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Showing posts with label Sinn Fein & Gaza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sinn Fein & Gaza. Show all posts
Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Substack on 23-February-2025.


When the genocide in Gaza began, no one thought it would go on for so long. But it has, and along the road many challenges have come up for governments, social movements, Arab countries and political parties - and nearly all of them have been found wanting on the issue. In Ireland the annual cringe fest that is St. Patrick’s Day in Washington threw up a problem for Sinn Féin last year. Should they go or not go?

Last year the Irish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign issued a call for all political parties, including government parties, not to go. Sinn Féin broke that call for a boycott and were swiftly pardoned by the IPSC which swiftly invited them to address a Palestinian solidarity rally in Belfast one day before Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill First Minister of Northern Ireland swanned around with Biden, imbibing of whatever liquor was on offer on the day. Supping the devil’s buttermilk as some of their unionist colleagues might put it.

At the time Sinn Féin said it was going, as it was important and that they would raise the issue of Palestine with Biden. One month before flying out to Washington a Sinn Féin spokesperson stated:

We will use every political and diplomatic opportunity and influence that we have to be a voice for Palestine, to demand an end to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, for Palestinian statehood and for a permanent ceasefire now.[1]

In the end they did no such thing. In fact, the then Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar was more forceful than Mary Lou or Michelle who made even more tepid statements and quaffed what was put in front of them and enjoyed the jollies. They could have been forgiven for thinking that it would be all over by 2025 and this situation would not arise again. Well, we should be gentle on them, many of us underestimated the Israeli bloodlust. But here we are again. Trump continues with Biden’s genocide and announces his intention to commit two war crimes e.g. the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, a war crime under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and profit from the looting of their assets a further war crime under Article 33 of the same convention.[2]

The SDLP was the first out of the hatches saying it would not go, reaffirming their position of the previous year. It is ironic that Sinn Féin supporters used to refer to the SDLP as the Stoops, a play on their initials, Stoop Down Low Party, which probably means Sinn Féin (SF) should now be known as the Stoop Further. As is common with the Stoop Further, they are fond of speaking out both sides of their mouths. They announced that they would not go this year, though no official invite has been issued to them, and at the same time urged the Irish government to go. A case of wanting to have their cake and eat it too.

Mary Lou McDonald stated Trump’s plan “represents a marked escalation in the very complex conflict situation for the Palestinian people.”[3] Really? Expulsion is an escalation from genocide? To be very clear, there is a specific genocide convention and genocide is a Crime Against Humanity, under that convention, and is so at all times and in all circumstances.[4] There are no ifs or buts to that. Expulsion and profiteering are war crimes. In legal terms, they are egregious crimes but less so than genocide. There is no escalation here. Both Biden and Trump have been complicit in the genocide, Trump however has put the blood-soaked icing on the cake with his proposal. Except it is not his proposal. It has been official US and Israeli policy since 2007.[5] In other words, a plan that began under Bush and continued during the eight years of Obama’s presidency when Biden was the Vice-President, Trump’s first presidency and of course Biden’s four demented years as President.

Mary Lou McDonald seeks to draw a line under her support for the US. There is some mythical line in the sand between the Democrats' support for murder, genocide, torture and Trump’s. In refusing to go to the Blood Fest in Washington she stated that Sinn Féin would not be in a position to challenge Trump’s statements at the Blood Fest (she doesn’t describe it as such, to be clear that is my accurate description). This is surprising as last year, she said that they would challenge Biden on his support for Israel. Before they went off on their junket last year, two days before the St Patrick’s Blood Fest they issued a tame communiqué asking Biden to play a more “constructive role” in Palestine,[6] whatever that is supposed to mean. In fact, part of their public rationale for going was that they could influence US government policy. So, what is different now? Have they concluded that their junket last year did not produce the results they hoped for? Well, they had no expectations that Biden would end US complicity in the genocide and as I already pointed out, when they went their statements were way weaker than the Irish government’s official statements. So, the answer is no. This year they have said they won’t go, but have said the Taoiseach should go:

We absolutely believe that he needs to go and, furthermore, when there, set out unambiguously the Irish position in respect to all of these matters and to push back directly against any threat or goal for the mass expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, the annexation of that land.[7]

If, as last year under Biden, they believed they could influence policy in the same way they now expect the southern Irish government to do, why don’t they go? The answer is one of political expediency. They have calculated that this time round there is no political cost amongst their reactionary base in the USA to boycotting a Trump event and by calling on the Irish government to go, they continue to signal that they are a “reasonable partner” that the Irish state and Trump can do business with. Michelle O’Neill stated that she couldn’t go this year because:

I couldn't in all conscience make that trip at this time. I just think that there are times whenever we'll all reflect, and certainly whenever my grandchildren ask me, what did I do whenever the Palestinian people were suffering, I could say that I stood on the side of humanity.[8]

Except of course, she didn’t. Whilst Biden gladly and gaily supplied Israel with all the military hardware required to carry out a genocide, she did not nothing. In the waning days of Biden’s support for genocide, on January 4th of this year he notified Congress of an additional US $8 billion arms sale to Israel.[9] Yeah, Michelle can tell her grandchildren what she likes, but she supped with the Devil. She took part in a genocide through her endorsement of Biden. Her sudden hypocritical distancing from the same policies under Trump is meaningless.

