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.