Ireland: Political earthquake as Sinn Féin wins Irish election

Sinn Féin President Mary Lou MacDonald/ An Phoblacht

General elections on February 8 saw Sinn Féin become the most popular political party in the 26 county Irish Republic for the first time - a seismic result has shaken the Irish political system to its core and sent shockwaves across Europe.

The left-wing republican party received 24.5 per cent of first preference votes cast - up 10.7 percent on 2016 - and topped the poll in over 20 constituencies.

Many candidates were elected on the first count, often in areas that had never returned a Sinn Féin TD (member of the Irish parliament, the Dáil) before, and seventeen of the top 20 high-polling candidates came from Sinn Féin.

With counting now complete, Sinn Féin has won 37 seats in the 160-seat Dáil, an increase of fifteen. For the first time ever, each of Ireland’s 32 counties is now represented by a Sinn Féin TD or MP.

The last time Sinn Féin topped the polls nationally was at all-Ireland elections held in 1918, in a result that paved the way for the first Dáil and the War of Independence against Britain.

Outgoing government party Fine Gael took 35 seats (down 12), while Fianna Fáil received 38 (down 7) - although one seat was due to the automatic reappointment of the Ceann Comhairle (Speaker of the Dáil).

Having received setbacks in last year’s local and European elections, Sinn Féin ran only 42 candidates. As a result of the late surge in support, in several constituencies where they ran only one candidate Sinn Féin received close to - or even in excess of - the mandate for a second seat.

A successful strategy of “vote left, transfer left”, however, meant that large numbers of Sinn Féin preference votes helped elect other left wing and progressive candidates.

The socialist Solidarity-People Before Profit alliance secured five seats, with returning TD Richard Boyd Barrett topping the poll in Dún Laoghaire.

Labour and the Social Democrats took six seats each, while the Greens won twelve mandates - reaching double figures for the first time.

Ireland also bucked the trend prevailing in Europe of right-wing nationalist parties taking advantage of public discontent. The slew of far-right, anti-immigration candidates on offer received negligible results, failing to even regain their deposits.

The election result comes as a blow to both Ireland’s major right-wing parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, who between them have dominated politics in the Irish state for a century.

It is the first time in the history of the Republic that neither party has won the popular vote, and their combined vote share has been reduced to a mere 43 percent. Both parties lost vote share and seats, and some constituencies failed to elect a TD from either party for the first time ever.

During the election, the outgoing conservative Fine Gael government had hoped to capitalise on strong economic figures, recent referenda legalising abortion and equal marriage rights, and the high profile role Ireland played in Europe during the Brexit negotiations.

Fianna Fáil, their support having recovered since the economic collapse after 2008, sought to take advantage of voter frustration with the Fine Gael government. At the same time, they hoped that voters would forget that they had kept that same government in power via a “confidence-and-supply” arrangement throughout its term.

Both parties also united to make harsh attacks on Sinn Féin, ruling out working with the left-wing party after the elections. They joined the mainstream media chorus that Sinn Féin was not a “normal party”, scaremongering about “shadowy figures” controlling it from behind the scenes and about Sinn Féin’s historical links to the long-ended armed struggle in the six counties still under British occupation.

Voters, however, were less interested in scare-tactics and macroeconomic figures than in hospital waiting lists, soaring rents, the homelessness crisis, insurance costs, and increases to the pension age.

The 2008 economic collapse, bank bail-outs and vicious austerity measures left deep wounds in Irish society, and while the economy has officially recovered, the vast majority of ordinary people have not seen the benefits.

The Republic of Ireland, with barely 5 million people, has over 10,000 homeless each week, and more than a third of those in emergency accommodation are children.

In 2018, 50% of the adults aged under 30 were living at home with their parents, due to skyrocketing rents, and there are over 200,000 children living in poverty.

After a decade of austerity, it is little surprise that resentment continued to grow against the two pro-business parties, who have run the state between them since independence.

Sinn Féin, on the other hand, campaigned on the theme “time for change”, and a robust left-wing manifesto titled “Giving workers and families a break”.