It is not an ethical position; it is not one based on some internationalist concept of solidarity with the oppressed or even a liberal opposition to genocide and war crimes as they have previously shown no such solidarity or real opposition to such acts when Biden was the war criminal in charge.

No matter how low you think Sinn Féin can stoop, they will always surprise you and Stoop Further.

References

[1] The Irish News (23/02/2024) Protests at east Belfast arms manufacturer as city council’s largest parties accused of ‘vetoing’ PBP Gaza ceasefire motion. John Manley. 

[2] The Geneva Conventions can be consulted at.

[3] Irish Independent (22/02/2025) Sinn Féin may be boycotting White House for St Patrick’s Day, but Mary Lou McDonald is imploring Taoiseach to attend and confront Trump. Tabitha Monahan and Senan Molony. 

[4] To consult the Genocide Convention.

[5] Jonathan Cook (14/02/2025) Trump didn't invent the Gaza ethnic cleansing plan. It's been US policy since 2007.

[6] Sinn Féin (15/03/2024) O’Neill urges President Biden to play constructive role in securing immediate Gaza ceasefire. 

[7] Irish Independent (22/02/2025) op. cit.

[8] RTE (22/02/2025) O'Neill says 'could not live' with decision to visit White House over Gaza. 

[9] Al Jazeera (04/01/2025) Biden notifies US Congress of planned $8bn arms sales to Israel: Reports. 

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

The St. Patrick’s Day Blood Fest Comes Round Again

Michael O’Rourke ✍ Mary Lou McDonald is proposing to graft onto the Palestinian nation her vision of what they can achieve if they follow Sinn Féin’s “peace” formula with the Zionist enemy.

Speaking in London (of all places - ?) at the pro-Palestine protest rally last January 2024, Mary Lou McDonald suggested Palestinian freedom was possible, saying:

When I say this, standing in London, in common cause with you, (having) walked our own journey out of conflict, building peace for 25 years, this can happen.

Now, reading and listening to Mary Lou at the London pro-Palestine march makes me wonder: am I now living in dystopia? And is doublespeak the new lingua franca of the politics of Sinn Féin? I must ask these questions especially now since I am so astounded at the sheer warp-speed political gymnastics it takes to configure the genesis of Mary Lou foisting her peace message onto the masses of the pro-Palestine people in London. But moreover, in addition, the government the masses of people marching in London oppose, is one of the main supporters of the criminal Zionist regime. And apropos, isn’t it the same government with whom she has enjoyed sharing this vaunted 25 year peace process?

Anyway, if you have any difficulty understanding the advance of this new dispensation: it was begun in 1998 under the GFA, devised by the US State Department, CIA and MI6, and attended by the Irish 26 county government representatives and an assortment of bought-and-paid-for ex-republicans and British proxy, unionist paramilitary Orange death-squad individuals. Nonetheless, even though the Unionist paramilitaries no longer have much use for it nowadays since there is no change in the status quo, the GFA is still a mainstay of Sinn Féin and Mary Lou McDonald, as is evident by her appearance in London, selling it as a kind of (Doctor Good, cure all medicine) placebo to the aroused masses who rightly want to end Israeli genocide. However to fully understand Mary Lou’s speech, its essential political precepts and her appearance in London, you will need to apply a translation guide from the classic Doublespeak/Doublethink she uses, which is listed below:

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against.

Translate into the language of our political reality, then imagine, the best thing for the Palestinian people Mary Lou McDonald could do is; declare war on British imperialism. But she is not ever going to do that, because she enjoys peace with British imperialism. They are her partners in peace, even though in the interim they have made war on; Iraq, Libya, Syria and now Palestine and Yemen, and were essentially able to do so because they were freed from any possible escalation of the liberation struggle in Ireland. 

And accompanying their Middle Eastern imperialist rampages they have attempted to harden their border in Ireland with Brexit. But Mary Lou is still convinced of their trustworthiness, enough to tell the people in London and Palestine of Sinn Féin’s great successful (betrayal) journey. 

