Last year we published an article titled ‘Sinn Féin, PBP and the question of a left government in Ireland’, critiquing a PBP pamphlet on the topic.1 In March, PBP members Aprillle Scully and Diarmuid Flood published a reply, ‘Debating Left Government’, in the Rupture publication produced by RISE, a group within PBP around Paul Murphy TD.2 Here, Eddie McCabe explains why Scully and Flood’s defence of the PBP pamphlet is not only flawed in itself, but in many ways amounts to a criticism of PBP’s actual approach in practice.
It’s no secret that Sinn Féin is a pro-capitalist party. In May, stockbroker Davy summed up the briefing delivered by Pearse Doherty, the party’s finance spokesperson, to a group of major investors as “More New Labour than Corbyn Labour”. What they meant by this is that Sinn Féin is not a party of radical reform, but a party of business as usual. It may promote policies that differ from the Government’s on many issues, but only ever in the most limited sense. The Socialist Party has always understood this about Sinn Féin. Being pro-capitalist means ultimately putting the interests of the system and its ruling elite ahead of the interests of working-class and oppressed people. As such, a pro-capitalist party cannot be considered a left party, and it certainly cannot lead a ‘left government’ – which if it means anything is an anti-capitalist government.
These basic points are worth keeping in mind as they relate the debate between the Socialist Party and People Before Profit (PBP) on how to deal with Sinn Féin in this turbulent period in Irish society.
At the time of writing the article ‘Sinn Féin, PBP and the question of a left government in Ireland’ in Summer 2023, Sinn Féin had been polling in the low- to mid-thirties for nearly two years, way ahead of both Fine Gael (FG) and Fianna Fáil (FF). Since then, amid significant political events nationally and globally, Sinn Féin’s poll numbers have dipped considerably, culminating in its disastrous vote of 12% in the local and European elections in June, way behind both FG and FF. What caused this dramatic fall is difficult to pinpoint exactly, but as well as the challenge of the rise in anti-immigration sentiment, Sinn Féin’s further shift to the right – cosying up to big business, backtracking on solidarity with Palestine, and caving to far-right pressure – was undoubtedly a key factor.
It remains to be seen what Sinn Féin does and how that will be received in the months now running into the general election, though all the indications are that it is intent on continuing its rightward drift. Regardless, it has to be said that the prospect of Sinn Féin leading the next government is much diminished. This should call for a reassessment of how those on the left should tactically approach the election and the main political forces vying for government power. While the Government parties may fool themselves into thinking that their combined vote share of 49.5%, on the lowest turnout in history, is a ringing endorsement; this isn’t a popular government – it can still be dealt a blow in the election. What the Government is relying on is the fact that the main opposition party doesn’t inspire enough confidence to form an alternative government.
In this context, especially when faced with a prospect of an even more right-wing government than the one we currently have (with overtly racist, right-populist TDs potentially joining a coalition), the socialist left does have a vital role to play. For the Socialist Party, as well as organising working-class struggles on the ground, this is primarily in building support for a genuine left and socialist alternative – by exposing the disaster of the Government’s policies, the lies of the far right, and the weakness of Sinn Féin’s alternative proposals. For PBP, no doubt there is broad agreement on the first two points, but in relation to Sinn Féin, PBP seems to see it as its role to help Sinn Féin recover the ground it lost – so that Sinn Féin can fulfil the leading role assigned to it in PBP’s schema of a potential left government.
This is a bad mistake in our view, and as we explained in our previous article it flows from innate misunderstandings about both the nature of Sinn Féin and what an actual left government must be. And notwithstanding that such misunderstandings are denied by PBP members, including Aprille Scully and Diarmuid Flood writing for Rupture, they reveal themselves consistently in the practice of PBP and its leading members.
Fulfilling an ‘opportunist approach’
To sum up Scully and Flood’s core argument, it is essentially that those on the left should ‘positively engage’ with the illusions people have in Sinn Féin, because while Sinn Féin’s weaknesses might be clear to us, they aren’t clear to most people – who hope that Sinn Féin can bring about radical change by leading a government without FG or FF. This approach, they say, amounts to “harnessing creative illusions”, which is an approach distinct from the dangers of both sectarianism and opportunism. They defend the PBP pamphlet, The Case for a Left Government, as an ‘important’ and ‘popular’ outline of this approach.
