Tomás Ó Flatharta

Looking at Things from the Left

Archive for the ‘Anti War Movements’ Category

May 7 2026 Elections in Wales Scotland and England – Promising Predictions from the Celtic Nations – and a Horror Story from England.

leave a comment »

Wales :

1 way or another, if these numbers are right, Wales is headed for a left-wing majority at the May 7 Senedd elections. A Plaid Cymru/Labour/Green coalition would have 56 seats, a healthy majority of 16 against the vile racist right Reform-Cons. it’s a proportional representation election.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿Senedd | Plaid lead by 5pts🟩Plaid: 30% (+9)➡️Ref: 25% (+24)🔴Lab: 15% (-21)🔵Con: 12% (-13)🟢Grn: 10% (+6)🟠Lib: 6% (+2)– Seats –🟩Plaid: 39 (+17)➡️Ref: 27 (+27)🔴Lab: 13 (-31)🔵Con: 12 (-18)🟢Grn: 4 (+4)🟠Lib: 1 (+1)Poll: @Ipsos, 2-8 April (+/- vs 2021) x.com/LeftieStats/…

Stats for Lefties 🍉🏳️‍⚧️ (@leftiestats.bsky.social) 2026-04-23T14:22:30.013767Z

Scotland :

If these numbers are right, the Scottish National party will win the May 7 Scottish parliament election, either with a majority over all other parties, or in coalition with the Greens. The vile racist far-right coalition Reform-Cons will only get 23 seats out of 129.

Read the rest of this entry »

Multiple Bullies At Work, Out to Create a “Multipolar World” – Kavita Krishnan

with one comment

Two interesting articles by Kavita Krishnan are below.

The author explains :

My article in The Hindu on what’s at stake for Ukraine and the world.
I try to get all my material on Ukraine from the horse’s mouth: I just read Putin, Dugin, Vance, Mearsheimer really thoroughly – and they confirm all that I’m saying, without even bothering to disguise their intent. There can’t be more reliable and irrefutable sources.
The article attached is based on reading Mearsheimer himself saying Putin’s top peace condition is a puppet regime in Kyiv, since liberal democracy in Ukraine is an “existential threat to Russia”.

Kavita Krishnan

The second article examines the recent electoral defeat of Viktor Orbán in Hungary

Read the rest of this entry »

“A Confederacy of Gobshites – Ireland’s Government of Contempt”- by Éamonn Sweeney

leave a comment »

Once again, thanks to the editor of the Cedar Lounge Blog for drawing the attention of readers to very good Éamonn Sweeney left-wing analysis to the current Dublin government, which administers the 26 county bit of Ireland.

On this blog we describe the Mícheál Martin / Simon Harris government as FFFGBG – that is : a coalition of Fianna Fáil (FF), Fine Gael (FG), and Beggar-Gombeens (BG’s). The BG’s were assembled by the North Tipperary ex-FG minister Michael Lowry, who was thoroughly investigated by the Mahon Tribunal following credible allegations of financial corruption in the 1990’s. Fine Gael’s ethical standards are extremely low, but the party was obliged to expel Mr Lowry.

The BG’s got many perks for propping up the FFFG Martin-Harris duo – the biggest was the position of Dáil Ceann Comhairle (speaker) handed to the Wexford racist, and former FG member, Verona Murphy.

Some of the BG’s might be tempted to join their racist-fascist soul-brothers who lead the fuel blockade movement.

A coherent left-wing alternative is very badly needed.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Anti-Fascist and Anti-Imperialist Conference in Porto Alegre: Great achievements, challenges and opportunities – Statements : Fourth International and ENSU representative Alfons Bech

leave a comment »

A major anti-fascist conference, which attracted nearly 7000 people from all over the world, took place in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre From March 26 to 29, 2026.

The ENSU (European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine) and the Fourth International were present.

Two statements – issued by the Fourth International and ENSU representative Alfons Bech, are below.

1. The Anti-Fascist and Anti-Imperialist Conference in Porto Alegre: Great achievements, challenges and opportunities

The first anti-fascist conference for the sovereignty of peoples was a unique experience, nowhere else on the planet has anything like this been achieved. It represented a broad anti-fascist and anti-imperialist front, going far beyond revolutionary organizations. ⁠Nevertheless, it had limitations, stemming from the difficulties faced by internationalist resistance movements. – Manuel Rodriguez Banchs, Penelope Duggan,  Israel Dutra, Antoine Larrache, João Machado, Reymund de Silva and Eric Toussaint, members of the Fourth International Bureau and International Committee.

