GAMA Documentary released by The Socialist Party and Framework Films

[Lim till i die]

1. We've only a small branch in Limerick its quite young in age profile. We had a candidate in the last local elections for the first time her name is Aishling Golden. The Socialist Party was only founded in 1996. Before that we were a trotskyist group inside the Labour Party called the Millitant tendency (Millitant was the name of our paper in those days).

I actually voted for her best of a very bad bunch

Still didn't so mcuh as put a leaflet through my letterbox during the campaign though.

Was after a few drinks last night and can only apologise for my (admitedly misplaced) cynicism

Thanks for the links, they've helped clear up a bit of the oul ignorance although I must admit I still find the whole dislike of Cuba thing a bit baffling tbh.

Anything I can do to help the Limerick branch for my penance seriously let me know, always make a point of signing their petitions in town and that but I've always found them a bit namby pamby tbh

[Lim till i die]

I wouldn't disagree that many low paid jobs in this country but people are not supposed to work in them for ever.

I noticed last week that something like 30,000 unemployed people in the 18-25 year old bracket & 150,000 total. Obviously some people will be in between jobs but there is no reason for 30,000 unemployed young people.

Well I'm 20 and during the college year I do a coure which requires roughly 45 to 50 hours a week effort so call me a layabout if you must but I just don't feel like working after that

BTW the grants system in this country, when compared to social welfare, is an absolute disgrace

[Roverstillidie]

Lim, ask him about

a: the north

b: israel and the palestine

and c: did they support the wall coming down.

you will get some surprising answers that you wouldnt have thought the left come out with

[Lim till i die]

Lim, ask him about

a: the north

b: israel and the palestine

and c: did they support the wall coming down.

you will get some surprising answers that you wouldnt have thought the left come out with

I'd imagine they'd be along the lines of

a: 32 counties please

b: bloody israeli facists murdering Palestinians

and c: no, not really

[Roverstillidie]

I'd imagine they'd be along the lines of

a: 32 counties please

b: bloody israeli facists murdering Palestinians

and c: no, not really

you would imagine. and you would be wrong.

on both.

great work on the ground, crap dicated to them by the CWI, their international grouping that bizarrly tell them what to say on the national question, not the other way round.

[BohsPartisan]

A. Not true. I ignored the Neo-Unionist jibe before. Our main theorist on the Northern Question is Peter Hadden who is from Derry so policy on that is not dictated by the international. Just because we don't take the usual over-simplistic, catholics = good, protestants = bad approach does not make us somehow unionist. We believe in self determination for all people and don't believe that a united Ireland on a capitalist basis will improve the situation for working class people in the north. We see the national question as only being solvable by a workers republic. Whether that is on a federal basis with some autonomy for the north in the initial stages is up to the people of the north to decide. It is on the basis of this approach that we are the only party of the far left in recent years to make any impression in the north (allbeit a very small impression outside of trade union circles - where we have considerable influence).
B. On the middle east, we unequivically call for the Israeli troops out of the lebannon and the occupied territories. Our Israeli section calls for a federation of an israeli workers republic and a palestinian workers republic. Obliterating one side or the other will not solve the problem.
C. If you believe we supported the restoration of Capitalism in the east then you are listening to the sparts a bit too much. We were against the restoration of Capitalism and are against the restoration of Capitalism in Cuba, however we call for an ened to the dictatorships that have mismanaged the planned economy and for Workers' democracy.

Peter Hadden Beyond the Troubles
http://www.marxist.net/ireland/index.html

[jebus]

None of what I've read in this thread or on the Socialist party webpage has made me think anything other than the SP are a bunch of bandwagon jumpers who will never be a legitimate force in Irish politics. I'm sure its supporters will say I don't know what I'm talking about, but really all I'm saying is an opinion, my opinion, so I think I know a bit more about that than the Socialists

[BohsPartisan]

Qualify your opinion that we are a bunch of bandwagon jumpers.