Their platform included a rent freeze, a refundable tax credit to reduce rents by up to €1,500, building 100,000 new affordable and social houses over five years, tax cuts on the first €30,000 to help low income earners, restoring the pension age to 65, hiring thousands of nurses, and investing in hospital beds and free GP care.

This message cut through a hostile media and resonated with an electorate desperate for change. On election day, exit polls showed Sinn Féin with the highest support of any party for the entire working age population, in all age groups from 18-65 years. Only in the over-65s did that support drop.

Speaking in Dublin after the vote, Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald described the result as a "revolution in the ballot box”. 

“The two party system in this State is now broken, it has been dispatched into the history books,” she said.

“The election is about a real appetite for political change, and that means a change in government.”

“This vote for Sinn Féin is for Sinn Féin to be in government, for Sinn Féin to deliver.”

“My first port of call is the other parties to see whether or not can we actually have a new government, a government without Fianna Fail or Fine Gael.”

The day after the final results were announced, Sinn Féin declared that it would look immediately to form a “government of change” that “delivers on the big issues of housing, of health and climate change, on the right to a pension at 65, and that gives workers a break”.

Despite winning the popular vote, however, Sinn Féin will struggle to form what would be the first left-wing government in the history of the state.

With only 37 seats, even with the support of progressive parties and independents it would fall well short of the 80 seats needed to form government.

If Sinn Féin cannot form its preferred left-wing coalition, excluding the two major parties, it may be forced to consider working with Fianna Fáil and one or more of the other small parties.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil had both previously ruled out working with Sinn Féin, and Fine Gael has maintained its hard line after the vote, ruling out any coalition.

On the other hand, Ireland’s traditional “party of government”, Fianna Fáil, is desperate for a return to power and party leader Micheál Martin appeared to soften in tone towards Sinn Féin after results were released.

The party remains split, however, between those stung by the voter backlash over their confidence-and-supply deal with Fine Gael, and those whose hatred of Sinn Féin outweighs their political opportunism.

Even if a deal can be struck, any decision about entering government would need first to be agreed on by Sinn Féin’s membership in a special Ard Fheis (national conference). There is no guarantee it would win support.

Contained in the price for any coalition with Sinn Féin would also be securing a referendum on Irish unity - an issue that has been pushed to the fore by Brexit.

Even though Sinn Féin didn’t campaign heavily on its signature issue in this election, exit polls showed 57% of voters support holding a referendum on Irish unity within the next five years.

Another option for government would be for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil - and a smaller party such as the Greens - to enter into a “grand coalition”. Given the history of the two major parties, and their rivalry since the Irish Civil War, this would seem very unlikely.

It would also grant Sinn Féin undisputed status as the official opposition, to expose and pick apart the right wing policies that such a government would inevitably impose.

If no deal is struck in coming weeks, a new election would have to be called. If Sinn Féin’s level of support holds, they could expect to gain several more seats, and the balance of power could change clearly in their favour - another issue clouding the minds of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.

For the time being, however, Sinn Féin is keen to find a way into government in order to get to work fixing the social problems created by decades of right-wing rule.

As Mary Lou McDonald told reporters in Dublin, “we are not doing another five years of housing crisis, that is not on the agenda”.

“We want families and workers to have breathing space, I mean financial, economic security and breathing space,” she said.

Whatever happens next, one thing is clear. This is a watershed moment for Sinn Féin and Irish politics. All is changed, changed utterly.

Germany: Liberals and conservatives join with fascists to oust the left from state government

(Elke Wetzig/ Creative Commons)

On February 5, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and free-market liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) joined forces with the far-right Alternativ für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany - AfD) to remove a left wing government from power.

This major political upset is the first time since World War Two that a German government has assumed power with the help of a far-right party. It represents a first - but probably not last - breach of the “cordon sanitaire” that mainstream parties had placed around the AfD, rejecting all collaboration with a party that is being increasingly seen as a fascist threat.

