In spite of all the main parties, big business, the media
and even most of the trade union leaders campaigning for a "yes" vote in
yesterday's referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, the "No" won the day. This was a
slap in the face for the Irish government and the European Union bosses.
Ireland, after a long period of economic boom, is
now feeling the effects of the worldwide slowdown. Some have made big money,
but at the other end of the social spectrum there are many who have lost out.
Now is the time to raise the banner of genuine socialism within the Republican
movement and the working class as a whole.
In looking back at
the Good Friday Agreement, Gerry Ruddy points out that it has served to
stabilise British rule in the North as Sinn Fein has been absorbed into the
establishment. In this situation he stresses the need for republican socialists
to focus on working class and socialist policies.
After the Easter 1916
uprising the actual class conditions that motivated the likes of James Connolly
and the trade unionists who set up the Irish Citizen's Army to battle capitalism
were written out of history. Radical ideas were demonised and Connolly's Marxism
was airbrushed from history.
For the interest of
our readers we publish a speech delivered by Paul Little (of the IRSP Ard Comhairle) on Sunday, 23rd March, at the Republican
Socialist Plot, Milltown Cemetery, Belfast.
He explains that the aim of the IRSP is “to oust imperialism, oust capitalism
in all its guises and end the occupation and exploitation of the Irish working class.”
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