A note we might need to take from this new dispensation of a Sinn Féin leader addressing a mass movement in London is: when they fall they keep falling, and when they betray they keep betraying. Remember this too, the first words from Mary Lou on October 7 was: complete condemnation of the Hamas breakout of the Gaza concentration camp, after which she returned to a doublespeak smokescreen of criticism of the Israeli regime.

🖼 Michael O’Rourke is a former POW imprisoned on behalf of the INLA.

Mary Lou Fluent In Doublespeak

Anthony McIntyre ☠ Writing yesterday about the political perspective of Sean Lynch having evolved I was reminded of how another former prisoner had undergone an even more striking departure from the ground he had almost died on.

Pat Sheehan is an old friend who has previously featured on the pages of TPQ. I think because of our once firm friendship, but maybe not, I was sent via Facebook an audio recording of a disputatious exchange between him and pro-Palestinian activists. They were arguing over the heckling of Sinn Fein luminary Declan Kearney when he addressed a rally in support of Gaza earlier this year. Sheehan was annoyed at some in the crowd shouting 'Kearney you are a fuckin wanker.'

Sheehan also drew attention to himself being heckled: 

when I got up to speak at the City Hall, as soon as I got up to speak, as soon as it was announced that I was speaking, part of the crowd started booing.


I don't believe Declan Kearney or Pat Sheehan should have been shouted down. It was denying others their right to hear what either had to say. If people do not approve of the Kearney/Sheehan perspective, to the point that they do not want to listen to them, they can always turn their backs in silent protest. It happened to Sinn Fein speakers during the Iraq war when the party was suspected by many in the anti-war movement of trying to play it both ways. The joke then was that Mitchel McLaughlin would appear at the anti-War rally at Hillsborough while Alex Maskey would attend the war rally outside Belfast City Hall. 

People Before Profit activists, Sheehan's interlocuters, were claiming that the heckling was spontaneous, over which it had no control, whereas Sheehan contested any notion of it being random.

When it was put to Sheehan by a Palestinian woman that perhaps the hostility towards both he and his party colleagues was a result of anger at his meeting with Likud, he responded 'and what?' 

To put some context on this, imagine responding to Jewish people - who had lost friends and colleagues during the Holocaust and complained about others meeting the Nazis -  'and what?’ Is there a more appropriate word than arrogance to describe such an ill-advised rejoinder?

Meeting with Likud is like meeting with the Nazi Party. Perhaps an argument can be made for meeting with Nazis at critical junctures. Back channels are probably essential in the midst of violent political conflict. Norbert Masur and Folke Bernadotte evidently believed so, and in their defence they saved the lives of many Jewish people. But Sinn Fein would be hard pressed to show one Palestinian life saved as a result of the party meeting Likud.  There is not a scintilla of evidence to show that Likud would be swayed in the slightest by Sinn Fein, merely using the meetings to exercise bragging rights over the Palestinians - with taunts of even your allies are now high-fiving it with us. 

Arguably, there was only one reason for Sinn Fein to meet Likud. That was to demonstrate to the establishment that it is a party that has been cured of its radicalism and is now fit for government, trotters suitably attired in polished shoes as it sits at the top table snorting with Farmer Jones.

Sheehan told his detractors that to claim there was no organised heckling, 'you are pissing up my leg and telling me it is raining.' Takes some chutzpah to make that claim given his own party's history in organized lying and handing out brollies to those whose backs it just pissed down.

After listening to the audio, I asked a Belfast activist aligned neither to SF nor People Before Profit for his take. Very familiar with the rallies and protests, he stated that while People Before Profit members might have joined in, the heckling was not organised but was the result of young people in particular being abhorred by what they felt was Sinn Fen's duplicitous stance on the Gaza genocide.

From Pat Sheehan friend of Liberation to Pat Shekel friend of Likud, not the type of epitaph you would want on your headstone.   

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

A Shekel For Your Thoughts

Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ Although the Sinn Fein leadership have publicly sent messages of support to the Palestinians perhaps some of their actions on the ground may suggest the opposite. 

On Sunday 19th May Suzzanne Breen of the Belfast Telegraph on Sunday Politics ‘Northern Ireland’ was asked why the party are losing, according to polls, a few percentage points. In the 26 counties they are down from 31% to 29% and in the six counties they are still the highest supported party but again are down a couple of percentage points. Suzzanne suggested; “Sinn Fein in the north still hold a healthy position, but they have dropped percentage points”. It appears the party have dropped 2 points in the six counties and coupled with, according to the polls, they are losing some ground in the 26 counties which must be causing minor concerns. They are not down a great deal and no need to press the panic button yet but nevertheless it should be food for thought as they are losing points across Ireland as a whole. 