For the past five years, the small former East German state of Thuringia has been governed by a rare “Red-Red-Green” coalition of the socialist Die Linke (“The Left”), the Social Democrats (SPD), and the Greens. Even more unusually, the largest party in this formation was Die Linke, and their leader Bodo Ramelow took on the role of state Premier.

In last year’s state election, while Die Linke’s vote increased a further three points to 31 percent - and 29 seats - their allies slumped. The SPD fell to 8 percent and lost a third of its seats, while the Greens also went backwards, only narrowly crossing the 5 percent threshold required to enter parliament. As a result, the three-party left-coalition government lost its majority.

On the other hand, the AfD surged to 23.4 percent, doubling their seats to 22, while the CDU, whose election campaign was centred on one removing the socialist Ramelow and his left coalition from power, fell 12 percent to an historic low, and lost 13 seats. The FDP, who had spent the previous five years in the political wilderness, scraped over the 5 percent threshold by only 73 votes.

With the far-right on the ascendant, there was some pressure on both the CDU and FDP to provide external support to allow the governing left coalition to return to work. Both parties refused.

The vote on February 5 was therefore a key test for finding a formula for government. The first two rounds proved inconclusive, with Ramelow winning first 43, then 44 votes - more than the Red-Red-Green coalition but still short of the 46 seat majority in the 90 seat parliament.

His rival, the AfD candidate Christoph Kindervater, scored 25 and then 22 votes. While the AfD holds only 22 seats it seemed that three members of the CDU had voted for the fascists’ candidate in the first round, while the rest of their party abstained.

A strong taboo is attached to the AfD, whose leader in Thuringia - Björn Höcke - is particularly notorious. In a 2014 email to colleagues, Höcke advocated abolition Section 130 of the German Criminal Code, which criminalises "incitement of hatred towards other groups of the population”, a  move that would have legalised Holocaust denial.

Höcke - who leads an extreme-right wing within his party - has marched along side open Neo-Nazis and repeatedly criticised Germany for its “moronic” commemoration of the Holocaust, advocating a "remembrance policy change by 180 degrees”. In September 2019 a court in Thuringia ruled that it was not only legal - but also “based on a verifiable factual basis” - to describe Höcke as a “fascist”.

Despite this, there is an ongoing debate in the CDU - both in Thuringia and across Germany - about how to deal with the rise of the AfD. One wing of the party supports the “cordon sanitaire” and refusing any form of collaboration with an increasingly openly fascistic AfD.

Others in the party, however, are concerned that after nearly a decade of a federal “Grand Coalition” with the centre-left SPD, the CDU is losing its right-wing supporters to the insurgent AfD. They therefore advocate working with the AfD to “bring them inside the tent”, and thereby - they hope - moderate them.

With no candidate winning in the first two rounds, the vote went to a third round, in which a simple majority of votes in favour would be enough to win. With Ramelow 20 votes ahead of the AfD candidate, and with the CDU abstaining, it looked likely that his Red-Red-Green alliance would be returned, albeit as a minority government.

Then, out of the blue, the FDP put forward their candidate, 54 year old Thomas Kemmerich, for the position. While Ramelow again won 44 votes, the AfD unexpectedly abandoned their candidate, throwing their full support - and votes - behind Kemmerich.

The CDU, too, abandoned their previous position of abstention to vote for the FDP candidate, who was narrowly victorious with 45 votes. It is difficult to consider these moves as coincidence, even if no formal coalition negotiations between FDP and CDU were conducted.

So, despite the party winning barely 5 percent of the vote, the Free Democratic Party’s candidate was elected Premier, thanks to an unholy alliance with the CDU and the fascists, effectively tearing down the 75-year post-war cordon sanitaire against the fascists.

Reaction

The negative reaction was immediate, and visceral. Emergency demonstrations were called outside the FDP's national offices in Berlin and in other cities around the country.

Susanne Hennig-Wellsow, Die Linke’s Chair in Thuringia, dumped the congratulatory bouquet unceremoniously at Kemmerich’s feet and turned on her heel. She later described the vote as a “clear pact with fascism”.