Nearly 7,000 people took part in the opening demonstration, with a significant presence of Fourth International organizations. We witnessed the militant fervour of the World Social Forums of the heyday and of the 2003 anti-war movement, in which thousands of people from very different backgrounds come together and discuss everything. These are the kind of militant moments in which shared understandings and common objectives are forged, and in which the consciousness of the militant vanguard is shaped.

Read the rest of this entry »

Report of Public Meeting : Solidarity With the People of Ukraine – Bring the Stolen Children Home (Tuesday March 24 2026)

with one comment

Report of Public Meeting : Solidarity With the People of Ukraine – Bring the Stolen Children Home

Irish Left With Ukraine (ILWU) held a very fruitful meeting on Tuesday 24 March 2026 in the Teachers Club. Interesting insights were shared. The discussion showed us all the hope that if you take action, you can make a difference.

We thank Alex Yurov, Aishe Kurtamet (Crimean refugee and mother of her abducted son Appaz), Catriona Crowe (Archivist and Historian), Sandra Corrigan (INTO Global Solidarity Officer) and Ruth O’ Dea (Labour Party) for their contributions.

Alex Yurov reviewed the situation in Donetsk from 2014, when Russia invaded that part of Ukraine. He gave us details of systematic removal and “re‑education” of children into Russian territory.

Aishe Kurtamet told the story of her son Appaz who was abducted in Crimea.

Aishe gave a sustained account of her son Appaz’s 2023 abduction from Kherson, alleging transfer to occupied Crimea, detention, forced collaboration offers, torture, and imprisonment in multiple Russian facilities; she also reported her son’s father was later abducted, tortured, and sentenced.

Link to information about the plight of Appaz Kurtamet :

Appaz Kurtamet, Aishe Kurtamet

Sandra Corrigan, Global Solidarity Officer of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation, described international solidarity work for teachers and children, including a solidarity fund, emergency supplies, trauma support, and advocacy that helped secure teacher salary increases for 2025–2026. Ukrainian teacher union reports emphasised the prolonged conflict and an education crisis.

Catriona Crowe described the fascist and genocidal nature of the war Russia is waging in Ukraine – one proof of that description is the systematic kidnapping and disappearing of children in zones of occupation. She drew our attention to the awful history of child abuse in Ireland’s Mother and Baby homes.

She highlighted the international attention shift away from Ukraine to other conflicts, such as Iran, and the need for continued support.

She emphasized the importance of providing Ukraine with adequate weaponry to resist Russian aggression.

She discussed the broader context of the war, including the unprovoked invasion by Russia and the significant casualties on both sides. war on Ukrainian children, including the kidnapping and indoctrination by Russian authorities.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dishonesty of Many Campists About China – “Progressive International’s Adulation of “Whole-Process Democracy” Celebrates Capitalist Party-States”

leave a comment »

Dishonesty of Many Campists About China – Progressive International’s Adulation of “Whole-Process Democracy” Celebrates Capitalist Party-States

Ashley Smith Comments :

The dishonesty and delusion of today’s campists about China is truly astonishing. In one publication, a couple of authors deny the mass repression and internment of Uyghurs. In another, two more embarrass themselves by celebrating the capitalist police state as a socialist democracy. How can this pass as Marxist analysis? How can anyone on the left take this seriously?

Ashley Smith facebook page

Brian Hioe writes :

Progressive International’s Adulation of “Whole-Process Democracy” Celebrates Capitalist Party-States

Link :
Progressive International’s Adulation of “Whole-Process Democracy” Celebrates Capitalist Party-States

Chinese Autocrat Xi Jinping With British Forelock-Tuggers, David Cameron (ex Prime Minister) and his Queen –
Say Nothing About Human Rights

A RECENT ARTICLE by Paweł Wargan and Jason Hickel, published by the Progressive International, is adulatory about what it claims to be “whole-process democracy” in China. Nevertheless, interrogating the claims of the article finds that these claims to be in themselves contradictory.

“Whole-process democracy” is a term that apologists of the Chinese Communist Party have increasingly embraced in past years, as a term to describe what they claim to be the superiority of the Chinese party-state. Supposedly, rather than serving as a means of social control, the party-state serves to concentrate the democratic will as part of what is termed “whole-process democracy” or the “mass line.”

Of course, this claim is fanciful. Almost every single state under the sun claims that its political system is one that most perfectly embodies the democratic will of the people–and yet many of these states are, of course, authoritarian.