Has some of their actions over the Palestinians in Gaza been a factor in this minor decline? Suzanne Breen made a valid point when she pointed out:

I don’t think the party leadership realise the importance of full support for the Palestinians among the republican base (if that is what their base support any longer is). The other week Sinn Fein ejected some pro-Palestinian protestors from the Europa Hotel at a party meeting. This would not bode well among its electoral base. 

A fair point, as Sinn Fein councillors “failed to vote in favour of kicking out the Israeli Ambassador”, it was not clear whether this was in reference to the 6 or 26 counties. This again would not sit well within their support base.

Sinn Fein dropping points in each jurisdiction, albeit only a small number, is not good but they are still the largest party in the six counties and are riding high in the polls. In the 26 counties they are still the most popular party as they are across the island of Ireland. In the six counties they are down from 31 to 29 percentage points and remain the largest party in the Stormont Assembly. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) are down to 21 percentage points quite a large drop for them. The arrest of former DUP leader, Jefrey Donaldson over ‘historical sex abuse’ claims have helped the demise of the DUP and perhaps Sinn Fein have Donaldson to thank indirectly for them retaining a huge lead over their rivals? It should be remembered at this juncture that Donaldson has been found guilty of nothing at this time, but guilty or not the damage to the DUP has been done.

The small drop in Sinn Fein support is well within the margin of error so no great concern at the moment there. Polls are notoriously unreliable as has been the case on countless occasions in the past. They are not deciding factors, just vague indicators of any party’s fortunes at a given time. The only poll which counts for these parties is of course the election itself. Despite this drop in the polls Sinn Fein still look set to become the largest party in the Dail at the next election with Mary Lou McDonald becoming the first woman Taoiseach. 

In the ‘Legislative Assembly’ at Stormont in the north Sinn Fein look to remain the largesse party with Michelle O’Neil remaining as First Minister. I do not share Suzzanne Breen’s analysis that Sinn Fein's policy towards the Palestinians is costing them points. At the party’s last Ard Fheis Mary Lou “embraced the Palestinians while condemning Israel”. However, this did not prevent the party leadership attending the White House as guests of President Joe Biden, Israel's largest arms supplier at the time, for the Saint Patricks Day piss up! This did cause some resentment among Sinn Fein's rank and file but not mass desertions. The incident as told by Suzzanne Breen about the Europa Hotel in Belfast may also have caused some constellation but again no mass desertions. 

What may be causing the drop in percentage points is the party, like all those in Dail Eireann, with the possible exception of People Before Profit, is their, Sinn Fein's, fudging policies to suit populism within the community. For example, after Mary Lou’s hostile reception at East Wall, Dublin, by residents fuelled by the far-right over international protection applicants the party who once were in the scramble to be refugee-friendly shifted ground to the right slightly. This was in an attempt to reclaim support from far-right organisations. Sinn Fein are not alone here as all Dail Parties, government and opposition alike, are shifting from embracing asylum seekers to mild hostility. They have cut the benefits these people receive from over 200 euro per week to just 38. They promised these people protection and instead have reneged an all their promises, making them live in unsanitary conditions and cutting their incomes. Hardly welcoming is it! Sinn Fein are no exception as the governing parties have shifted from their ‘open door policy’ to one of caution. The problem with what amounted to an ‘open door policy’ is that it was ill thought out if any thought at all was given to it.

Another area which may be of concern particularly among the older members of Sinn Fein and some IRA veterans could be the apology issued by Michele O’Neil over the party leadership's attendance at veteran IRA fighter, Bobby Storey’s funeral. Yes, the funeral took place under Covid conditions but, as far as I could see, all safety precautions were taken. Was there any need to issue an apology? This could have damaged some grass roots supporters faith in the party but to what, if any, extent?

The complete shambles which the present government consisting of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Green Party, have made in general not about just asylum seekers is the main reason Sinn Fein are riding so high. Sinn Fein may be down a couple of percentage points but this often happens and is not yet a matter for concern. Like all opportunist parties in all so-called parliaments if it suited their electoral needs Sinn Fein, like the rest of the parties, would move into an all-out opposition to international protection applicants if they thought such a move would get them into government. In parliamentary politics electoral success not political principles is what counts, which makes a mockery of the whole farce. 

The object of politics, particularly socialist politics, is to convince the people your point is the correct one, not fudge to suit changes of mood among elements among the population as Sinn Fein are doing. In Britain the Scottish Labour Leaders, Anas Sawar, once said; “I don’t care about principles, all I care about is getting elected”. That clap trap applies to Dail Eireann parties and Members of the Legislative Assembly, who are not a sovereign government, equally. 