The problem for Scully and Flood is that, like the PBP pamphlet, their position is contradictory and confused, but more importantly does not – particularly not in the more radical or socialist aspects – represent the position of PBP as it is generally articulated to the broader public.3 In fact, PBP’s real position is almost exactly what Scully and Flood describe as an ‘opportunist approach’, which is one that:
“identifies the opportunities in a general desire for a ‘government of change’ but doesn’t connect this with the need to challenge capitalism in order to realise it. Through this, the illusions in non-socialist forces like SF are reinforced.”
Let’s go with this definition. Precisely such an approach can be found in any number of PBP statements on this issue. We’ll take just three of its more substantial ones as examples. In a lengthy opinion piece in The Sunday Independent on 1 October 2023, Richard Boyd Barret TD argued:
“It is for these reasons that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have witnessed a historic decline in support over recent years and that a left government in Ireland is now a real possibility. Currently, Sinn Féin is the major beneficiary of the huge popular desire for change. Along with other smaller left parties and Independents, they have a historic opportunity to offer that change.” 4
He follows this by outlining a programme of ten points that a left government should prioritise. This includes many key and radical demands, but none that challenge the capitalist system itself, which isn’t mentioned. Achieving this radical programme, and the centrepiece of any campaign for a left government, he suggests, would necessitate a commitment to rule out coalition with FF and FG: “The left and Sinn Féin owe it to those thirsting for change to clearly rule out any such deals before the general election.”
No criticism is made of Sinn Féin’s politics, nor even any questions raised about the likelihood of it agreeing to be part of such a left government. The distinct impression is given that a radical left government is possible primarily because Sinn Féin is now in a position to lead it.
Writing in a similar vein in an Irish Times opinion piece on 4 July 2024, in the wake of Sinn Féin’s electoral crash in the South, Paul Murphy TD declared that:
“Rather than seeking coalition with the establishment parties, it’s time [for left parties and independents, including Sinn Féin] to come together and pose a radical alternative: Ireland’s first-ever left government. The ‘Vote Left – Transfer Left’ slogan which emerged organically during the 2020 general election should now become a formal pact which parties and Independents sign up to.”5
Again, toppling FF and FG is made out to be the basis for a left government, not challenging capitalism. Capitalism isn’t mentioned, although the “economic system” is, but Sinn Féin’s support or otherwise for that very economic system isn’t questioned. Nor are any other criticisms or questions raised regarding Sinn Féin, on whose participation this prospect of a ‘left government’ entirely rests. Indeed, as by far the largest party in opposition, this whole appeal is chiefly aimed at Sinn Féin. Going further still, PBP published an open letter to Sinn Féin on 9 July 2024, to: “explore the prospect of a left front that fights both in elections and on the streets for truly progressive change in Irish society.”
Noting the increasing polarisation in society, including the shift to the right by the political establishment and the emergence of an active far-right presence – but ignoring Sinn Féin’s own shift to the right on immigration – PBP goes on:
“There is now a clear left-right divide in Irish politics… We therefore appeal to you to rule out joining a FF or FG in coalition and to embrace a left wing united electoral pact with a clear ‘vote left-transfer left’ slogan.” 6
Illusions and blindspots
These examples are fairly illustrative of PBP’s general approach, which in our view clearly does sow illusions in Sinn Féin. Illusions, to be clear, that could lead people to vote for Sinn Féin expecting radical change that it isn’t offering and can’t deliver, because its politics are innately wedded to the capitalist system. But more to the point, these examples, and the countless others like them, should raise alarm bells for Scully and Flood who in articulating the approach they think PBP takes, by referring to some passages from the pamphlet, explicitly warned against the approach PBP and its main public reps have adopted. For example, they write:
“We are in agreement with McCabe in so far as he argues that socialists should not ‘pull our punches’ on these issues… Similarly, we agree that socialists should not present a ‘left government’ as any government that “doesn’t include FG and FF – and implements some reforms.” Instead, we must explain, as the pamphlet does, that a left government must be one committed to socialist transformation. We should, in that way, contest the meaning of a ‘Left Government’ in the minds of those currently thinking of this as a government led-by SF.”