Die Linke co-chair Bernd Riexinger said the decision was “a bitter day for democracy” and "a taboo-breaker that will have far-reaching consequences",  while Bundestag group leader Dietmar Bartsch called on Kemmerich to resign and for fresh state elections to take place.

The Greens also called for Kemmerich’s resignation, while SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil described the election as "the historic low point in German post-war history”. Germany's foreign minister Heiko Maas, also from the SPD, described the election as "completely irresponsible".

The reaction from the centre-right, however, was much more mixed.

Federal lawmakers from Kemmerich’s own party criticised the result, calling on him not to accept his election because of the AfD support.

Markus Söder, chair of the CDU’s Bavarian sister-party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), condemned the CDU’s actions in Thuringia as "unacceptable”, while CDU national leader, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer also criticised the Thuringia chapter of her own party, also calling for Kemmerich to resign and for new elections.

But Federal Government Commissioner for the East, Christian Hirte (who is also Vice-President of the CDU in Thuringia), congratulated Kemmerich for ousting the Red-Red-Green alliance.

CDU member, and former head of the Germany’s domestic spy agency, Hans-Georg Maaßen, celebrated the result as a “huge success”, saying “the main thing is that the socialists are gone”. He saved his criticism for his own party instead, accusing the CDU of abandoning its own members, and advocated an immediate political shift to the right.

A controversial figure, Maaßen was placed on “early retirement” from his role as spy chief in 2018 after he openly criticised the government and was accused of passing sensitive information to the AfD. In fact, the AfD even considered nominating Maaßen for the head of government in Thuringia, but he declined.

Thuringia's CDU state leader Mike Mohring responded to criticism of the vote by saying: "We are not responsible for the voting behaviour of other parties”, and the CDU in Thuringia has rejected calls for fresh elections, which would require a two-thirds majority to call.

It would also be conceivable that Kemmerich himself calls for a vote of confidence that he would hope to lose. To survive, he would need an absolute majority - 46 votes. If he lost, the parliament could vote for a new Premier. Neither of these options seem certain, and the AfD has indicated it would be happy to lend its ongoing support to a CDU-FDP minority government.

Although both the CDU and the FDP immediately ruled out a coalition with the AfD, the vote was a dangerous step towards the normalisation of a fascist force in Germany, with consequences that go far beyond one state.

The vote in Thuringia has an even more worrying precedent. Exactly ninety years ago, Thuringia was the first German government to incorporate the nascent Nazi Party into its ministry. Then - as today - the conservatives wanted to “tame” the Nazis by involving them in government. The rest is history.

As right-wing extremism expert Matthias Quent told newspaper Vorwärts immediately after the vote, unless the major parties and civil society react firmly and decisively, “a stream of [fascist] brown will pour out of little Thuringia into the rest of the Republic”.

Capitalism is not green: you can't solve the climate crisis without changing the system

This is the text of a speech given on behalf of Sinn Féin at the conference "O Capitalismo não é verde. Uma visão alternativa sobre as alterações climáticas" ("Capitalism is not green - an alternative view on climate change"), held on 13 September 2019 in Lisbon, Portugal. It was organised by the Portuguese Communist Party and the European United Left/ Nordic Green Left in the European Parliament.

The challenge of climate change is unprecedented, transcending national borders. I won’t tell you what you already know, but the earth is - literally - on fire. Massive fires are engulfing the world, the ice is melting and biodiversity loss is hitting record levels. Microplastics are now throughout our food chain, they are in the water we drink - even in the rain itself. The ecology of our entire planet is threatened with irretrievable mutilation.

We need urgent, radical actions - the rapid, far-reaching reorganisation of industry, energy, transport, and mass consumption patterns, and the massive transfer of clean technology to developing countries. There is just one problem: these actions are impossible under Capitalism.