James Connolly, a man Sinn Fein somewhat ridiculously claim as one of their historical icons, once celebrated coming third in an election on a socialist ticket. He came third by sticking to the socialist message and not fudging to suit what today we call populism among the electorate. He did not become an anti-Semite just because huge swathes of the population were, he continued to fight such abominations putting anti-Semitism and sectarianism in the same evil branch. He stuck to his guns and that is what it is all about. 

For years now Sinn Fein have abandoned policy after policy. What happened to the illusive “32 County Democratic Socialist Republic” once so often preached by SF? Will we get our much-needed single tiered nationalised health system? We’ll never know unless the Sinn Fein party are elected but, for fucks sake, do not hold your breath because form would suggest not. What we do know is the present gang in government will never deliver!
 
Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

Is The Situation In Gaza Costing Sinn Fein Percentage Points?

Tomás Ó Flatharta ☭ Who Organised a Belfast Patrick’s Weekend Palestine March – Minus the Original Speakers? Bernadette McAliskey looks for answers

Bernadette McAliskey asks questions:

The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) should provide answers.

Bernadette McAliskey:

Was this march organised by Belfast ISPC? On what date did the platform change from the three speakers below and become a platform of primarily spokespersons for political parties of the NI Assembly,? On what date were the political parties first invited to speak? Why was the list of political party speakers including Sinn Fein not announced prior to the March and rally itself, allowing those who didn’t want to hear from political parties whose leaders were in the White House, or those doing little or nothing for Palestine to have stayed away? Who made these decisions, the consequences of which must have obvious to them at the time, given the depth of feeling from anger to disappointment? What did they expect from an unsuspecting audience when a Sinn Fein speaker was sprung on them? Did they, through naivety, expect Sinn Fein to decline or was the reaction foreseen and thought to OK?





Without some transparency and explanation of the who, when and why, the organisers have very little credibility left with independent activists who are daily raising awareness; building support for boycott of Israeli goods on the ground; fund raising for medical aid, for children, for food aid in Gaza and helping as best they know how, Palestinians living here to cope with the pain and trauma of their fear for family and friends at home as well their exile.

Either lack of foresight and transparency, intentional deceit, or plain old-fashioned elitism needs to be owned up to, unless the organisers have a better explanation. This is no way to build any principled unity on Palestine, or anything else for that matter.

Vincent Doherty

This is a moment of decision nationally for the IPSC. Sinn Fein would prefer if we all forgot their treachery in fine wining and dining with Biden in the midst of the genocide. Just like a few years ago when they were meeting with Likud despite having signed up to the BDS campaign. It’s the elephant in the room, and one that needs to be addressed.

Keep Up With Tomás Ó Flatharta.

Answers Needed

Fra Hughes 💣I would not want to be standing in the elections as a Sinn Fein candidate when the chickens come home to roost. 

Well. well. well -  let us just take a moment of reflection to see were the parties stand on Palestine. The first word that springs to mind is hypocrisy, the second derision and the third abandonment. As someone who has been the victim of a smear campaign by some Sinn Fein party members, and the groups they manipulate for the last 14 years, I am delighted to see how they have finally outed themselves as the failed control freaks that they actually are. 

Sinn Fein has ridden so many horses since 1998 in their pursuit of power they are no longer recognisable as the revolutionary party they once were. No better than Fianna Fail and Fine Gael nor even their fellow constitutional opponents in the North, the SDLP,  SF is now a neoliberal establishment driven constitutional party Their pursuit of popularism not principle is as telling as their betrayal of everything they once stood for. 

Their representative was heckled from the stage at the rally against genocide outside the American Embassy in Belfast while their senior party members were frolicking with genocidal Joe Biden at the White House. A perfect example of betrayal of the people of Gaza and the parallel approach SF takes of fooling voters at home while sucking at the teat of American imperialism. One face for the people of Ireland and another for the capitalists and the imperialist war mongers in the EU and America.

I personally cannot wait for elections north and south to see the backlash against Sinn Fein and their betrayal of the people of Palestine and indeed the people of Ireland. One two three four open up the Gaza door, five six seven eight Sinn Fein will get bait(beat) Now there is an election slogan that would resonate with Sinn Fein's revolutionary past, and sadly it's very far in the past now. 

So, let us look at the opposition. Varadkar stood beside a genocidal maniac at the White House, as he explained why the Irish people are so in tune with the plight of the Palestinian people - a common history (one which includes military occupation, famine, colonisation, oppression, brutality and frequent massacres of the indigenous population) my words. Did he expel the Israeli Ambassador? No. Did he stop American war planes refuelling at Shannon Airport? No. Did he call on Genocide Joe to stop rearming Israel, to stop using their veto at the United Nations, to stop financing the apartheid racist state of Israel? No. He is another political chameleon, shedding skin, policies and principles when it suits. 