Wargan and Hickel gesture in grandiose fashion toward the usual claims about the wonders of Chinese modernization, while suggesting that it is because of the people’s participation in “whole-process democracy” that this resulted in a development process in which the people’s will was respected. But there is little, if anything, to suggest that this is true in China.

Read the rest of this entry »

Why we need solidarity with Ukraine – Public Meeting, Teachers Club Parnell Square, Dublin 1 D01T6V6, Tuesday April 212026, 7.30pm

with one comment

Public Meeting

Why we need solidarity with Ukraine

Speakers:

Mick Antoniw (Labour party Member of the Senedd [Welsh Assembly]; co-founder of the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, England & Wales)

Anatoliy Primakov (Ukrainian Action Ireland)

Sinéad Gibney TD (Social Democrats)

Kevin Donoghoe (Campaigns Officer, FÓRSA trade union)

Chairperson :

Nóirín Greene, ex-member of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) Executive

Time: 7:30pm

Date: Tuesday 21st April 2026

Place: Teachers Club 36 Parnell Square, Dublin 1 D01 T6V6

To participate via zoom link, please email: irishleftwithukraine@gmail.com by 19th April

Half a million people in London protested against racism and extreme right – Saturday March 28 2026 – report on the Eastern European Bloc

leave a comment »

The European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine reports :

On Saturday 28 March, half a million people in London protested against racism and extreme right, in the UK mainly represented by Reform UK, a party that is also close to Putin and Trump, and against support for Ukraine.

A nice block of Ukrainian, Eastern European and British solidarity protesters also participated at the manifestation, with our friends from the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign Vsesvit, Hromada Collective,Campaign for Ukraine, POMOC and the Polish left-wing party Razem.

Link :

https://ukrainesolidaritycampaign.org/

Alumina made in Aughinish, Limerick, is exported to smelters that sell aluminium to a trader supplying Russian arms manufacturers – Results of a Major Irish Times Investigation, March 24 2026 “Aughinish exposes a general trend in State attitude to Ukraine, Palestine, human rights …”

leave a comment »

Evidence of Limerick-produced alumina entering Russian military supply chain ‘horrific and shocking’, says Labour party leader Ivana Bacik

Aughinish Alumina contributes to Russian war against Ukraine – Ivana Bacik, the Labour party leader, raised the issue in Dáil Éireann :

Link :
Inside the Supply Chain Funneling Irish Alumina to Russian Rockets – OCCRP

Yesterday Conor Gallagher in The Irish Times, working with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, revealed shocking details about the supply chain linked to the Aughinish Alumina plant in Limerick.

His report outlined how significant quantities of alumina from this facility are being exported to Russia, where they are being used to make aluminium, which is then sold to a trading company supplying over 100 Russian weapons manufacturers. It is deeply alarming to see that shipments of Irish alumina to Russia have increased significantly since Putin’s brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It is horrific to see this. It is unconscionable that a plant operating in Ireland could be contributing to materials used in the destruction of so many communities and so much civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and can be used to kill children in Ukraine. This is appalling to see and I do welcome the Taoiseach’s commitment to review this report, but the question is clear: what urgent action will the Taoiseach take to ensure that no Irish-based industry or business is complicit in supporting Russia’s war machine?


Ivana Bacik; Aughinish Alumina plant aids brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine

Ivana Bacik is right to insist that the Irish government must take “urgent action” on this issue – words and good intentions are not good enough.

In the letters page of the Irish Times (Friday May 27) Conor O’Neill – Head of Policy, Christian Aid Ireland; Chair, Irish Coalition for Business & Human Rights points out :

Aughinish exposes a general trend in State attitude to Ukraine, Palestine, human rights …

Read the rest of this entry »

European socialism, imperial militarism, and defence of Ukraine – Simon Pirani, People and Nature Blog

leave a comment »

Simon Pirani offers extremely useful insights which are relevant to every European country, including Ireland.

Insight 1

On the political side, socialists in Nordic countries are streets ahead of us in the UK, perhaps because they are geographically closer to Russia.
Bjarke Friborg of the Red-Green Alliance in Denmark underlined in a recent interview the “very real” threat posed by Putin’s regime, “not necessarily in terms of ‘tanks rolling into Paris’, but certainly as a threat to democracy, sovereignty and the principle that borders can not be changed by brute force”. He continued:
We oppose Russian imperialism just as we have opposed American and NATO imperialism: not by supporting one bloc against another, but by defending the right of peoples to self-determination and supporting democratic and progressive forces in Russia and its client state, Belarus.

Simon Pirani, People and Nature Blog
Read the rest of this entry »