Attempts to make climate a global political priority have been repeatedly led astray by corporate interests. The global climate agreements, from Kyoto to Paris, have woefully inadequate targets, and promote corporate-friendly, market-based mechanisms that simply do not work. Carbon markets don’t cut emissions, but they do create tradable “rights” to pollute, protecting the perverse incentive to profit off pollution.

When we aren’t being sold dodgy emissions markets and carbon offset “indulgences” for our climate sins, we are offered “green consumption” - electric cars, reusable plastic coffee cups, long-life light bulbs. This is also the underlying approach of most mainstream environmental groups and the major Greens parties. Worse, this consensus has been accepted by most environmental activists.

But leaving things to the market is a recipe for disaster. The internal logic of Capitalism is to constantly seek out new opportunities for profit - whatever the social or environmental cost. For capitalists, the climate crisis is less a threat than it is an opportunity for new markets and new profits. And even if the climate threat were solved, the massive over-exploitation of the planet would continue, and the threats to the global ecosystem would deepen.

So, no, Capitalism cannot be green. It is like the proverbial scorpion, that, after stinging the frog that was carrying him across the river on its back, condemning them both to death, could only offer in its defence: “I could not help myself. It is my nature.”

Despite becoming only the second country in the world to declare a climate emergency earlier this year, the Irish Government remains the third worst climate performer in the EU. While 25 percent of its electricity comes from wind, Ireland continues to support the fossil fuel industry, and imposes a regressive carbon tax that shifts the costs of corporate pollution onto ordinary working people.

The Irish government has urged people to “lead by example” by buying electric cars, but for the vast majority of working people, this is a fantasy. Meanwhile, public transport in Ireland - which barely exists outside of Dublin - is facing one cut after another. And now, with the EU’s Railway Package, we are facing further privatisation, removing a vital sector from public hands.

It’s not all negative, of course. In May a delegation of Irish civil servants visited Copenhagen to research cycleways. Dublin has four new - albeit separate and disconnected - Climate Action Plans, each run by a different council, and some of the initiatives in these Plans are good. The most innovative is to build Ireland’s largest district heating system by piping excess industrial heat from Poolbeg peninsular to warm homes. There are also plans to install solar panels on all new public housing, adaptation plans, and awareness raising, but this is all just a drop in the ocean.

Another idea now gaining support in Ireland and elsewhere is to plant trees to draw down carbon. But Ireland already has forest plantations. The countryside is covered in countless hectares of fast-growing Sitka spruce - an invasive, non-native species. These plantations are dead zones - eerily quiet, without bird or animal life. They are green deserts, which exist solely as a cash crop. Many farmers want to invest in mixed plantations of native, broad-leaf species, but the supports available to Sitka plantations are not yet available for more sustainable options.

Onshore fracking was banned in most of Ireland two years ago, but in the six counties still under British rule there are plans to start operations, right next to the border, a move that would effectively render any ban null and void.

Earlier this year, Sinn Féin helped push a Climate Emergency Bill through the Dáil, the national parliament. It would have made Ireland the fifth country in the world to ban oil and gas exploration by halting the issuing of new licences.

But because the Bill may have required the use of public money, the government used a procedural technicality to effectively freeze the legislation. Around the same time, it was revealed that a key advisor to the Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) had held secret meetings with a lobbyist for the oil sector.

Unfortunately, while they are formally better on fossil fuels, the Irish Greens also still accept the logic of the market. But because they are called “Green”, people still look to them for the answers. The challenge now is to change that conversation.

A further weakness of the Western ecological movement is its failure to put, not just Capitalism, but the issue of Imperialism, at the centre of its analysis. Capitalism has always been a global system, transferring wealth from developing countries to the nations at the centre of world capitalism, whether by direct force or commerce. The arms industry, and wars for oil and other resources, are everyday reminders of this.

So too are the vast palm oil plantations in developing countries, and the recent EU-Mercosur trade deal. The Mercosur deal encouraged the apocalyptic fires in the Amazon by providing an incentive to clear more land for cheap beef and soy for the EU. But it is also about expanding the market for German cars - securing short-term profits for a dirty manufacturing sector already entering recession.