Shameless self-serving politicians are the same all over the world. Spineless cowardly and corrupt in many instances. Sinn Fein will cynically manipulate and try to control every narrative that comes into the public discourse and try to undermine marginalise and pillory critical thinkers, like myself, who they cannot control. Bullies and thugs - you know who you are. I have a long memory and I will not forget. We see you for what and who you really are. 

Now, who could we vote for and more importantly who should we vote for. Well the rivals to Sinn Fein, north and south are a motley collection of imperialist leftists and the remnants of the Socialist Workers Party. If candidates stood under the party banner vote for the Socialist Workers Party they would get about as many votes as the Workers Party which is a true socialist party, unlike these pseudo socialists who cheer-led the wars of intervention with chants of Gaddafi must go! Look at Libya now ? Sheep dressed as lions, champagne socialists, only interested in getting elected. 

People Before Profit, what a great name More a political slogan than a political party. They have risen on the failures of SF. They are not leading a socialist revolution at the ballot box LOL. People are simply sick and tired of the lies, duplicity and deception of the established parties, Indeed the rise of SF in the south is proportional to the failures of FF and FG in government. Leading us to a United Ireland, don't make me laugh. The people of Ireland will reunite the country, not SF.

In conclusion we are represented in government and council by self serving sell-outs, each carving a little niche for themselves in the political landscape, then waiting for the others elected to slip up so they can slide in. FF-FG-SF are one and the same. Parties for capitalists, big business and the ruling elite do not let them tell you otherwise. Their opponents, the likes of PBP are simply Sinn Fein-lite. Stepping into the space the once revolutionary SF party has abandoned, more rhetoric than substance. Their reversals in the last elections in the north goes to prove getting elected is the easiest part staying elected is harder, 

A curse on all your houses, Vote independent candidates.

Fra Hughes is a Belfast based writer and activist.

Curse Them All

Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh ☭💣writing in BLOSC,

Last year a cavalcade of war criminals landed in Belfast to celebrate the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Around that time, Brown University published a report that stated that more than 4.5 million people had died due to Washington’s wars since 9/11. Indeed, since the Second World War, the USA has carried out at least 81 overt and covert interventions to promote regime change in other people’s countries. Obviously, since the Good Friday Agreement’s 25th anniversary, the USA and its allies have notoriously given Israel carte blanche to carry out a genocide in Gaza. The United States was built on genocide and chattel slavery and act as successor to the white supremacist British Empire as current global imperial hegemon. The USA is above all the state arm of global capital. If you describe yourself as an anti-imperialist or if you want to end imperialism, then the White House is the last place you should be on St Patrick’s Day.

Yesterday, I attended a protest in Belfast which I thought was organised to criticise the Irish political establishment’s decision to attend the celebrations at the White House. Before leaving the house, I read a tweet from Tommy McKearney, which stated that the Tyrone People’s Dáil would not be attending as the event has ‘unfortunately now been turned into a party political rally’. I then found out that Bernadette McAliskey, who was set to speak, would now not be turning up for the same reason. It then became clear that Clíodhna Nic Bhranair, Belfast City Councillor and the manager of the James Connolly Centre, would be speaking on behalf of Sinn Féin. The Belfast branch of the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign [IPSC] operated as the most prominent of several groups on the steering committee for this demonstration. The publicity talked about Shamrocks for Palestine and the Dublin event made it clear what they were protesting: ‘As Irish political leaders prepare to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with Joe Biden, the Gaza Genocide’s main sponsor, join us to show that the people of Ireland stand with the people of Palestine’.

It appears that Sinn Féin used their leverage with sympathisers and supporters on the Belfast IPSC group to get an invitation to a meeting organised to protest their position on the White House, along with that of the other main Irish political parties. Sinn Féin then selected a young woman to speak, knowing that she would receive a hostile reaction. I know Clíodhna, she is a highly intelligent and capable person, who surely anticipated that she would receive such a reception. Indeed, senior republican politicians like Gerry Kelly stood directly below the platform encouraging her, instead of speaking themselves. I was standing in front of the People Before Profit [PBP] group and I can confirm that not one of the many PBP members whom I know took part in the hostility directed at Clíodhna. My sense was that this emerged as a spontaneous reaction by sections of a very large crowd who thought they were attending a march protesting Sinn Féin as well as the other Irish political parties who attended the St Patrick’s Day junket. This is important because the social media response by prominent Sinn Féin supporters claimed that the booing was party political and directed by PBP. I have no doubt that, like any political organisation, PBP are using their (correct in my view) position on the White House to help generate support and mobilise, but the hostile reception emerged because of the audacity of Sinn Féin to sup with the Devil and stand with the Angels on the same day.

