Tomás Ó Flatharta

Looking at Things from the Left

Archive for the ‘Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières (ESSF)’ Category

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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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

US base commander removed for refusing to lower Greenland and Danish flags at Pituffik Space Base – Small countries can humiliate imperialist bullies

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The latest news from the Greenland capital Nuuk tells us Yankee bullies have lost the plot.

Very few people live in Greenland; the population is only 56,000. The large island has attracted the attention of the United States of America (USA) super-power, which is blundering around in the Arctic wilderness.

The U.S. military announced Thursday it had removed Col. Susannah Meyers, commander of its Pituffik base in Greenland, stating it would not tolerate any pushback against President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Meyers sent an email to base personnel on March 31 distancing herself from U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s visit three days prior, according to the independent news organization Military.com.

President Trump’s threats are disintegrating in many parts of the globe; we should remember that small countries are not powerless. They can stand up to imperial mad dogs and inspire others. Danish Red-Green Alliance member of parliament Søren Søndergaard observes :

Finally, as you may know, Trump has announced that he is going to annex Greenland to the United States! Perhaps to gain free access to all of Greenland’s minerals. Perhaps to prevent other countries from using the new shipping routes that are appearing after the polar ice caps melt. Or maybe simply because if you add the territory of Canada and Greenland to that of the United States, the American territory will be larger than that of Russia and will constitute the largest country in the world. This gives a new meaning to the slogan ‘Make America Great Again’: ‘Make America “Great” Again’.
But the small and proud Greenlandic people have a saying: ‘Nothing about Greenland without Greenland’.

On Easter 1916 “the world did gaze with deep amaze” after small Ireland struck a deadly blow against the world’s then biggest imperial monster, the British Empire. This defiant message of resistance is immortalized here by Sinéad O’Connor and the Chieftains :

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Elections (USA): Making Sense of Trump’s Victory & the Necessary Resistance – Frieda Afary

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Frieda Afary has written an excellent analysis (see below). She shows that the Democratic party candidate Kamala Harris lost 10 million votes compared with Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. Trump’s vote totals in 2020 and 2024 were almost identical.

Source :
Elections (USA): Making Sense of Trump’s Victory & the Necessary Resistance (ESSF)


This article analyzes the vote breakdown, the pundits’ views, argues that Trump is a fascist and offers perspectives for the needed anti-fascist resistance.

Donald Trump’s election as president, and the Republican victories nationwide are a catastrophe for progressive forces in the U.S. and around the world. What the November 5, 2024 election showed was that while this country is still divided, there has been a rightward shift nationwide and across all demographic and geographic groups. (Levitt, 2024)

Vote Breakdown:

Let’s take a closer look at the demographic breakdown of the votes. Approximately 72 million voted for Harris and 75 million voted for Trump. Approximately 700,000 voted for Jill Stein and 700,000 voted for Robert Kennedy. This means that Democrats received 10 million fewer votes than in 2020 when Biden received 81 million. Trump received approximately the same number of votes he received in 2020. (U.S. Election Results, 2024)

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Resolution: The War and the Future of Ukraine and the Left Movement – Author : Social Movement (Sotsialnyi Rukh) [Ukraine]

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The resolution below was recently adopted by a left-wing organisation in Ukraine : Social Movement (Sotsialnyi Rukh).

Here is one of many important statements very relevant to the left in Ireland and elsewhere :

The growing contradictions between the centers of capital accumulation in the world capitalist system will not stop even after the complete destruction of Russian imperialist power. The left in Europe and around the world turned out to be helpless and disoriented when the Russian aggression in Ukraine occurred. Unless the international socialist movement realizes mistakes it has made and builds a new, truly internationalist cooperation and coordination, we simply have no chance of preventing the growth of inter-imperialist struggle in the future.


Resolution: The War and the Future of Ukraine and the Left Movement

Link :
Resolution: The War and the Future of Ukraine and the Left Movement – Author : Social Movement (Sotsialnyi Rukh) [Ukraine]

Категорія: ПОЗИЦІЯ

The people of Ukraine have been facing hard challenges, yet they have proven their ability to fight for the right to decide on their own fate, and their determination to defend the country and to end the war as soon as possible. The authorities and representatives of market-fundamentalist ideology, together with big business, keep pushing through an economic model focused on benefiting a minority at the expense of the welfare of the absolute majority

The people of Ukraine have been facing hard challenges, yet they have proven their ability to fight for the right to decide on their own fate, and their determination to defend the country and to end the war as soon as possible. The authorities and representatives of market-fundamentalist ideology, together with big business, keep pushing through an economic model focused on benefiting a minority at the expense of the welfare of the absolute majority. In this model, workers are completely subservient to the will of their employers, while social and regulatory functions of the state are abolished for the sake of “business needs”, “competition” and “free market”.