We certainly agree with this, but as demonstrated above this is unfortunately not at all the PBP approach. And Scully and Flood go on:
“If socialists become cheerleaders for a left government, without including positive proposals and criticisms of SF, it gives people no reason why they should support PBP as opposed to the much bigger SF. It also creates a danger that many will simply assume that PBP will join a SF led government without conditions. That could create significant opportunist pressure to do so and then widespread disappointment when PBP do not join because of SF’s refusal to commit to the eco-socialist policies outlined in the pamphlet.”
These are all points we’ve raised before, which Scully and Flood are now accepting as legitimate. Good. However, by referring solely to the pamphlet (which again contains many contradictions) as representative of PBP’s approach, not to its actual practice, they are operating under an illusion: that PBP hasn’t been engaged in the ‘opportunist approach’ they themselves argue against. They even write: “It is not enough for us to have our criticisms of SF in a pamphlet which only a small minority will read. It must be consistently integrated into the approach of socialist public representatives.”
But it clearly isn’t, and as we’ve written elsewhere, PBP’s mistaken approach to Sinn Féin is only becoming more problematic as Sinn Féin responds to pressure from the establishment and the far right by shifting its own position to the right, most notably and disgracefully on the issue of immigration.7 To be clear, Sinn Féin hasn’t just failed to resist the rise in anti-immigration sentiments (which it was in a strong position to do), its approach on this issue (criticising the Government’s policy from the right not the left) has added to them – effectively legitimising the lies and scaremongering of the far right, with all the dangerous consequences this has for migrants and people of colour especially.
Unfortunately, PBP seems reluctant to either recognise the full reality of Sinn Féin’s capitulation to far-right talking points, or to really call them out on it. Its open letter posits Sinn Féin’s failure to oppose the government’s scapegoating of asylum seekers as merely a ‘mistake’. Similarly, in a post-election press conference Paul Murphy spoke of the government’s ‘cynical’, ‘performative cruelty’ towards asylum seekers, but described Sinn Féin’s support for these same policies as “a very important error”, before again proceeding to speak of a left alliance centred around Sinn Féin.8 This is an untenable double standard: if a policy is cynical and cruel when it comes from the government, it is just as cynical and cruel when it comes from Sinn Féin. And a party that supports such policies is surely not compatible with any project that purports to be left. Because any concessions on these issues – the rights of refugees and migrants – would be concessions on basic principles and incredibly damaging to the left.
Yet despite all this PBP’s consistent emphasis is on talking-up Sinn Féin’s left credentials, rather exposing its rightward drift. Ironically, one of the many negative effects of such an approach – contrary to what some in PBP no doubt hope – will not be to reverse or slow down Sinn Féin’s shift to the right, but to speed it up.
On ‘creative illusions’*
To rationalise the contradiction between the position they outline and the position PBP actually adopts, Scully and Flood invoke the opaque concept of “harnessing creative illusions”, and repeatedly refer to another article in Rupture by Mark Phillips which explains how this concept relates to the left and Sinn Féin today.9 However, the article by Phillips is also replete with inconsistencies, and while clearly striving to justify PBP’s approach to Sinn Féin, in many respects also contradicts it.10 It is, moreover, based on the same underlying problem of misunderstanding both the nature of Sinn Féin and the illusions people have in it.
For example, Phillips writes that: “Socialists should promote and advocate the necessity of a left government with ecosocialist policies. We should outline clearly that any government which includes the political representatives of the capitalist class will not be willing to take the measures necessary to deliver the change that people need.”