Mercosur has an Irish angle too. Cheap beef from Brazil flooding into the EU market will undercut more sustainably produced Irish beef. It will drive Irish beef farmers out of business, destroying rural society in Brazil and Ireland, and damaging the environment as well as the development of sustainable agriculture globally.

Why? Because the scorpion only cares about profits.

The largest power station in Ireland runs almost entirely on coal from Colombia. Most of this coal is from the Cerrejon mine, where trade union leaders and environmental and indigenous activists are regularly murdered. The Irish nationally-owned energy corporation, the Electricity Supply Board, also has massive investments in coal mines in the Philippines, where local activists are also being murdered.

The ruling classes in the Global North - including the EU - have an historic debt for the exploitation and destruction of the developing world, a debt which is growing every day. Any climate action and transition to “green jobs” must therefore have climate justice, repaying this global debt, at its heart, or it will be nothing but a new “Green Imperialism”.

In the EU, we are caught in a capitalist web, with a failed Emissions Trading Scheme, a stifling Energy Treaty, and state aid and competition rules that restrict urgent direct action by national governments. We are now hearing more and more talk of a “green deal” and “green growth”. At best, this is a half-hearted attempt at green washing; at worst, it is cover for business as usual.

Brexit will make things worse too - a new tax on heavy polluters, to replace the already ineffective EU ETS in Britain after Brexit, will see a reduction to nearly half the EU carbon market price.

The situation seems so daunting, many are beginning to question if we can succeed. A recent article in the New Yorker put it plainly, arguing “The climate apocalypse is coming. To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can’t prevent it.” There you have it! Behind all the greenwashing, all the electric cars, lightbulbs, reusable coffee cups and other junk, this is what the “green capitalists” and “progressive liberals” have to offer.

They can imagine the end of the species, but they can’t imagine the end of Capitalism.

Those of us who can imagine it must do more than just imagine. It is inspiring today to see and hear about local initiatives showing that there are alternatives ways of doing things. We must connect our ambitions to stop climate change to the reality on the ground - to show people that genuine change is possible, and how it will impact, and can improve, their daily life. This isn’t enough, of course, but it shows there is a way, that the technology and know-how exists - if there is the political will.

But we must do still more.

I’m not going to rattle off numbers about greenhouse gases, and targets and so on, but I do want to give you one number. 14 months. In November 2020, the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC - or “COP26” - is scheduled to take place in Glasgow. If the EU, US, and other Western countries are to act meaningfully on climate, and begin the necessary policy processes, the political point of no return will effectively be at COP26.

Acting in a decade will be too late. For this reason, we should also work to build the largest possible popular mobilisation around COP26 next year. Here in Europe, in the historical cradle of Capitalism and Imperialism, we have an opportunity - and a duty - to make this fight winnable. 

The new climate movement is already having its internal debates about whether you can solve the climate crisis without changing the system, or if a greener Capitalism is enough. The left needs to join in and help strengthen this movement, as well as the anti-Capitalist position in that movement.

We can’t replace Capitalism tomorrow, but we can build real alternatives in our communities that bring people together, giving them a glimpse of what a sustainable, socialist, society could look like. At the same time, we can help bring the largest number of people onto the streets, forcing governments to act, even against their will. And with these people we can build a larger political movement for change.

And remember, we are facing a battle - not just for human civilisation (such as it is) - but for billions of other species on this small blue, fragile, planet as well. We have no option other than to win.

Left parties must stand with the people

Neo-fascist and far right movements are growing in Europe, and internationally. Large, often violent, neo-fascist demonstrations are commonplace in some countries. In Europe, parties of the far right are part of government in Italy, Poland, Hungary and Austria, and are waiting in the wings elsewhere.

In 2017, more than 16 million people voted for far-right parties in Germany and France. The National Front’s Marine Le Pen won over 10 million votes in the 2017 presidential election. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the first far right party to enter the German parliament since World War II. Austria’s Freedom Party - founded by former Nazis - is in coalition government, and Poland’s Law and Justice government has subverted the courts, while encouraging white supremacists onto the streets. 

