Tomás Ó Flatharta

Looking at Things from the Left

Archive for the ‘Fourth International’ Category

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

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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.

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Hungary 2026: An Autopsy of Sixteen Years of Illiberalism

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A few days before the Hungarian general election held on April 12 2026 the USA Vice president JD Vance flew into Budapest campaigning for the far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán. Vance, a high-profile member of the Catholic Church, picked the wrong place to boost a close ally. The self-described hillbilly bombed in Budapest.

Orbán was also strongly backed by the far-right president of Russia, Vladimir Putin. Hungary joins a growing list of countries where candidates closely aligned with the far-right twins Trump-Putin sink to a humiliating defeat.

Adam Novak explores the issues in the interview below published on the
Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières (ESSF) site:

Link :


Hungary 2026: An Autopsy of Sixteen Years of Illiberalism.

Among the fascinating details in the article below, we highlight two :

For Trump and Vance, it is the loss of the most useful ally within the European Council — the one who blocked collective decisions on Ukraine, including the 90-billion-euro loan to Kyiv that Orbán had vetoed. For Putin, it is the loss of the most accommodating European government on energy and sanctions. For European far-right parties, it is the signal that the model is not election-proof.

Vance delivered a speech on Christ and the Christian foundations of European civilisation before a comparatively secular Hungarian audience. He invoked workers’ rights without saying a word about the tech billionaires enriched under Trump. And he denounced Brussels bureaucrats for “making millions” whilst saying nothing of the oligarchy that Orbán himself built. The electoral effect of the visit is close to zero: Vance is little known in Hungary, and it was not Trump who came.

Hungary 2026: An Autopsy of Sixteen Years of Illiberalism.

After Orbán: Electoral Fractures and the Programmatic Void

The Hungarian legislative elections of 12 April 2026 brought to an end sixteen years of uninterrupted rule by Viktor Orbán. Péter Magyar’s Tisza (Respect and Freedom [Tisztelet és Szabadság]) party won a super-majority of 138 seats out of 199, inflicting on Fidesz a defeat explained by judicial scandals, saturation of the identitarian discourse, a generational fracture, and the concrete effects of the freeze on European funds.

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

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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.

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Respect for the late Ayatollah Mr Ali Khamenei of Iran: Mick Wallace, Clare Daly, and the Logic of Campism

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Thanks to Duncan Chapel for the post below, and to Gregor Kerr for drawing our attention to the latest reactionary political message posted by the former Irish MEP’s Mick Wallace and Clare Daly

Thanks also to Europe Solidaire Sans Frontieres for a much better assessment of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei :

Respect to the Ayatollah: Mick Wallace and the Logic of Campism

On Sunday evening, while watching Torino v Lazio, a former left MEP posted his solidarity with the Supreme Leader of a state that had just killed seven thousand of its own citizens.

This is what campism looks like when it stops pretending. Mick Wallace, until 2024 an Irish MEP from the United European Left, posted the following to Facebook on the evening of 2 March 2026, apparently from a football stadium in Turin:

“Respect to Iran. Respect to Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Shame on the Political Class + Media who refuse to call out the lawless Terrorism of Western Imperialism + Zionism.” The hashtag was #TorinoLazio. Let us be precise about what has been said here. Not “oppose the bombing.” Not “solidarity with the Iranian people.”

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“Venezuela – Ordinary Imperialism” – A Ukrainian Comrade Denys Pilash warns : “Fears about a global deal between two imperialisms: “you leave us the Western Hemisphere, we leave you Ukraine.” And China gets in on the act

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The Dublin government is doing normal campist hypocrisy : Currently the Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin is visiting China. Expect no mention of the Beijing régime’s well-documented human rights abuses in the Xinjiang province and persecution of the Uyghur minority – China’s boss Xi Jinping will not tolerate that kind of talk :

Link :
China Syria and the Uyghurs

“Another piece of information related to the Xinjiang issue concerns the dissemination of confidential documents that would prove Xi Jinping’s direct involvement in the repression of the Uyghurs. These are three internal speeches given in 2014 during a visit to the region immediately after the attack on Kunming railway station in which Xi called for a campaign of “heavy and rapid strikes” and demanded the creation of a climate of constant pressure. These instructions already hinted at the elements that would subsequently shape the system of internment camps, forced labour and linguistic assimilation programmes, with the aim of eliminating religious practices and cultural identities considered threats to national security.”

The head of the Dublin government is saying nothing about ongoing repression of trade union activists in Hong Kong. Not a dicky-bird from Micheál about the Chinese régimes’s threatening build-up of its military forces in the South China Sea.

Here is a flavour of the Leinster House “Official Version” : Business Before Principles :

“In Shanghai, the Taoiseach will meet the city’s mayor Gong Zheng and visit Irish and Chinese companies in the country’s commercial capital. He has planned meetings with representatives from the financial services, tourism and food and beverage sectors, among others.