By ‘political representatives of the capitalist class’ Phillips is referring solely to FG and FF, which have of course traditionally been the main representatives of the capitalist class in Ireland. But while Sinn Féin hasn’t yet had the opportunity to represent the Irish capitalist class in government in the South, this is the role it is emphatically seeking to play – as it already does in government in the North (where as well as playing a deeply sectarian role in general, it currently holds the positions of First Minister, ministers of finance, the economy, and infrastructure, and dutifully carries out these roles in a typically conservative manner). Therefore any government that includes Sinn Féin would de facto be a government that includes ‘political representatives of the capitalist class’. So Phillips is at the same time warning against and advocating for such a government.
No doubt, like Scully and Flood, Phillips would reply that the problem is that while we as socialists understand this about Sinn Féin, the people looking to Sinn Féin for change do not. Indeed this point is fundamental to their position, but is it even accurate? Not really.
Even at their highpoint in 2020, the illusions in Sinn Féin have never been as deep as PBP members make out. The hope people have is that a government without FG or FF, which we’ve never had, might deliver some kind of change, and Sinn Féin potentially offers this much. But, following Sinn Féin’s own messaging, few people have illusions that Sinn Féin is offering any sort of radical change. And as the surprisingly sour mood Sinn Féin experienced in the recent elections demonstrated, increasing numbers of people in working-class communities now see Sinn Féin as another part of the establishment, and too close an association can actually be damaging for the left.
As such, PBP is wrong to think and emphasise that the main problem with Sinn Féin is that they are refusing to rule out coalition with FG and FF. No, the problem is with Sinn Féin itself. And PBP is also wrong to believe that working-class and young people who desire real change are in some sense not ready to accept this truth about Sinn Féin; and therefore criticisms of Sinn Féin by the left must be shrouded in tactical, diplomatic proposals for alliances.11 In reality, even many of those who will most likely vote for Sinn Féin also know it is not offering substantial change. Therefore PBP’s position is not just unnecessarily convoluted, if the ultimate aim is to clear away the illusions in Sinn Féin its effect is mostly counterproductive.
We should, as socialists, be confident that honesty will be respected and appreciated more by workers and young people – as their own lived experiences are bearing out the truth of our criticisms of Sinn Féin. For the same reason, any signs of insincerity or posturing will be resented.
It’s not sectarian to speak the truth
In their defence of the PBP approach, Scully and Flood try to contrast it with what they describe as the ‘sectarian’ approach of the Socialist Party. They accuse us of an approach that amounts to “standing on the sidelines”, “repeating truisms”, and “pouring cold water on the hopes and aspirations of working-class people”.
Not surprisingly, we reject the accusation of a sectarian approach and could use up a lot of space responding to it. But in fact its inaccuracy is revealed by Scully and Flood themselves in two appendices to their article, where they try to contrast what the Socialist Party has written in recent articles with the principled, non-sectarian positions we apparently took in the past. In fact, we stand over these principled, non-sectarian approaches, which are based on the same methods we applied then and have developed since.
The first relates to an opinion piece published in the Irish Times in 2015.12 It was titled ‘Sinn Féin not committed to an anti-austerity left wing government’. It was written in the context of discussions happening among those in the anti-water charges movement, about the possibility of replacing the Government parties and FF with a government made up of parties that were part of the movement. The purpose of the article was to make three main points: 1) that the establishment parties have to be and can be removed; 2) that we want to see a left government that implements socialist policies; and 3) that while we don’t think Sinn Féin will agree to be part of such a left government, if possible and necessary our TDs will vote to allow a government without the establishment parties to take office – without being part of that government.
Nine years on and the context is quite different, so we would naturally write a different article, but the essence of our position and approach remains the same. Where it differs from the approach PBP generally takes, aside from the fact we never made discussions about government formations such a central part of our platform, is that we don’t pretend that Sinn Féin is going to be part of a left government when we know it isn’t. Paul Murphy surely knows this too. But by contrast, in the recent opinion piece referred to above, he lets on that the choice for the electorate is: “stick with Fianna Fáil / Fine Gael or vote for a left government”.
