remaining period of the government. It may have been possible to 'punish' Labour through the elections but actually ending and then reversing the cuts won't happen at the ballot box but on the streets and in the workplaces.

The resignation is simply a strategy to try and rehabilitate Labour in a similar way to how Fianna Fail got rid of Brian Cowen and replaced him with Micheál Martin.

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Comments (2 of 2)

Electoralism

by Paddy Hackett

Wed May 28, 2014 21:58

"It may have been possible to 'punish' Labour through the elections but actually ending and then reversing the cuts won't happen at the ballot box but on the streets and in the workplaces."

Andrew is right! The problem is that much of the soi disant Left dont recognise this. Instead the SP/SWP engage in electoralism. Electoralism cannabilises this pair of organisations. Getting elected on an opportunistic basis becomes the aim of the SP/SWP.

Sell out is a common pattern

by T

Mon May 26, 2014 21:33

Indeed this pattern of sellout is quite common.

In Germany in the 1990s, the Green's who were originally quite left wing betrayed their core principles, moved to the right, went into power and were subsequently decimated in the elections that followed.

The Labour party in Britain completely sold out, attacked the social welfare state, went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In other countries the main socialist parties where they were in power also sold out once in.

The Green's in Ireland also moved from a modest Left position to the right, into power and more or less decimated.

In these local and European elections, we see that FF -the party that ruined the country rises once again as do the Greens. In the next Dail elections we can expect Labour to do badly, but the elections after that, no doubt they will rise on short memories and false promises.
And apparently Labour in the 1970s previously sold out on their core constituency only then to slowly rise again as memories faded.

The real question is why are the electorate so consistently fooled and not just in Ireland but in practically every other country and the other half of the question is why do all these parties sell out on their principles. Does someone hold a gun to their head or what? Or is it that the apparatus of the state and corporate media somehow capture or co-opt them in such a way a combination of corruption & bribery, threats, threat of scandals, power of business and banking hold them in check?

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Gilmore resigns but nothing really changes.

Comments (2 of 2)