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Democratic crisis in France – President Macron appoints prime minister Barnier rejected by voters

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Pierre Rousset reviews a democratic crisis in France.

At a time when the far-right is marching forward all over Europe (including Ireland), France offers an example of left-wing resistance. The The New People’s Front (NFP) won a surprise parliamentary victory, but President Macron retaliated by making a deal with the far-right.

Source :
Democratic Crisis in France – President Macron appoints Prime Minister Barnier rejected by voters

There are many interesting articles on this subject here : 2024 Democracy Crisis in France – ESSF


On 9 June, Emmanuel Macron unexpectedly decided to dissolve the National Assembly, just as the Rassemblement Nationale (far-right National Rally party of Marine Le Pen) was gaining momentum. Three weeks later, the results of the first round of voting were unequivocal: the parties of the presidential bloc were crushed, and in the second round the National Rally could hope to win an absolute majority of seats in Parliament, or at least be the largest party. (The French electoral system uses two rounds of voting. If no candidate gets an absolute majority in the first round, the names of the top candidates go to a second round. The one with the most votes in the second round wins).

These hopes were dashed. After the second round, the far right ended up in third place, behind the Nouveau Front populaire (the New People’s Front formed by parties of the broad Left) and the presidential party.

The electorate wanted neither Macronism nor the National Rally in the corridors of power. Today, thanks to Macron, it has both. It took him eight weeks to choose a prime minister: Michel Barnier, a member of Les Républicains party, which won only 5% of the vote. He had previously negotiated this appointment with Marine Le Pen, to ensure that she would not immediately table a vote of no confidence against him. Madame agreed… conditionally.

Now, the choice of a prime minister depends on the goodwill of the far right!

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Joe Biden’s Role in Gaza Genocidal War: In-depth Analysis by Gilbert Achcar

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Foreword

Gilbert Achcar makes an interesting practical point in this article :

Source :
Joe Biden’s Crime Against Humanity – Gilbert Achcar

The lame duck President of the USA Joe Biden – a “proud Irish-American Zionist” – is a bigger danger to the people living in Gaza and Palestine because he does not have to bend to electoral pressures.

The US president’s behaviour towards Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has clearly retreated from the semi-critical approach he had begun to adopt after realizing how costly his total complicity in the Zionist aggression against the Palestinian people is electorally, especially among traditional Democratic Party voters, as it is even resented within the party itself.

This is a very persuasive analysis. Accordingly, we must hope that pressure mounts in the USA and elsewhere to drive Biden out of office as soon as possible. Some reports suggest that Biden only agreed to leave the election race in favour of Kamala Harris after Barack Obama threatened Biden with ejection from the White House, using the 25th Amendment mechanism.

This would mean that not only did they force Biden out of the race, but that the Democrats know full well that Biden isn’t fit to serve out the rest of his term, but are comfortable letting him continue as a figure head if it serves their efforts to retain power for the party.

Source :
Obama may have threatened Biden with the 25th Amendment

At the same time we must dismiss wild conspiracy claims about these developments. There was no “coup” against Biden – since when did party bosses deciding to bully an unpopular leader to resign become a coup? A better argument is that Obama, Harris and company did not go far enough dumping candidate Biden, who clearly has major medical cognitive issues – War Criminal Biden should be booted out of the White House as soon as possible, by any means necessary – the 25th Amendment is a satisfactory instrument.

John Meehan August 7 2024


Joe Biden’s Crime Against Humanity

Joe Biden will alas not stand in the dock before the International Criminal Court – that much is sure. There is no doubt, however, that the court of history, which is the fairest of criminal courts, will include his name prominently on the list of perpetrators of crimes against humanity.

Since he announced his decision to stop running for a second presidential term, Joe Biden has become a “lame duck” – an expression that commonly refers in the United States to an elected official who has reached the final months of their term without any extension prospect. The expression means that the official’s influence has become limited, as everybody knows that they will not remain in office for long. However, a person in such a situation in a presidential political system in which the president is elected by popular vote (indirectly in the US case), is also, in contrast, more free-handed than a president campaigning for an additional term, who must therefore ensure that he (no she, yet) does not lose votes as a result of positions or measures he may take.

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France : A surprise victory and a reprieve from the Rassemblement National (RN)

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Léon Crémieux

Copyright
Photothèque Rouge / Martin Noda / Hans Lucas

Source :
France : A surprise victory and a reprieve from the RN

The Nouveau Front populaire (New Popular Front), a coalition built in just a few days by the left-wing parties (whereas they remained splintered at the recent European parliamentary elections), has just won 182 deputy seats in the French National Assembly, beating the Rassemblement national (RN) and its allies, with 143 seats, and the camp of President Macron with 168 seats.