“In Beijing, there will be a particular focus on further and higher education – an important area with a lot of potential for both partners, and where co-operation will yield longer-term dividends in terms of research and innovation, and people-to-people links,” he said.

The Taoiseach will meet representatives from 12 Irish third-level colleges that offer full-time degree and diploma courses with Chinese higher education partners. Typically, these offer qualifications that are recognised in both Ireland and China, with courses based on those in Irish colleges.

Last month, the Sunday Times Ireland edition reported that the Irish Military Intelligence Service was concerned about security risks associated with academic links to China. But the Taoiseach later suggested that a more sophisticated approach to China’s strategic ambitions was required.

“I do accept the intelligence that’s across Europe and UK recently but on the other hand, China has never initiated, in modern times, a war. I had a very interesting, pretty careful discussion with the Singaporean Prime Minister on that. We should do more to understand the Chinese psyche and approach, and the more longer term sort of scenario, strategic thinking,” he told The Journal.” – Irish Times January 5 2026.



Venezuela – Ordinary Imperialism

Denys Pilash, from Ukraine, offers us a very useful article based on principles which need to be universal across the left :
Ukraine – Venezuela – Palestine – Occupation Is A Crime.


Washington’s scarecrow, catching up with its Kremlin counterpart, has conducted its own special military aberration [1]. Moreover, whilst boasting about this latest step towards what it calls the “noble peace prize” [2] and asserting its “Donroe Doctrine” [3], it makes no attempt to conceal that this is all for the sake of tasty oil and that it could not care less about the consequences of regional destabilisation. [4]

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Campism and Its Contradictions – Prime Example is British “Stop the War” Coalition – they have Irish imitators

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2026 begins with very bad news from Venezuela.

Simon Pearson notes :

Stop the War’s Venezuela statement reveals what their Ukraine position should have been.

Stop the War Coalition responded within hours. Their statement, written by convenor Lindsey German, left no room for doubt:

“Trump’s bombing attack on Venezuela must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. The apparent forced removal and kidnapping of its president Maduro is a war crime.”

The statement continued:

“Only the peoples of Latin America can decide their own fate and choose their own government and should be able to do so without interference. There can be no support for US imperialism in Latin America or for the crimes of Trump.”

I agree with every word.

Some Similar Reactions :

“all those who vociferously condemn the US actions, and who protest against it, should be equally vociferous in their condemnation of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Unfortunately far too many on the left don’t apply that logical consistency” Gregor Kerr

“Marco Rubio (US Secretary of State) is reportedly saying Maduro will stand trial in US courts.

Which means it’s now the US administration’s position that US courts can hold foreign presidents, but not the US president, accountable for crimes.” Link :

Marco Rubio is reportedly saying Maduro will stand trial in US courts.Which means it’s now the US administration’s position that US courts can hold foreign presidents, but not the US president, accountable for crimes.

James Ball (@jamesrball.com) 2026-01-03T10:52:15.199Z

“Remember this today tankies and campists, as you scramble to virtue signal opposition to what’s happening in Venezeula:

If you’ve offered justifications for Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine, you’ve created justifications for Donald Trump to invade Venezuela.” James Doyle

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: its origins and ramifications – A series of interesting talks

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: its origins and ramifications

Pacifist slogans about abolishing was are no longer relevant to politics. A serious discussion must start.

This is an interesting series of talks. Speakers do not agree on everything – it promises to be a useful exchange of views. One of the contributors is Jess Spear on the Irish left-wing organisation RISE, a network within People Before Profit (PBP). Congratulations to the organiser, Chris Zeller.

More Information :
Ukraine – Emancipatory Perspectives – Chris Zeller

WHEN: Tuesday, November 4th, 2025, 6 to 8 pm
WHERE: online via MS Teams

Hanna Perekohda is a PhD candidate in political science at the Institute of Political Studies (University of Lausanne). Her research focuses on Ukraine’s place in the Russian political imaginary. Her articles on Russian-Ukrainian Relations and the current war have appeared in various outlets. She is involved in networks of international solidarity.


This talk is part of the lecture online series Emancipatory Perspectives in a Multipolar World Full of Tensions organized by the University of Salzburg :

Tuesday, November 18th, 6-8pm
Imperialism and the Gulf Arab Monarchies at a time of Climate Collapse
Lecture with Adam Hanieh

Monday, November 24th, 11:15 -13:00, live at the University of Salzburg, HS 387, Rudolfskai 42
Dispelling the Multipolar Myth: Why BRICS do not offer an alternative
Lecture with Patrick Bond

Tuesday, December 16th, 6-8pm
Women in the Vanguard
Lecture with Jess Spear

Tuesday, January 13th, 2025, 6-8pm
Why Are Authoritarianism & Fascism Growing Globally?
Lecture with Frieda Afary

A tribute to the outstanding  journalist Ed Moloney, who passed away in New York Aged 77

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https://wp.me/p1iwpM-4NB

Ed was a great friend and will be missed.

