The ULA Forum yesterday was a resounding success. It filled the Theatre in Liberty Hall all day and the official registration list for the day was announced as 320. Four features of the gathering were the number of new faces, the number of non-aligned people, the number of young people and the delegations from outside Dublin (Cork, Tipperary and the North to these ears in particular).

There was a great sense of achievement, potential, departure and, for most of the time, camaraderie. The Socialist Party were rather too forthright in pressing their perspective of a more ‘revolutionary’ programme (with the emphasis on the use of the word ‘socialism’). The SWP were more sensitive, yet perhaps more arrogant,  in pressing their ‘Enough!’ campaign on the gathering and on the ULA.

Nevertheless all involved must take credit for a phenomenon that would have been practically unforeseeable a year ago. It will be said that the day amounted to nothing because it was not a decision-making day. Decisions should come soon but yesterday did represent a step forward, an assertion of collectivity, arrival and belonging, and an amount of consensus about what needs to be done organisationally (membership, branches and internal communication) and actively (campaigning against austerity). There were admonishings on the responsibility that has come with the achievement and opportunity of the ULA.

The first speaker, Terence McDonagh, provided the perfect start with his proposal of an ‘Irish Big Bang’ on the crisis. Five steps: 1.Default 2.Leave the euro 3.Create a good public bank  4. Guarantee a job to everyone at the the minimum wage at least and 5. Nationalise the Corrib gas field. It was direct and refreshing, though not everyone agreed that the matter is so simple. I look forward to Paula’s film of the presentation and of Kieran Allen’s impressive economic presentation which followed, and to discussion of Terence McDonagh’s perspectives on the Irish Left Review, Notes On the Front, and elsewhere. Hopefully Paula will put up her film of all or most of the proceedings.

Declan Bree gave an excellent speech, left, radical and socialist, which was fully committed to the building of the ULA and a new party while recognising the reticence of some and that the party cannot be established overnight

Des Derwin

Paul Murphy MEP (Socialist Party / United Left Alliance) is one of the Irish volunteers sailing on the MV Saoirse to Gaza.

He has hit back at USA foreign affairs supremo,  Hillary Clinton, who has, according to the Electronic Intifada

effectively tells Israel it has the “right” to attack a boat carrying dozens of American civilians, including Hedy Epstein and Alice Walker.”

Dublin MEP hits back at Clinton flotilla comments Read the rest of this entry »