James Connolly and the Irish Labour Party Donal Mac Fhearraigh 100 years of celebration? to which White replied, `Put that furthest of all1' . White was joking but only just, 2012 marks the centenary of the founding and if Labour was regarded as conservative of the Irish Labour Party. Like most politi- at home it was it was even more so when cal parties in Ireland, Labour likes to trade compared with her sister parties. on its radical heritage by drawing a link to One historian described it as `the most Connolly. opportunistically conservative party in the On the history section of the Labour known world2.' It was not until the late Party's website it says, 1960s that the party professed an adher- ence to socialism, a word which had been `The Labour Party was completely taboo until that point. Ar- founded in 1912 in Clonmel, guably the least successful social demo- County Tipperary, by James cratic or Labour Party in Western Europe, Connolly, James Larkin and the Irish Labour Party has never held office William O'Brien as the polit- alone and has only been the minority party ical wing of the Irish Trade in coalition. Labour has continued this tra- Union Congress(ITUC). It dition in the current government with Fine is the oldest political party Gael. Far from being `the party of social- in Ireland and the only one ism' it has been the party of austerity. which pre-dates independence. The founders of the Labour The Labour Party got elected a year Party believed that for ordi- ago on promises of burning the bondhold- nary working people to shape ers and defending ordinary people against society they needed a political cutbacks. Instead they have attacked the party that was committed to most vulnerable in our society. They have serving their needs; they knew utterly betrayed those who voted for them. that there is only so much that They have championed the EU-IMF pro- trade unions and community gramme as the only possible solution to the organisations can do, an effec- crisis and now advocating for the Fiscal tive political party is needed to Treaty that will see further cuts inflicted create a fair society'. on working class families. Lone parents and those on social wel- The Labour Party has never lived up to fare are suffering the brunt of the at- the rhetoric about its radical roots. During tacks from Labour Party Ministers like the 1950s, Jack White, the deputy editor Joan Burton. Threats to cut welfare pay- of the Irish Times was asked by a foreign ments and force people into unpaid in- colleague to explain the irrelevance of the ternship work abound while the rich are left-right cleavage in Irish politics. `Draw molly-coddled with tax breaks and suffer a line, and put all the parties well to the no surveillance on their tax returns. right,' he explained. `But what about the Struggling single parents will see their Labour Party?' his companion inquired, income slashed by e1,000 a year. The up- 1Niamh Puirseil: The Irish Labour Party, p408 2As above. 37 per age limit of the youngest child for new services; closure of public nursing homes; claimants of the one-parent family pay- a 5 percent cut to home helps; and cuts ment is to be reduced to 12 and it will to the State subvention for prescription then be further reduced on a phased basis. drugs. Child benefit for families with three and Instead of creating jobs this govern- more children was cut by e19 a month for ment has slashed more jobs in the public the third child and e17 a month for the sector. Pensions have been attacked and fourth and further subsequent children - people will now be forced to work until the hitting the poorest families in the State. age of 68. They are being scapegoated for a reces- But it's a different story for the rich: sion they did not cause.They hiked the top The top 1 percent has recovered all their rate of VAT from 21 percent to 23 percent, losses since the crash in 2008. The top 5 which impacted most on poorer people. percent are sitting on assets worth e219 The back-to-school clothing and Billion according to the Central Statistics footwear allowance was cut by e55 for chil- Office. There is no talk of taxing those dren aged 12 or more and e50 for children assets; rather in the last budget the super- aged between four and 11 - the eligibility rich were given more tax breaks with some age of this allowance was raised from two highly paid executives on e500,000 a year to four years. Special needs assistants in expected to pay only 30 percent income schools have been cut, third level students tax. face increased fees and small rural schools Rather than creating a `fair society' are being closed. Labour have helped increase inequality in The fuel allowance payment is to be re- Ireland. duced by almost a fifth, in the context of a report by the Institute of Public Health The founding of the Labour which found that levels of fuel poverty on the island of Ireland remain `unacceptably Party high' and that these are responsible for `among the highest levels of excess win- ter mortality in Europe, with an estimated 2,800 excess deaths on the island in the winter months'. The community sector faces a reduc- tion in funding of 35 percent by the end of 2013. This will devastate the poorest com- munities in the country. Affordable child- care will be stopped and a route out of deep poverty through education and train- ing will be removed. They have continued the deep cuts on health expenditure: e2.5 billion over three years, over 8,000 fewer staff resulting in The Labour Party is a million miles away closure of hospital wards and beds, lead- from where James Connolly, one of its ing to more public patients waiting longer founders, envisioned it could be. for hospital treatment; poor, inadequate or As one of the delegates to the annual non-existent community and primary care meeting of the Irish Trade Union Congress 38 of 1912 at Clonmel, Connolly moved the These views were expressed most resolution `that the independent represen- clearly in Connolly's pamphlet The Re- tation of labour upon all public boards be, Conquest of Ireland which he wrote for the and is hereby included ,among the objec- new Labour Party. tives of this congress3.' It was carried by Connolly articulated this perspective 49 votes to 19, with another 19 delegates at the 1913 congress of the ITUC where not recorded. he stressed the extent to which the Labour Connolly's attempt to form a broader Party was `above national divisions'. He `labour party' linked to the trades unions claimed that in the past `the English was an attempt to sharpen class struggle Labour Party was the natural ally' as it in Ireland and not a move towards consti- was better to `appeal to our own class tutional reformist politics. across the water than appealing to our en- It was an attempt by him to form a mil- emies in the master class in our country6'. itant class struggle based party to fit the However, far from the Home Rule Bill specific needs of the Irish working class at ending the national question in Irish poli- the time. Connolly proposed that an Irish tics and clearing the way for class politics, Labour Party be formed, its purpose being it precipitated a new crisis in Ireland as `to fight the capitalist parties of Ireland on Unionists organised against it. Connolly their own soil4.' was forced to re-assess his political per- Connolly saw the Labour Party ini- spective. tially as a broad non-socialist movement. The Labour Party remained a stalled He insisted that the new party `must keep project. The Irish TUC put little resources a place for those who are not as far ad- or time into it. At the first meeting of the vanced as themselves, but whose class in- Labour parliamentary committee in 1913 terests would bring them into line5'. The Larkin resigned the chair and Connolly re- Labour Party would be the municipal and fused to take it up, believing it would not parliamentary wing of the trades unions. work without Larkin at the helm. There- Connolly was absolutely right to try to after the Labour Party remained a vehicle give workers an independent voice in Irish for issuing statements and lobbying gov- politics. Only a year later all the nation- ernment ministers until its rebirth after the alist rhetoric about all the Irish standing First World War. together against British exploitation was The Labour Party never became the exposed by the great Dublin lock-out when working class political force Connolly Irish employers sought to smash the trade hoped for, not because of organisational union movement in Dublin. failings but because it became the mouth- Connolly's perspective was that the piece of the trade union bureaucracy. It Home Rule Bill would soon be passed in sought at most to represent workers, not the British parliament and therefore the to break capitalism. question of nationalism would recede in Connolly believed it was possible to Irish politics. What was needed in his view safeguard against reformism by having the was a party for Irish workers to be able to party tied to militant industrial unions. He act independently of Irish employers. underestimated the need for independent 3James Connolly: A full life, Donal Nevin, p424 4 James Connolly, Forward, July 1st, 1911 5ITUC report 1914, p43 6ITUC report 1913, p34 39 socialist political organisation inside the In 2008 at the Labour party's annual trade union movement to combat the re- James Connolly Commemoration held in formist political ideas of the trade union Arbour Hill, Dublin, even Eamon Gilmore, bureaucracy.