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Recent events in Dublin have served to graphically illustrate the internal problems that are being suffered within the "left unity" camp in the Republic. In a country dominated by two right-of-center parties, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, the mainstream left is struggling to become a more powerful player in the politics of the state. It was hoped by some that the merger last January between the Labour Party and Democratic Left would create the dynamic in which a unified "left", represented by the new Labour Party, would see rapid gains. So far, all it seems to have created is problems.
The concept of a merger between the two parties seemed like an obvious enough idea. The Labour party has traditionally represented the mainstream left in the Republic since independence. More centrist than most European Labour parties, it nevertheless had a monopoly on this side of the political spectrum for years. It began to be seriously challenged in the 1980s, however, by the Workers Party. The WP had evolved out of the old IRA of the 1960s, becoming a decidedly socialist political party and giving up the war against the British. The WP was far stronger in the Republic than in Northern Ireland (where most of its potential supporters favored continuing the fight against British rule) and it made rapid strides starting in 1982, when it won three seats to the Dail (the Irish Parliament). By 1992 the WP had seven TDs (members of parliament) and was firmly entrenched among the urban working class in Dublin and other cities. Six of these TDs, however, left the WP that year and formed Democratic Left. DL abandoned the socialism of the Workers Party (which has never really recovered from the defections) and moved towards the center of the political spectrum, becoming a sort of social democratic party. From 1992 onwards, it became increasingly harder to distinguish between the political philosophies of DL and Labour. Thus, perhaps it was inevitable that they would eventually come together as a single political party. The leader of the Labour Party over the last couple of years, Ruairi Quinn, was a strong supporter of the merger idea and moved quickly along with the DL's leader, Proinsias De Rossa, to carry it out. He faced some strong opposition from within the Labour Party to the merger, but others hoped that the sum of the new party would be more than its parts. There was also the hope that the peace agreement in Northern Ireland would end the Civil War politics of the Republic (see my previous article on politics in the Republic for more on that) and realign politics on a left-right scale, and a "unified left" would be well positioned to take advantage of it. Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article A Unified Left? in Irish Politics is owned by Lee Razer. Permission to republish A Unified Left? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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