The reaction by leading Sinn Féin supporters was telling. I have selected one of many examples. Andrée Murphy tweeted: ‘Look at the strength of this young woman speaking truth in the face of a baying mob. They wouldn’t lace her boots – or the boots of the women who stood in her defence in front of the podium’. She then identified the women as ‘Bríd Keenan and Caral Ní Chuilín [who] were standing up for oppressed people, especially women, at home and internationally when it was dangerous & while many others chose to look the other way.’ So, the demonstrators opposing US imperialism and Israeli genocide were a ‘baying mob’ who had no revolutionary track record when the bullets were flying during the Troubles. As already noted, Bernadette McAliskey refused to speak because Sinn Féin made a mockery of the event and Tommy McKearney supported her decision. The revolutionary credentials line is a red herring. The logical conclusion would appear to be that unable to stop the protest, Sinn Féin attempted to muddy the waters and portray themselves as a victim, while promoting well-rehearsed tropes about armchair Trots versus their ‘real’ struggle.

The problem with all this is that Sinn Féin’s decision to attend the St Patrick’s Day jamboree demonstrated that when their position on Palestine conflicted with their cosy relationship with the great peace makers in the Pentagon and State Department, then the people of Gaza would understand if they supped with the devil. The issue is that Sinn Féin are running out of length on their spoon while they still pretend to be an anti-imperialist and socialist movement for many within their support base. I recently had a debate as Gaeilge with Clíodhna on the radio about this in the context of the return to Stormont. This is not an ad hominin attack on Clíodha, whom I get on well with, but an honest criticism of Sinn Féin’s position. I was not among the people who jeered, although I understood why many did. They booed because of the contradictory position adopted by Sinn Féin and the party’s chameleon like ability to run with the fox and hunt with the hounds. For example, Clíodhna, whom I am sure has all the attributes and ability to go a very long way in politics, manages the Connolly Centre. The Centre is a contradiction in terms from people who pose as inheritors to Connolly’s legacy while subverting it. Those involved would challenge this analysis, obviously, but objectively, it is a project in managing and negating the revolutionary legacy of Connolly and the Irish revolutionary tradition more generally.

When Connolly was alive, the dominant grouping in Irish nationalism similarly claimed the inheritance rights to the Fenian legacy and sought to incorporate Irish Catholic nationalism into the British Empire – the USA of its day. John Dillon, the son of the Young Irelander, led the Plan of Campaign during the Land War in the 1880s and, before 1916, he regularly mocked young radical republicans, brandishing his own prison record from a generation earlier. As deputy leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, Dillon told all and sundry that he understood the limits of the possible, which involved reconciling Irish nationalism to imperialism and famously recruiting for the British Army in World War One [although he remained somewhat ambiguous regarding his own son’s potential enlistment]. When the British executed Connolly, Clarke, Mac Piarais, and the other anti-imperialist revolutionary leaders, Dillon lamented to the House of Commons that Asquith’s government had washed away our whole life’s work in a sea of blood. Today, Sinn Féin appear similarly torn between liberal integration and a grassroots and wider electoral base intent on real social change.

The aforementioned Andrée Murphy is on the board of Ireland’s Future, which typifies this trend. An essentially bourgeois organisation, Ireland’s Future represents a liberal push to the centre geared towards constitutional change (mostly) by Sinn Féin sympathisers who have climbed a wrung or two on the social ladder. Just this week, fellow board member Brian Feeney, my predecessor at St Mary’s, claimed that Sinn Féin were right to go to Washington as “Boycotting would be crackers.” His rationale was that there are 230 US companies in the North employing tens of thousands and that Conor Murphy and Joe Kennedy will expand that number and attract the magic “$6 billion investment here that Biden promised last April” (Irish News, 13 March 2024). Feeney is what he always has been, a constitutional nationalist, formerly on the green end of the SDLP. He hasn’t changed since the 1980s, Sinn Féin has and that is why he is now an enthusiast. Yet all we have here is a rerun of the failed economic policies hawked by Stormont since 1998. Multinational companies don’t invest because of sentiment, but to increase profit margins. Sinn Féin run the James Connolly centre while holding the begging bowl out to the global capitalist elite. The $6 billion are their thirty-two pieces of silver. Behave yourself and we will give you a neo-liberal United Ireland of sorts. We might even allow you build a couple of houses, but that socialism carry on is for the birds! Their PR wet dream would be to get Joe Kennedy to give a key note speech on the hospitality level of a revamped Casement Park.