In Italy, deputy Prime Minister Mateo Salvini’s extremist Lega party (formerly Legal Nord), overshadows its larger coalition partners, while Hungary’s Fidesz government vilifies its critics as agents of the (Jewish) billionaire George Soros and treats refugees as “a Muslim invasion force”.

 

Read the full article at An Phoblacht.

New Spanish government brings little joy for Catalans and Basques

Spain’s new minority Socialist Workers Party government has taken steps to defuse tensions in Catalonia and the Basque Country, but remains firmly opposed to allowing any form of national self-determination.

Coming to power on June 1, new Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called for “rebuilding trust” in Catalonia. Spanish direct rule in Catalonia under the contentious Article 155 – imposed by Madrid to prevent the October 1 independence referendum last year – was lifted.

Sánchez’s cabinet also contains surprises, including new Defence Minister Margarita Robles. As Minister of the Interior and Justice in the 1990s, Robles pursued the GAL paramilitary death squads operated by the Spanish government in the Basque Country during the 1980s, killing dozens.

The Spanish government announced it would move Catalan political prisoners to jails in Catalonia, as well as a case-by-case transfer of Basque political prisoners to prisons closer to home, reversing the longstanding ‘dispersal’ policy of several hundred Basque prisoners in jails spread across the Spanish state.

Sánchez justified the latter move with reference to the declaration by Basque pro-independence armed organisation ETA that it was ending its 59-year existence, but in both cases Spain was merely finally complying with recognised legal standards – including its own. The French government began carrying out similar moves with Basque prisoners last year. 

A closer look at Sánchez’s cabinet is more revealing. His Foreign Minister is Josep Borrell, a Catalan-born former President of the European Parliament. Speaking at a rally of the right-wing unionist ‘Catalan Civil Society’ organisation last December, the fiercely anti-independence Borrell called for Catalonia to be “disinfected” of pro-independence sentiment. Borrell’s immediate task will be to recover the political ground lost by Spain across Europe due to its terrible mishandling of the Catalan referendum.

Read the full article at An Phoblacht.

Fatah Congress in Palestine addressed by Sinn Féin MEP Martina Anderson

THE 7th National Congress of Fatah, held in the Palestinian West Bank city of Ramallah, heard solidarity greetings from Sinn Féin delivered by Martina Anderson MEP.

The five-day congress – the first to be held by the party since 2009 – was held on November 28/29 and attended by over 1,300 Fatah delegates. There were also 60 international guests from 28 different countries, including China, India, Sudan, Chile and Germany.

President Mahmoud Abbas was re-elected unanimously as Chair of Fatah and the congress elected Fatah’s 23-member Central Committee and its 132-member Revolutionary Council.

Imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouthi was elected to the Central Committee with the highest vote of any candidate.

Addressing the conference on the ‘International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People’, Martina Anderson conveyed the solidarity of Sinn Féin and the Irish people to the people of Palestine. She highlighted the shared struggle for freedom and nationhood.

Martina, who is Chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Palestine, also stressed the importance of Palestinian unity.

“In any national liberation struggle, division and disunity slices and dices the struggle, damages and weakens it and the people suffer the most,” the Irish MEP told the congress.

“When Palestinians speak with one voice you advance international solidarity with your struggle and your message is heard clearly around the world.

“Sinn Féin will continue to work to build international solidarity and continue to support the Palestinian people.”

[Read the full article in An Phoblacht here].

Ireland: As Irish Water crashes and burns, a people is risen

Water protest in Dublin

The Irish government’s unpopular public utility, Irish Water, has been dealt a body blow, after it failed two key tests within the space of a fortnight, gifting a huge victory to opposition parties and the massive anti-water charges movement.

On 15 July the government revealed that, of Ireland’s approximately 1.5 million households, only 645,000, or about 43 percent, had paid the first water bills issued by the new body.