But this isn’t, unfortunately, the choice at the next election. To suggest it is is simply to mislead people, which even if it worked to create, as Scully and flood imagine, an ‘active’ movement in favour of a left government (led by Sinn Féin); this active movement would inevitably end in disappointment and even demoralisation – making it potentially more difficult to enthuse those people for a genuine left government in the future. Far from benefiting PBP or the left in general, this would be a major boon to the establishment and far right.
An exemplary campaign
A principled and skilful method was also how we approached the other example Scully and Flood give of the Dublin South-West by-election in 2014, in which the Socialist Party beat Sinn Féin against all the odds. We agree that this was and remains an exemplary campaign in how to take up Sinn Féin. Unfortunately, Scully and Flood’s view of that campaign gets it seriously wrong on some key points. They describe the approach as “constructively calling on SF to stand with their supporters on [water charges].” This is one way to put it, but it isn’t really accurate and doesn’t do it justice. We took up Sinn Féin sharply throughout that campaign, but rather than a focus on making direct calls on Sinn Féin to do anything, we put them under pressure principally by building up our own support and momentum.
Scully and Flood quote from one of our leaflets that said: “With 14 TDs and 159 councillors Sinn Féin could play a major role in building mass non-payment of the Water Charges.” What they left out was that this was followed up with the vital point that: “Unfortunately, they refuse to do this.” Furthermore, the leaflet posed the issue not as making an appeal to Sinn Féin to do better, but as making an appeal to the working class to send a message to Sinn Féin to do better, lest they be punished. It said:
“Sinn Féin was open to doing a deal for Government without abolishing Water Charges. Due to the work of the We Won’t Pay Campaign… Sinn Féin changed its position last week and now say they will abolish Water Charges if in government. While this is to be welcomed, it is clear that Sinn Féin must be kept under huge pressure to completely reject water charges.”13
This approach was taken throughout the campaign – sharply but skillfully raising questions about Sinn Féin in the minds of its supporters and voters. In another leaflet we wrote:
“This By-Election is a contest between the establishment parties, Sinn Féin and the Anti-Austerity Alliance. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael represent big business and Labour sold-out working-class people in exchange for entering government. Will Sinn Féin do the same?
Unfortunately Sinn Féin refused to promise to abolish water charges if in government; rejected the AAA proposal to establish an anti-austerity bloc on South Dublin County Council and instead did a deal with a pro-austerity Labour Party; has 14 TDs and over 150 councillors but has failed to use those positions to wage an active struggle against austerity.”14
Again, this contrasts markedly with the ambiguous approach of PBP. It emphasises what’s needed for working-class people and their struggle, raises vital questions about Sinn Féin in that context, and makes it clear that only the socialist left represent trustworthy fighters for their interests.
Charting an independent left course
We of course agree with highlighting the demand for a left government, as an essential part of realising the socialist policies that are so necessary to resolve the multitude of crises facing working-class people today. Moreover, we agree with the need to imbue people with the confidence that realising such a left government is possible – pointing especially to the potential power of movements of workers and young people. This is no easy task given the levels of active struggle in general today, which are far from a high point. But this will change, and as it does it will help to flesh out the arguments for a radical left and socialist alternative. This doesn’t mean sitting on our hands waiting for things to change, we still engage as effectively as we can, but there are no shortcuts to building a serious, organised left and socialist movement.
It is disappointing, therefore, that Scully and Food dismiss any critique of the demand for a Sinn Féin-led ‘left government’ as amounting to criticisms ‘from the sidelines’, particularly when those criticisms align with so much of what they themselves argue for as a principled approach. The truth is that such a principled approach is incompatible with the concrete approach of PBP. Scully and Flood can’t have it both ways: there is a fundamental contradiction between a genuine left government and a Sinn Féin-led government which can’t be resolved. Really raising people’s sights towards one undermines the other. In concluding their article they write:
“We want to be part of the movement to kick FF and FG from office and to replace them with an alternative government committed to radical change. In the minds of many working class people this alternative government has a ‘left character’ and in the minds of many more, this is a SF government. If possible, we want to lead this movement, and seek to turn it from a passive one, waiting for the next elections into something active. Mass rallies could be held around the country mobilising people to fight for a left government and giving us a platform to place demands on SF.”
