Tuesday, June 23, 2009

More moves in the left

I saw this article today in the Fingal Independent about how the Socialist Party (SP) have gone in to coalition in Fingal County Council (FCC) with the Labour Party (Lab). Given the history of the SP (they grew from a split in the Labour party between Trotskyist and 'mainstream' factions) I was a little surprised to read of this coalition. Many people doubted whether the left could ever work together, is this the start of increased co-operation? It's quite interesting to contrast this SP/Lab coalition on Fingal County Council with the Fine Gael/Lab coalition in Dublin City Council.

Also, in the same issue of the Fingal Independent, I saw that Fine Gael councillors tried to block Joe Higgins MEP from speaking at the first meeting of the new FCC (see article here) as he is now both a County Councillor and MEP, and has two mandates. Let us not forget that the man was a TD and effectively the leader of the SP. Joe Higgins replied to the criticism by saying that the Fine Gael councillors; 'should have taken their Milk of Magnesia' before attending the meeting.

Now that's why Joe got my vote.

2 comments:

  1. The Milk of Magnesia quote is the kind of stuff you'd expect from him, great stuff.

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  2. Hey,
    I'm involved in the SP, and just to clarify, it isn't a coalition with Labour. There is no ongoing agreement, nor was there any deal struck. All that happened was that on this occasion (as has been done at times before) our councilors voted for a Labour party chairperson of council meetings. The main reason for this was for the upcoming local area plan.

    We do not see Labour as being fundamentally different from FF & FG, and believe that in government with either of them they will pursue similar policies. Now in Fingal we will put them under pressure, putting forward motions on various issues (e.g. managment companies, need for parks etc). We will demand that Labour support these motions, in which case they will get through. The likelihood is they will not, and instead will side with the right wing, exposing themselves. This will be a test for Labour, if the SP is wrong and they really are left they can prove it now. If they are not they will exposed as just another establishment party.

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