This is a spectacular reversal of the situation meaning we have gone from the threat of a far-right stranglehold on the state apparatus to a relative left-wing majority in the Assembly, elected on a programme of rupture with neoliberal policies. This reversal cannot be understood without looking at the massive mobilisation in recent weeks of the activist forces of the workers’ and democratic movement in the face of the far right, leading first to the formation of this New Popular Front (with la France insoumise (LFI), Europe Ecologie Les Verts (EELV), the Socialist Party (PS), the Communist Party (PCF) and others including the Nouveau parti anticapitaliste (NPA)), then to a major mobilisation at the ballot box and a very broadly supported vote to reject the RN.

Following on from its 31.34% result in the European elections on 9 June, the RN obtained more than 33% of the vote in the first round of legislative elections on 30 June, and everything suggested that it would obtain a very large number of deputies in the second round, with all the polls giving it well over 200 deputies and possibly even an absolute majority of 289 seats.

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British General Election 2024 – Highlights and Lowlights – Loveless Landslide, Sandcastle Majority. Far-Right Hiding in Plain Sight, House of Paisley Falls in Antrim – and a Message of Hope from new MP Shockat Adam, Leicester South

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Let’s start with positive news :

Shockat Adam MP, Leicester South – “This is for the people of Gaza”.

When you listen to this June 25 car-crash interview with former Leicester South Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth, you would be forgiven for thinking he was a member of the far-right racist party, Reform.

Shockat Adam was not alone. Five pro-Gaza independent candidates (including former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North) are members of the new Westminster parliament :

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Written by tomasoflatharta

Jul 6, 2024 at 3:22 pm

Posted in 26 County State (Ireland), Alliance Party, Anti War Movements, Anti-Capitalist Resistance (Britain), Apartheid, “A Carnival of Reaction” - James Connolly’s Warning About the Partition of Ireland, Boris Johnson, Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister, Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS), Brexit - Britain Leaves the EU, Britain, British Empire, British Labour Party, British Tory Party, Channel 4 (Britain), Colum Eastwood MP (Derry), Conservative Party (Tories), Britain, Democratic Unionist Party, Derry, Dublin Governments, England, Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières (ESSF), European Union, FFFGGG Coalition, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Fourth International, Green Party, History of Ireland, Ian Paisley Junior MP, International Political Analysis, Ireland, Irish News Newspaper (Belfast), Israel, Israel Assault on Gaza, October 2023, Ivana Bacik TD, Labour Party Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Joe Brolly, John Swinney, Labour Party (Ireland), Left Wing Organisations, Liz Truss, ex British Prime Minister, Migration in Europe, Nigel Farage, Orange Order, Racism, Reform, Reverend Ian Paisley, Rishi Sunak - 3rd 2022 British Prime Minister, Russia, Sammy Wilson MP, Scotland, Scottish Independence, Scottish National party (SNP), Sinn Féin, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson MP, Sir Keir Starmer, Six County State, Sorcha Eastwood MP, Stormont, Lord Carson’s Tomb

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Julian Assange, Political Prisoner of the USA, Released on the island of Saipan.

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The remote Pacific Ocean island of Saipan suddenly hit Irish and global headlines in 2002 when Irish soccer star Roy Keane walked away from the Irish team’s base for the World Cup in Korea and Japan after a blazing row with his manager Mick McCarthy. Today the island is back in the headlines after the political prisoner Julian Assange walked to freedom following a court hearing in the USA-owned North Marinara territory. Like Keane, Assange did not linger in Saipan – he flew home to his native land, Australia.

That is not the only Irish connection. Many innocent Irish political prisoners were held, like Assange, in noxious British jails such as Belmarsh. A small number of dedicated human rights lawyers became household names in Ireland. The picture below shows the released Julian Assange beside one of those lawyers, Gareth Pierce.

Political Prisoner Julian Assange and Civil Rights Lawyer Gareth Pierce

The campaigns for the release of the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, the Winchester Three and Judith Ward offer an important lesson :

When the left should get together in defence of political prisoners, it is very often a serious mistake to conduct a debate about the political views and activities of the prisoners. In Ireland that was true of the Birmingham 6, the H-Block/Armagh political prisoners, Nicky Kelly and the IRSP members framed for the Sallins Train Robbery, and the Jobstown Not Guilty political activists in Tallaght. Many comrades would be well advised to go back further and examine the Sacco and Vanzetti campaign in the 1920’s, and the Moscow Trial Purges of the 1930’s. The faults (or lack of faults) of the victims are regularly used as an excuse to avoid a united campaign in favour of the victims. The bigger story is that “An Injury to One is An Injury to All”.

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