The Labour Party now says it’s a ‘Connollyite Republican’ party — but are they for real?

The Labour Party has been re-branded. It is now, according to Ivana Bacik, ‘a party of Connollyite Republicans’.

Leaving aside the rhetorical flourish, this is welcome. Ever since the early 1970s, the Labour Party has tried to crush republicanism through repression. The key ideological figure was Conor Cruise O’ Brien, who publicly announced that he kept a file of republican letter writers. The implicit threat was that they might be visited by Ireland’s political police, the Special Branch. The Labour Party supported censorship on RTÉ, trial by the non-jury Special Criminal Court and the use of ‘emergency legislation’ such as the Offences against the State Act.

So, hearing the leader of the Irish Labour Party now push for a border poll can only be welcomed. It is just another indication that major changes are underway.

One result of its terrible history was that Labour Party voters tended to give their second preference to Fine Gael. The party was imbued with a deep hatred of republicanism. Given a choice between aligning with Sinn Féin or Fine Gael, many Labour Party supporters chose the latter.

Bacik’s attempt to steer the Labour Party to the left must be seen in this context. It arises directly from the success of the Catherine Connolly campaign. The Labour leader had to fight an internal row with the old guard, symbolised by Alan Kelly, to break from Fine Gael. The victory of Connolly and Mamdani in New York shows that a space has opened up for more radical left politics. And Bacik does not want Labour to be left out of this.

But if the rhetoric is to have any meaning, Labour should follow this by breaking from the ‘two and a half’ party political model. This refers to a pattern whereby Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael uses Labour (or the Greens) to make up a majority in the Dáil. Tragically, these smaller parties then sat on what veteran republican Peadar O’ Donnell called the ‘prompter’s stool’. In other words, they whispered mild reform measures into the ears of right-wing politicians while obediently defending social inequality. Worse, before the election, they had talked left, adding to a cynicism in the working class as the latter watched on as promises were abandoned.

So, a bare minimum for taking the new rhetoric seriously would be a pledge that Labour will never join Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael in government again.

However, there are some deeper issues which can be illustrated with two examples, one international and the other domestic.

We are currently living in an era of war talk. Jens Stoltenberg, former NATO Secretary General and former leader of the Norwegian Labour Party, has called on the EU to ‘prepare for war’. The Irish Labour Party wants to strengthen Irish neutrality, but it is part of the Social Democrats in the European Parliament. This grouping supports the Re-Arm Europe plan which will make €800 billion available for military spending. That is money taken from public services and used for arms sales. The rationale is that Russia is an ‘authoritarian aggressor’ that wants to overthrow European values.

Back in 1914, James Connolly was faced with a similar call to support the British liberal empire against German authoritarian aggression. John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, pointed out that Germany had invaded Catholic Belgium (he emphasised Catholic!). Connolly, however, never fell for the argument that the ‘other side’ was the only aggressor. He understood that imperialism involved a conflict between rival empires, and he was not going to support either side. He was opposed to both, with his own at the top of the list because it was the one he could directly campaign against closer to home. More importantly, he thought that war arose from a barbaric system and that could only be stopped when the system was overthrown.

It is doubtful that the Labour Party’s new rebranding as a Connollyite republican party will carry them to a similar position.

On the home front, in Dublin City Council there is a proposal to increase the rents of council tenants by as much as 50% in some cases. Of course, this is sugar-coated with a promise that the increased rents will be used for greater maintenance.

Yet Ireland has already been found guilty for its mistreatment of council tenants. In 2017, the European Committee of Social Rights ruled that the ‘substandard quality’ of council accommodation meant there was a violation of human rights.

In July 2024, Labour Party councillors on Dublin City Council turned their back on calls to join a progressive left alliance and, instead, entered a ruling group with Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens. This was a big mistake. If Bacik’s new rhetoric is to be taken seriously, the Labour councillors should be told that they must not impose extra hardship on council tenants.

And they should not play the old political game of saying their ‘hands are tied’ because the increases are promoted by an unelected executive of council officials. If the increases are included in a council budget in December, everyone who claims to stand in the Connolly tradition will oppose it.

We wait with bated breath.