Archive for the ‘Left Wing Organisations’ Category
Ireland’s November 29 2024 General Election : Racist Warning Signs
Irish General Election to 34th Dáil; Racist Danger
The June 2024 Euro/ Local results in Ireland produced some alarming results – the racist far-right came from the margins and increased its electoral support. This could be a predictor of the coming General Election result.
Warning signs to anti-racists exist in various opinion surveys. See, for example, these numbers from a recent RedC General Election Opinion Survey) :
Aontú, a right-wing split from Sinn Féin set up by an anti-choice TD from Meath, Peadar Tóibín, is beginning to hoover up right-wing racist votes which were scattered among various mini-Hitlers in the June 2024 European and Local Elections. We can say the same for the Irish Independence party (II). When we note that a majority of independent candidates are part of the racist far-right, a disturbing picture emerges. The numbers are worse in other parts of the Irish state.
Here is the data from an Irish Times Opinion Poll :
| Irish General Election November 29 2024 Irish Times Survey Results 15/11/24 | ||||
| First preference voting intentions | ||||
| Dublin | Rest of Leinster | Munster | Connacht/Ulster | |
| Fianna Fáil | 16.00% | 19.00% | 27.00% | 13.00% |
| Fine Gael | 22.00% | 29.00% | 22.00% | 29.00% |
| Labour | 9.00% | 3.00% | 2.00% | 3.00% |
| Green Party | 6.00% | 2.00% | 1.00% | 2.00% |
| Sinn Fein | 21.00% | 16.00% | 19.00% | 21.00% |
| People Before Profit/Solidarity | 4.00% | 1.00% | 2.00% | 1.00% |
| Social Democrats | 5.00% | 5.00% | 2.00% | 2.00% |
| Aontú | 2.00% | 4.00% | 3.00% | 2.00% |
| Independent candidate | 15.00% | 21.00% | 21.00% | 25.00% |
Temptation exists : bending to “understandable” fears. For example an election canvasser from a party with one foot in the left put it to me that some voters are “uncomfortable” because their neighbours come from outside Ireland.
Let’s be clear, harsh, and unambiguous : messages like this pander to the racist view that immigrants are criminals and rapists. There is no evidence backing up claims that people born outside Ireland are any worse than Irish natives. It gives oxygen to the far right shite being whispered around communities.
Read the rest of this entry »9000 Days of Putin’s Régime in the Russian Federation, 1000 Days of War – Protest, The Spire, O’Connell Street, Dublin 1, Sunday November 17 3-5pm
Free Russians Ireland has organised a protest in Dublin :
Link :
Free Russians Ireland – 9000 Days of Putin’s Régime in Russia
Sunday November 17, 15:00 – 17:00
1,000 Days of War, 9,000 Days of Putin’s Regime
Location: The Spire, O’Connell Street, Dublin
Hello everyone!
You’ve probably seen the call to join the big rally in Berlin on November 17.
November 20 will mark 1,000 days since February 24, 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since then, cities have been bombed, and over a million civilians have been killed or injured, according to “The Wall Street Journal”.
Our message in Dublin is the same as in London and other cities around the world holding actions: stop the war in Ukraine, withdraw the troops, provide reparations, and free political prisoners!
There are currently around 5,000 political prisoners in Russia, according to OVD-Info, including minors, people with health issues, and those facing ethnic and religious persecution. In the past year alone, over five people have reportedly been killed in prison.
We are taking to the streets this November for an important reason — cold weather is setting in for Ukraine, and its infrastructure has been severely damaged. Together with the London-based Russian Democracy Society, we are raising funds for generators and informing the Irish public about what is happening in Ukraine and Russia and why we demand an end to the war.
Read the rest of this entry »1000 Days since the Russian Invasion of Ukraine – Protest at Embassy of Russia in Ireland, Tuesday November 19 2024, 3 – 4pm, 186 Orwell Road, Dublin 14
Tuesday November 19 2024 marks the 1000th day since the start of the full scale invasion of Ukraine by Putin and his military forces.
To mark the day an event is being held outside the Russian embassy commencing at 3.30pm..
A poster advertising the event is below.
Feel free to circulate it to friends, acquaintances and contacts.
Housing Crisis, Ireland, November 12 2024 : Left-wing election candidates respond to RTÉ Upfront True Stories
Councillor John Lyons, Candidate, Dublin Bay North
Good to see opposition politicians cutting through the bleedin’ heart nonsense from FF & FG regarding the housing crisis on
: if they really cared, we wouldn’t have 3,388 homeless children in Dublin tonight. #HousingCrisis
https://x.com/CllrJohnLyons/status/1856112498291753276
Councillor Ruth Coppinger, Candidate, Dublin West
A young woman in the audience just punctured the guff on
@RTEUpfront. In a homeless hub with a child with a life limiting condition. What shame for a government that has had a record budget surplus. Cheek of minister saying ‘I have a family too’ on his salary.
