General Election Dust Settles – Some Interesting Reactions
The editors are still gathering thoughts at this site, and found articles that are worth reading (we also had to plough through some awful rubbish).
Let us begin with a surprisingly positive piece from the right-wing Dublin tabloid, the Evening Herald :
History in the making as poster boy Boyd Barrett and hard left triumphs –
NEW FACES: ‘We won’t be doing any deals’
Harry Browne in the American radical magazine Counterpunch suggests :
Same Old, Same Old at the Top, But …
Irish Election Makes Room for the Left
http://www.counterpunch.org/browne02282011.html
Generously he argues that increased Labour Party strength is part of a swing to the left, but reminds us that, in the 1960’s, then Fianna Fáil taoiseach Seán Lemass relished damning his allegedly “Red” opponents with very faint praise :
“”I gather… that someone accused the Labour Party of going ‘Red’… May I straightaway dissociate myself from any such suggestion? The Labour Party are, and always have been, the most conservative element in our community. Far from the Labour Party going ‘Red’, they are not going anywhere… The Labour Party are a nice, respectable, docile, harmless body of men — as harmless a body as ever graced any parliament.”
Browne suggests
“This teasing passage remains a cruelly apt description of the party, with a slight amendment to recognize the presence of a group of women”
William Wall shares ground with Harry here :
The Irish Election 2011 – A success for the Left
http://www.irishleftreview.org/2011/03/01/irish-election-2011-success-left/#more-4252
Finally no debate in Ireland is without begrudgers – writers on this site have spotted one – and he may be getting a blessing from veteran British socialist denouncers :
What next for the United Left Alliance?
http://collectiveresistance.com/2011/02/25/what-next-for-the-united-left-alliance/#comment-306
PS
A close friend from the European Continent once advised me that the most sectarian far-leftists can be found in Britain and Greece.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 
There’s no comparison between the Greeks and the British at all. Sections of the Greek left make something of a hobby out of burning each other’s offices down, denouncing each other as state agents and occasionally beating the living shit out of each other.
At the European Social Forum in Athens, a large brawl broke out when the SEK (sister party of the SWP) tried to skip to the front of the march with their banners and they were then set upon by a number of other groups. In Britain the most that sort of thing would result in is a snide comment in the Weekly Worker.
Then again, the Greek far left gets 17% of the national vote and has tens of thousands of activists, so maybe there’s something to be said for fratricidal warfare.
Mark P
Mar 2, 2011 at 4:11 pm