Condolences to Joan McKiernan, and all friends, colleagues, and  comrades.

A reminder : Ed Moloney’s work on issues concerning child abuse in the six-county bit of Ireland which remain unsolved :

John Meehan October 20 2025

Catherine Connolly Irish Presidential Campaign and Climate Change which threatens humanity

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In a Facebook  discussion, the Swiss eco-socialist activist Chris Zeller points out that the British “Your Party” makes no statement about climate change which threatens humanity – I wonder has the Catherine Connolly presidential campaign in Ireland made a climate change declaration?

Chris’s statement, which I endorse ” I have the impression that “Your Party” is no exception. In several European countries, we see that the traditional left and the trade unions are more or less consciously putting the ecological challenge on the back burner. I would go so far as to argue that the fossil fuel backlash we are seeing in all key sectors of capital has eaten deep into the traditional left and the trade unions.

We are currently less far along than we were possibly in 2019. However, the Earth system is changing abruptly. The effects will pose a concrete threat to the physical survival of a significant portion of humanity in just a few decades. Yet the imperialist countries – including trade unions and the left – assume that the suffering will spread far away from our societies in Europe and North America.

This, of course, raises important strategic questions. My working hypothesis is that we urgently need to build a transnational revolutionary eco-socialist vanguard.
We need collectives and organisations that vigorously oppose the fossil fuel backlash and the power of fossil fuel capital in general.” 

Paul Murphy TD Advocates an Ecosocialist Revolution

Possibly Catherine Connolly makes a good start here :

https://www.thejournal.ie/catherine-connolly-says-there-is-no-recognition-of-climate-emergency-in-budget-2026-6838080-Oct2025/

John Meehan October 13 2025

EMERGENCY SOCIAL MEDIA STORM August 14, 19.00-20.00 Irish Time – PARTICIPATE!

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PARTICIPATE!

EMERGENCY SOCIAL MEDIA STORM August 14, 2000-2100 Central European Time

2100-2200 Ukraine * 1900-2000 UK * 1500 Brazil * 1400 US/Canada East Coast * 1100 US/Canada West Coast * 2330 India * 0300 (Friday) Japan 0400 (Friday) Eastern Australia*

Suggested hashtags | Рекомендовані хештеги | Hashtags suggérés | Hashtags sugeridos

#NothingAboutUkraineWithoutUkraine #OccupationIsNotPeace #StopPutinStopTrump #SolidarityNotSurrender #StandWithUkraine
#НічогоПроУкраїнуБезУкраїни #ОкупаціяЦеНеМир #СтопПутінСтопТрамп #СолідарністьАНеКапітуляція #ПідтримайУкраїну
#RienSurL’UkraineSansL’Ukraine #L’OccupationN’EstPasLaPaix #StopPoutineStopTrump #SolidaritéPasCapitulation #SoutenezL’Ukraine
#NadaSobreUcraniaSinUcrania #LaOcupaciónNoEsPaz #StopPutinStopTrump #SolidaridadNoRendición #ApoyemosAUcrania

Please post on whatever social media platforms you’re on with statuses, photos, etc.

Statements and background

French Committee of the European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine * Ukrainian World Congress * Ukrainian government peace proposal

MEDIA RELEASE

TRUMP AND PUTIN: HANDS OFF UKRAINE! NO PEACE WITHOUT UKRAINE! NO PEACE AGAINST UKRAINE!

August 10, 2025

Putin and Trump want to reach an agreement at a summit meeting without the main party concerned, Ukraine, in defiance of international law and the right of peoples to self-determination.

Trump announced on Friday that he would meet his Russian counterpart in Alaska on August 15, without the Ukrainian president. The latter responded strongly and rightly: “Any decision that is made against us, any decision that is made without Ukraine, is a decision against peace.”

According to the US president, a settlement of the war will include territorial concessions.

“The Ukrainians will not give up their land to the occupiers,” Zelensky added, while Trump spoke of “exchanges of territory”.

Crimea and territories in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts that Putin has declared annexed are occupied by Russian troops in violation of international law.

Occupation is a crime, those who occupy are criminals, and those who support it are accomplices!

Trump is preparing to hand victory to the aggressor after claiming that he would issue an ultimatum to Putin.

No, the era of placing one country under the tutelage of another against its will by decision of the “great powers” is over.

Mobilisation against this imperialist banditry between Putin and Trump and in solidarity with Ukraine must be organised quickly.

French Committee of the European Network for Solidarity With Ukraine (ENSU)


Thomas Weyts, Ghent, Belgium :

Not only in Anchorage, Alaska, but also in Munich, Bavaria, there will be protests tomorrow against the gangster conclave between Trump and Putin. Not by chance at the place where the infamous agreements between Chamberlain and Hitler were signed in 1938, while Czechoslovak Prime Minister Benes was allowed to wait in the hallway…

Thomas Weyts, Ghent, Belgium :

Protest at the American Embassy in Prague, 13th of August. The Czechs know what they are talking about