Read the rest of this entry »
European Left Alliance for People and the Planet (Howie Hawkins Report) – Dispatches from Europe, No. 8, November 6, 2024
Howie Hawkins, Green Party Presidential Candidate in the 2020 USA General Election, reports from Kyiv, Capital City of Ukraine, on a meeting of the European Left Alliance for People and the Planet.
Dispatches from Europe, No. 8, November 6, 2024 – European Left Alliance for People and the Planet
I arrived in Kyiv on the afternoon of November 2 to the sound of air raid sirens. The air raid warnings had been going on all day. They come by phone once you get the Air Alert app, which is one of the first things my hosts had me do. Now my phone screen is covered with air alerts.
By the end of the night of November 2-3, Ukraine had been targeted with 96 drones and 1 air-to-surface missile. Ukrainian air defense units intercepted the missile and 66 of the drones, but between the drones that got through air defenses and debris falling from intercepted drones and missiles, six districts of Kyiv were hit, mostly residential buildings. One explosion woke me up. A large explosion hit a building at one of the campuses of Taras Shevchenko National University.
Read the rest of this entry »Taoiseach Simon Harris Announces Irish General Election on November 29 – Heading to Phoenix Park HQ of President Michael D Higgins to dissolve current Dáil – Support Credible Radical Left Candidates
https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/1108/1479774-end-33-dail-general-election/
Simon Harris confirmed that he’ll travel to Áras an Uachtaráin shortly to ask President Higgins to dissolve the Dáil.
The election is set for Friday 29 November 2024.
A number of radical left candidates against any coalition deal with FFFFGGG have a realistic chance of winning a Dáil seat. [FFFGGG = Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Greens, Gombeens].
One of them is Councillor John Lyons in Dublin Bay North.
Rejecting any coalition deals with FFFGGG and a policy that All refugees Are Welcome should be top priorities for radical left candidates in this general election.
People Before Profit (PBP) candidates also endorse the above policy.
Link :
No Coalition with FF or FG – PBP Conor Reddy
John Meehan, November 7 2024
France : A surprise victory and a reprieve from the Rassemblement National (RN)
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.
Read the rest of this entry »France : The far right has been pushed back by popular mobilization – now we must implement the programme of the New Popular Front – Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA)
A great result for the left from France, July 7 2024. The NPA’s reactions is below :
Source :
Far right pushed back by popular mobilization – implement programme of New Popular Front- NPA
The main lesson of the first results of this second round is the setback suffered by the Rassemblement national and its allies. The defeat of the hundreds of fascist, racist, Islamophobic, antisemitic and ultra-racist candidates put forward by the RN is a huge relief for racialized people, women, LGBTI+ people and workers. This victory for the united left has halted the momentum of the far right, which nonetheless won around fifty more seats. This defeat of the far right of Bardella and Le Pen is the fruit of the popular mobilization that took place thanks to the unitive impetus provided by the creation of the New Popular Front.
This is already a victory for the New Popular Front, which was made possible by the rallying of the entire left – political parties, trade unions and campaigning groups – , but also and above all by the grassroots mobilization of large sectors of the working classes, in particular racialized people and young people, who committed themselves everywhere to blocking the RN. This made it possible for a very large number of New Popular Front MPs (including a relative majority for LFI) to be elected to the National Assembly on the basis of a programme that breaks not only with Macronism in the service of the ultra-rich, but also with the liberal left of the Hollande mandate, which had followed the policies of the right.
Read the rest of this entry »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
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 :
Read the rest of this entry »The Irish Left Must Unite to break the old stranglehold – Paul Murphy TD (People Before Profit, Dublin South-West), Irish Times, July 4 2024
Paul Murphy’s opinion piece in the July 4 2024 edition of the Irish Times makes a strong case :
“Another five years of FF/FG rule would be disastrous for the country. Left parties and Independents must come together to stop it happening”
There is a bottom line :
No coalition with Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.
Time for a new united left alliance to topple Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael
Another five years of FF/FG rule would be disastrous for the country. Left parties and Independents must come together and stop this happening
A general election is looming. If the local election results are repeated, it will mean a return of this Government but with the Greens replaced as the third wheel by right-wing Independents. The 100-year rule of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will continue.
This would be a disaster.
Another five years of their rule would mean a deepening of the crises in housing and health, with more children growing up in emergency accommodation, more adults trapped in their childhood bedroom unable to move out, as well as growing hospital waiting lists. It would mean continued inaction on the climate and biodiversity crises and large numbers of workers in low-paid, precarious employment without the right to collectively bargain.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tomás Ó Flatharta 