[jebus]

Qualify your opinion that we are a bunch of bandwagon jumpers.

Any cause that ten people in this country have a gripe about ye seem to produce banners and slogans within ten minutes and have a march from the Central Bank, well if you count 14 people and a drunk who's along for the ride as a march

[BohsPartisan]

Thats just silly. I can name plenty of "causes" we wouldn't touch with a barge pole. Yes we organise campaigns on issues that we support. What kind of a party would we be if we didn't do that? (One of the mainstream ones )
At least we are consistant, you'll see us out campaigning wether there's an election coming or not unlike the others. Take Labour for example - Joan Burton in particular. Quite as a mouse for 4 years then all of a sudden she remembers that she is supposed to do stuff. All of a sudden she's organising public meetings like there's no tomorrow. A classic case of Joan Burton bandwagon jumping was the estate management fees issue. Joe Higgins and Catherine Murphy (ind) first brought the issue into the public domain on being contacted by constituents (you'd imagine the constituents who contacted Joe would also have also contacted Joan. Yet there wasn't a peep out of her for about six months after the issue went media level. All of a sudden she's a contestant for campaigner of the year. A recent Prime Time on the issue saw the RTE CA team approach Socialist Party councillor Ruth Coppinger to get all the info for their programme. In effect Ruth did their work for them. When the programmme comes around Ruth gets a two minute recorded snippet and who's in the studio putting the world to rights on estate management fees? Joan Burton. Now thats what I call bandwagon jumping.

[Strabane_Harp]

A. Not true. I ignored the Neo-Unionist jibe before. Our main theorist on the Northern Question is Peter Hadden who is from Derry so policy on that is not dictated by the international. Just because we don't take the usual over-simplistic, catholics = good, protestants = bad approach does not make us somehow unionist. We believe in self determination for all people and don't believe that a united Ireland on a capitalist basis will improve the situation for working class people in the north. We see the national question as only being solvable by a workers republic. Whether that is on a federal basis with some autonomy for the north in the initial stages is up to the people of the north to decide. It is on the basis of this approach that we are the only party of the far left in recent years to make any impression in the north (allbeit a very small impression outside of trade union circles - where we have considerable influence).
B. On the middle east, we unequivically call for the Israeli troops out of the lebannon and the occupied territories. Our Israeli section calls for a federation of an israeli workers republic and a palestinian workers republic. Obliterating one side or the other will not solve the problem.
C. If you believe we supported the restoration of Capitalism in the east then you are listening to the sparts a bit too much. We were against the restoration of Capitalism and are against the restoration of Capitalism in Cuba, however we call for an ened to the dictatorships that have mismanaged the planned economy and for Workers' democracy.

Peter Hadden Beyond the Troubles
http://www.marxist.net/ireland/index.html

What bloody influence??? Im a left wing non voter from the north, the only Socialist Party ive seen here are the Socialist Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Your policy on the North is partitionist so you can forget ever getting anyone elected as

a) Unionists dont like socialists, too close to republicanism

b) Openly partitionist parties, ie Fine Gael, Labour, Socialist Party will never get support from the nationalist cimmunity. Parties like Provisional Sinn Fein and SD(NEW)LP dont openly admit to be partitionist but pretty much are.

as for having Influence in the North, you dont have any! and in fact Joe Higgins is not very popular in the north even among socialists

[BohsPartisan]

I said limited influence. We have some well known campaigners in North Belfast, Fermanagh and Omagh. We established the highly popular We Won't Pay Campaign which had cross community support and we have members on the NIPSA executive and the northern executive of the FBU. We have members from both sides of the community (The Editor of our paper for example is from East Belfast).
We are not partitonist. I have explained our position in the post you quoted. It is not a partionist position, please refer.

