sinn fein and greens using weak arguaments against Nice
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Thursday September 12, 2002 14:28
by curious
sinn fein and greens using weak arguaments against Nice
some useful information is being produced on the Nice referendum. I have found so far that the arguaments being used by libertarians and some of the left groups is harder hitting. Pana is limited to the neutrality issue and sinn fein and the greens are very weak on their social and economic analysis and with a non existant class analysis altogether.
Comments (6 of 6)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6the weakness of sf and the greens arguaments on Nice is as a result of their analysis of the EU. They refuse to recognise that the EU is becoming a new empire with attendant imperialist policies. They possible think it can be reformed also.
maybe the eu is being clever and offering a few junkets and other trinkets to the natives, that sometimes works also, or are they just naive? or maybe they reserve strong terminology such as imperialist for use exclusively against the brits?
Sinn Féin is very aware of the social and economic aspects of Nice, its consequences for privatisation and its role in the neo-liberal agenda.
One of our five TDs, Seán Crowe, was to deal with it in his speech to Leinster House and having written the damn thing I'm very aware of what he was going to say on the subject. Denied time to speak he sent an edited version into the Irish Times letters page.
Sinn Féin representatives have been in contact with two broad based groups who intend to work on the Article 133 element in particular.
In a ny referendum campaign a party cannot highlight every single element. We chose to highlight democracy, neutrality and independence. This does not mean that we are ignoring the social and economic consequences of Nice and we are producing material and publicity on it, but that we are highlighting other areas as the best way of winning this referendum.
>>Sinn Féin is very aware of the social and economic aspects of Nice, its consequences for privatisation and its role in the neo-liberal agenda
Would that be neo-liberal agenda and privatisation as in PPFs in the North's schools and hospitals a la De Brun and McGuinness?
>Would that be neo-liberal agenda and >privatisation as in PPFs in the North's schools >and hospitals a la De Brun and McGuinness?
They're PFI's actually, much the same thing. And not a day goes by I don't smile with unrestrained joy at the idea of privatising some school. Gives me the motivation to get out of bed in the morning.
For the record, the Assembly has no tax raising powers, SF is in a coalition with pro-privatisation parties where we are a minority party. We're very much aware of what a bad idea PFI is, we're also a little more aware of reality and the context of the Assembly asnd the naature of the Six Counties state. The only other option I've ever heard the micro-left come up with is resigning from the Assembly on this issue. Which really proves my point about awareness of reality, though some acknowledge the difficulties and complexity of the issue in private, that won't do so in public. How noble of them.
Give us a break and try to come up with a better arguement for justifying the privatisation of Health & education. McGuinness's track record in Education would do any right-wing hack proud, attacking the term-time workers, the 11 plus, PFI etc. DeBruin is waiting until after the assembly elections before shutting Omagh hospital. The Labour Party have been peddling this one for donkey's years, just like they would say wait until after the election and we'll hold a conference to decide whether we'll go into coalition (sound familiar)
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