Facing down threats of tax increases or of having water supplies cut off, and accusations from an increasingly hysterical government that those opposed to water charges were “fascists”, "ISIS" and a “sinister fringe”, more than half of Irish households have refused to pay the hated new charges.

Perhaps expecting a poor return, the government has already rammed legislation through the Dáil that will allow unpaid bills to taken from people’s wages and welfare payments.

Mary Lou McDonald TD, Deputy President of the anti-austerity republican party Sinn Féin, welcomed the low payment figures.

“This is a serious embarrassment to the government who have done their best to denounce and belittle the resistance to their introduction of water charges,” she said.

“The defiance of the Irish people tells them in no uncertain terms that water charges are unwelcome and that they will not be cowed by threats.”

Germany: Left-wing politician car-bombed as attacks on refugees rise

Die Linke councillor and refugee activist, Michael Richter

Just after midnight on Monday 27 July, a bomb exploded in the car of left-wing politician and refugee activist, Michael Richter, in the town of Freital, on the outskirts of Dresden in eastern Germany.

Richter, a 39-year old town councillor for the socialist party Die Linke (“The Left”) was not in the car at the time, and fortunately noone was harmed by the blast, which damaged a nearby car.

While police are yet to assign blame, Richter is certain that the attack came from right-wing groups in the area, who have threatened him repeatedly in recent months over his campaigning work for refugees.

"I am one of the faces in Freital who say we are for asylum, and I think that's the reason for the attack," Richter said after the blast.

"Threats have now become reality. They are trying to scare me, but I will not give up,"

Germany has seen a steady rise in violence against asylum seekers in the past year, with the German Federal Ministry of the Interior recording 202 attacks in the first six months of 2015 alone, compared to 162 in all of 2014 and 58 in 2013.

Thermopylae or Versailles? Greece deal threatens to destroy the European project

Europe, as we know it, appears to be over. 

The promise of a peaceful integration of capitalist equals lies tattered on the floor of a negotiation room in Brussels. There, the SYRIZA-led Greek government finally succumbed to the blackmail, economic carpet-bombing and “mental water-boarding” of the institutions of European capitalism.

The final weeks of the debt negotiations culminating in a cynical political coup against Greece have laid bare the undemocratic, technocratic nature of the European Union (EU), which operates as a thieves’ kitchen to protect vested financial interests at an incalculable human cost.

For many, the brutal humiliation of the Greek government and people heralds the end of the dream that the EU could be softly nudged towards a benevolent economic and political union. For others on both the political far left and far right, it provides further justification for a perspective of exiting the EU to return social and political issues to a primarily national level.

German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, an intellectual figurehead of European integration, told The Guardian on 17 July that the outcome of the negotiations means that the “European Council is effectively declaring itself politically bankrupt”. 

Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman, described the terms of the deal as “madness”, and argued that “[w]hat we’ve learned these past couple of weeks is that being a member of the Eurozone means that the creditors can destroy your economy if you step out of line.”

“This goes beyond harsh into pure vindictiveness, complete destruction of national sovereignty, and no hope of relief … it’s a grotesque betrayal of everything the European project was supposed to stand for,” he said. 

Ireland: British collusion exposed in hundreds of paramilitary murders

The BBC’s Panorama program on May 28 made explosive revelations about British state collusion with paramilitaries in the North of Ireland, implicating it in the murder of hundreds of people, and in subsequent cover-ups.

The documentary, titled "Britain’s Secret Terror Deals", detailed British security forces collusion with illegal paramilitary groups in the North on a vast scale, running thousands of informants and agents, many of them known criminals and murderers.

Former Police Ombudsman Baroness Nuala O’Loan told the program that some paramilitary informants recruited by the security forces during “the Troubles” were serial killers, and that their crimes – including murder, intimidation, drug smuggling and terrorism – were covered up.

“They were running informants and they were using them,” O’Loan told the program.

“Their argument was that by so doing they were saving lives, but hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people died because those people were not brought to justice and weren’t stopped in their tracks,” she said.

"There was impunity really for these people to go on committing their crimes. Many of them were killers, some were serial killers."