It should be said that there’s no real indication that the type of movement referred to here is likely before the next election. However even if that changed, it will never be possible for PBP to lead a movement for a government everyone understands to be a Sinn Féin-led government. That will always be Sinn Féin’s role. Those mass rallies would overwhelmingly be seen as rallies for Sinn Féin, or more to the point rallies of the left supporting Sinn Féin, notwithstanding any demands being placed on it – and despite Sinn Féin’s rightward trajectory. Incongruously, Scully and Flood’s then go on to say:
“But we should also be upfront and clear that we hold little confidence in them accepting [our proposed programme] given their recent trajectory and pro-capitalist nature.”
Again, we absolutely agree with being upfront and clear in this way. But surely this would decisively undercut not just the basis for any mass rallies of this kind, but for PBP’s whole approach to the question of a left government led by Sinn Féin? In our view, PBP is making a serious mistake on this question, and we would fraternally appeal to PBP members to reconsider the approach.15 Even if PBP or the left were successful in rising on a tide behind Sinn Féin, which would always be limited, the danger and likelihood is that it would also crash with Sinn Féin’s inevitable failure.
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* ’Creative illusions’ is a reference to a concept Leon Trotsky referred to when speaking about the illusions working-class people had in Russia in 1917, about how straightforward it would be to carry out a real socialist revolution. The Bolsheviks, in encouraging those workers to take the next vital steps in the revolution, were not inclined to spend time disabusing the workers of these illusions. Because despite, or even because of, these illusions, they were fundamentally on the right track. In contrast, encouraging illusions in a SF-led government, a la PBP, is encouraging illusions in a dead end.
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Notes
- Eddie McCabe, 4 Aug 23, ‘Sinn Féin, PBP and the question of a left government in Ireland’, www.socialistparty.ie
- A Scully & D Flood, 20 Mar 24, ‘Debating Left Government – A response to the Socialist Party’s critique of People Before Profit’, www.rupture.ie
- Indeed, rather than informing the practice of PBP on the question of a Sinn Féin-led government, it’s hard not to see those more radical and principled left aspects in the pamphlet as giving cover to PBP to operate in contradistinction to them. So when defending PBP from some of our criticisms Scully and Flood can refer to points contained in the pamphlet, even though such points have rarely if ever been expressed in any material since the pamphlet was published.
- Richard Boyd Barrett, 1 Oct 23, ‘Richard Boyd Barrett: “The left has a historic opportunity for change — we must grasp it”’, www.independent.ie
- Paul Murphy, 4 Jul 24, ‘Time for a new united left alliance to topple Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael’, www.irishtimes.com
- PBP, 9 Jul 24, ‘People Before Profit write to Sinn Féin seeking discussions around a left front’, www.pbp.ie/
- Eddie McCabe, 30 July 2024, ‘Sinn Féin, immigration and a further shift to the right – PBP should cease advocating for SF’, www.socialistparty.ie
- Paul Murphy TD speaking to the press outside Leinster House on 11 June 2024
- Mark Phillips, 21 Sept 21 ‘’Creative illusions’: The ‘Left Government’ slogan today’, www.rupture.ie
- For instance, Philips writes: “Without this emphasis on the socialist measures necessary, the left is in danger of creating a trap for itself – by creating a widespread illusion that it will enter into a government managing capitalist business-as-usual with Sinn Féin.” PBP is certainly falling into this trap.
- This approach was always problematic but just how redundant it is was evidenced in the collapse of Sinn Féin’s support in the recent elections.
- R Coppinger & P Murphy, 9 Dec 2015, ‘Sinn Fein not committed to an anti-austerity left wing government’, www.irishtimes.com
- AAA DSW by-election 2014 leaflet headlined: ‘Strike fear in all the parties over water charges’
- AAA DSW by-election 2014 leaflet headlined: ‘Labour & Fine Gael – recovery means nothing unless you scrap water charges & austerity’
- There are some within PBP, particularly around the Red Network, who are opposed to the approach of the PBP leadership towards Sinn Féin.
