Best Politician in Ireland You Cannot Vote For

[BohsPartisan]

Maybe Partisan can enlighten me as to the point but having the SP, WP and SWP seems pointless to me.

More differences between those three parties than between FF, FG and PD's.
The Workers Party come from the Irish Republican stable and developed a penchant for Stalinism in the late 60's. They used to have trips to Moscow and North Korea and all that. Ourselves and the SWP come from the same tradition - i.e. Trotskyism but there are many ideological differences and organisational differences between us.

[Risteard]

Are they really important enough to divide the left like it is now though?
ps aren't WP Trotskyist aswell.
Shouldn't matter where you come form but where you're going.
A single party of the left would grow to the current size of the Labour party within a decade methinks.

[BohsPartisan]

Are they really important enough to divide the left like it is now though?
ps aren't WP Trotskyist aswell.
Shouldn't matter where you come form but where you're going.
A single party of the left would grow to the current size of the Labour party within a decade methinks.

No, WP are deffo of the Stalinist tradition. They were Official Sinn Fein, then SF The Workers Party, Then the Workers Party then you had the splits - IRSP/INLA splitting again to be IPLO, feuding, few murders. Back on the main track the WP won some support in the early 80's and had some Dail seats but never really grew any bigger (probably because of the associations with russia and their terrorist past and the existance of a Labour Party that hadn't quite gone all the way to the right), support fell as they seemed to be going nowhere - furhter split, Democratic Left is formed later merges with Labour.
WP don't seem to do a lot, the guy down in Waterford seems to have a high profile because of good work he's done but other than that they just seem to be some old geezers who only come out for elections. By all accounts they'd be gone by the wayside if it wasn't for some dodgy money they recieved from russia just before the wall came down.

As for your other point, the left works together on certain campaigns and issues and if there was a grass roots push for a new workers party, which we believe will come soon enough, then ourselves and the SWP and whatever other small groups around would no doubt be part of it but I don't think a simple merger is the way forward.

[Macy]

As for your other point, the left works together on certain campaigns and issues and if there was a grass roots push for a new workers party, which we believe will come soon enough, then ourselves and the SWP and whatever other small groups around would no doubt be part of it but I don't think a simple merger is the way forward.

Does it need a merger into an actual party though? Even though it's basically the SWP under a different name, the People Before Profit Alliance did well with Boyd Barrett, no reason that the left couldn't merge under the same or similar banner for future elections whilst keeping their own individual identities where obstacles exist.

[BohsPartisan]

Does it need a merger into an actual party though? Even though it's basically the SWP under a different name, the People Before Profit Alliance did well with Boyd Barrett, no reason that the left couldn't merge under the same or similar banner for future elections whilst keeping their own individual identities where obstacles exist.

Problem with the PBPA and any front organisation involving the SWP though is they are reluctant to give up control and often pack meetings with phoney "delegates" of non existing branches. They did this with the IAWM. This doesn't rule out working with them but they can make it so difficult sometimes. (I'm sure Dr. Nightdub will have a different perspective on this). As I said, I believe a move towards a new workers party will happen sooner rather than later and I think submerging ourselves in something like the PBPA would be a bad move for ourselves. AFAIK the SWP have more or less ceased doing anything under its own name, its all PBPA and IAWM stuff.