The reason why all this matters is that, politically, the world is approaching a crisis potentially as grave as the First World War. The Good Friday Agreement operates as a fig leaf for Nancy Pelosi and Biden or Blair and his ilk to launder their own war mongering and profiteering past. The possibility of a global conflagration appears greater now than at any time in my life and I lived through the last decade of the Cold War. The GFA generation, Michelle and Emma – the sliothar sister, are miserable pawns in an imperial game. You don’t have to have any affinity for their imperial opponents to realise that the US and its allies are the greatest threat to peace and human survival in the world today. Similarly, the trajectory of western domestic politics is to the authoritarian right – across the board! The same Western liberal establishment have consistently failed to address the contradictions within global capitalism exposed since 2008. I recently watched Yanis Varoufakis’s documentary on the collapse of Syriza. The Troika essentially broke a genuine democratic movement pledged to equality and a sustainable economic future for Greece. Yet, when the liberal establishment hobbles and destroys democracy and with it the hope for a better future, the result is not stability but the empowerment of the extreme right. The contradictions in the system find new avenues for expression and faced with the challenge, the Liberal establishment typically become the handmaidens of authoritarianism and fascism.

Far worse than that, Sinn Féin are not even on Syriza’s level, they sold out before even getting into power. They’ve been operating on a post-dated check for a generation. The lesson from Europe is clear, if Sinn Féin let down the tens of thousands who view them as a vehicle for genuine change because they are in hock to the western imperial establishment in Washington and Brussels, then working-class Irish people will only have one place to go – rightwards. Ireland and the world need movements pledged to the democratic and socialist transformation of society not paddy-wackery and letters from America.

Yet, this political challenge is eclipsed by the far more fundamental environmental catastrophe that looms on the rapidly approaching historical horizon. Irish people need to oppose US imperialism as the political expression of global capitalist hegemony. Yet this is an international not a national struggle, for, if humanity cannot end capitalism, then capitalism will end human society as we know it. This will never be achieved cosying up to the attack dogs of global capital. We have left the era of liberal triangulation well behind and are entering an historical phase where issues of universality, class struggle and human survival must become the primary factors in any conscious human agent’s political mobilisation – the vista is bleak. At junctures like this, historical contradictions become exposed, and clarity emerges. There should be no place for blood-stained shamrocks for those pledged to anti-imperialist or socialist struggle. Constitutional nationalists and liberal hypocrites have never had a problem with genuflecting before the imperium, that’s why Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael didn’t send speakers to the demonstrations yesterday – why did Sinn Féin?

⏩Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh blogs @ BLOSC.

Blood-Stained Shamrocks

Robert Emmet 1916 Society Lisnaskea ✊It was clear on Saturday 17th March, at the Palestinian solidarity demonstration in Belfast that Sinn Fein had overstepped the mark. 

Hundreds were booing and heckling the unfortunate Sinn Fein Councillor, who was set up by her 'cute hoor' leaders to take the flack, that they surely knew was coming. Do they really think that the people are complete fools?

Did they think that their last minute take over of the speaking panel was going to cover their clear endorsement of Yankee imperialism? 'O the fools the fools...' 

A once, purportedly, anti colonial and masquerading as an anti-imperialist party, has now thrown in its lot totally with all imperialisms and capitalism. At a time when the people of the world are consistently demonstrating against American and Israeli genocide in Gaza, the leaders of Sinn Fein were 'hob knobbing' with the leaders of that very genocide, Genocide Joe and friends, in Washington. Even when they come back from their 'masters den' will they (1) admit that they have 'taken the imperialist soup' and are committed to imperialism and capitalism or (2) condemn capitalism, imperialism and Zionism?

We fear there is no chance of any such thing happening any time soon. What then does that mean for the much vaunted 'Agreed Ireland ', a 'shared Island' or indeed their, ow fabled, "United Ireland "....not the 32 County Socialist Ireland you will understand? 

The basis, we were told, of the 30 year war. Of course we now know that there are serious questions over who was actually running the war for the 30 years. The recently published Kenova Report surely brings that into clearer focus. The implications of the content of the Kenova Report for what happened over the 30 years or more, also has even more profound implications for the next 30 years and potentially much longer. A case of 'do as we say' or else.

If the conclusions are that even during a, so called, secret guerilla war, that was prosecuted to destroy British colonial imperialism, the British were in control; imagine the leverage that they and their allies can impose now to maintain the capitalist/imperialist status quo? About 0.5% of what went on in the, so called, 'dirty war' has come to light. And about 0.0001% of British (and Dublin's) intelligence files have or will ever be released for scrutiny. So they still have a lot of power to coerce. 

The truth is: 'they haven't gone away you know ' and only too well Sinn Fein, et al, know it.

The Fools, The Fools

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