[Strabane_Harp]

Im aware of your members on the NIPSA board, i helped vote them in a few years ago when i was a waster, sorry i mean silly servant, sorry Civil Servant

And im involved in the We Wont Pay Campaign, but all the Socialist party members i can see in it are members of the UK branch.

and your northern policy is very etchy and comes across as partitionist for those who oppose the northern statelet.

The federal idea is whiped off Republican Sinn Fein's Eire Nua paper.

I will only vote for a party which clearly states they oppose the northern state and wish to join an all ireland socialist republic, sadly none of them are saying that so myself and thousands of other people just arent voting.

[Paddy Ramone]

The federal idea is whiped off Republican Sinn Fein's Eire Nua paper.

I read somewhere they whiped the idea of Anthony Coughlin member of Official Sinn Fein in the 60's.

[Strabane_Harp]

the Eire Nua policy was developed by Daithai O Conaill, in the early 70's and was official policy of Provisional Sinn Fein until 1983 when it was dumped by the Adams leadership as being 'a sop to unionists'
Republican Sinn Fein led by O'Conaill and O'Bradiagh re-instated it as policy after they refused the 1986 constitution change.

It was never Official Sinn Fein / Workers Party policy

[Paddy Ramone]

the Eire Nua policy was developed by Daithai O Conaill, in the early 70's and was official policy of Provisional Sinn Fein until 1983 when it was dumped by the Adams leadership as being 'a sop to unionists'
Republican Sinn Fein led by O'Conaill and O'Bradiagh re-instated it as policy after they refused the 1986 constitution change.

It was never Official Sinn Fein / Workers Party policy

Sorry I made a mistake, I don't think Coughlin was ever a member of Official Sinn Fein but he was a member of Sinn Fein before the split and helped devise the New Departure strategy of moving towards Socialism that led to the split. I did read somewhere that Coughlin proposed a Federal Republic back in the 60's.

[BohsPartisan]

Im aware of your members on the NIPSA board, i helped vote them in a few years ago when i was a waster, sorry i mean silly servant, sorry Civil Servant

And im involved in the We Wont Pay Campaign, but all the Socialist party members i can see in it are members of the UK branch.

and your northern policy is very etchy and comes across as partitionist for those who oppose the northern statelet.

The federal idea is whiped off Republican Sinn Fein's Eire Nua paper.

I will only vote for a party which clearly states they oppose the northern state and wish to join an all ireland socialist republic, sadly none of them are saying that so myself and thousands of other people just arent voting.

UK Branch? Anyone active in the North is a member of the Socialist Party (Ireland) We're an all Ireland party.

This is from our What We Stand For column:

Peace process
- Build a real peace process based on uniting the working class communities, not on bringing discredited politicians together.

- Joint trade union and community action to counter all forms of sectarianism.

- An end to all activity by all paramilitaries, loyalist and republican.

- Complete demilitarisation - establish genuine policing services that are locally based and under the control of democratically elected policing committees.

- The conflict cannot be resolved on a capitalist basis - for the building of a mass political party capable of uniting the working class in the struggle for a socialist solution.

- For a socialist Ireland as part of a free and voluntary socialist federation of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales

[Strabane_Harp]

Sorry I made a mistake, I don't think Coughlin was ever a member of Official Sinn Fein but he was a member of Sinn Fein before the split and helped devise the New Departure strategy of moving towards Socialism that led to the split. I did read somewhere that Coughlin proposed a Federal Republic back in the 60's.

Seamus Costello, founder member of the IRSP/INLA was behind that move i believe

[Strabane_Harp]

UK Branch? Anyone active in the North is a member of the Socialist Party (Ireland) We're an all Ireland party.

This is from our What We Stand For column:

so basically u would move the whole of ireland into a Union with Britain, and ye wonder why you wont get votes

[BohsPartisan]

Is that what it says? No its not. It would be the people of Ireland controlling the wealth of the nation and entering into a free federation not a union (a federation that would be a lot free'er than the EU) With Scotland, England and Wales.