SWP to launch new front

national | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis Tuesday September 06, 2005 23:53 by Insider

The SWP is about to launch the 'Davitt League' in October, using the Rossport Five campaign as a Trojan Horse to build a Respect style front, dominated by that party.

Heres how the latest edition of Socialist Worker puts it: "The Davitt League is an exciting development which could be the basis for the emergence of a new left movement in Ireland. Labour, the Greens and Sinn Fein refuse to rule out coalition with right-wing, privatising, pro-war parties. A new left movement of people-power can give a political voice to campaigns and help to build a movement to defeat neoliberalism and war".

Convinced that they can never grow as a serious force on the left without a soft coating that disguises their Leninist idelogy and dismayed at their failure to emulate the Socialist Partys limited electoral success, the SWP has spent the last few years trying to build an alliance that would provide a platform for them to grow in size and influence. Initially, following the Socialist Alliance model in England, they tried to link up with other sects on the far left but rebufffed by the total rejection of any alliance by the Socialist Party and the disdain with which they are held by most of the smaller sects they abandoned the short lived Irish version of this strategy.

The desire to emulate the relative sucess of the Respect model in England has been hampered by a lack of allies (in the form of prominent parliamentarian like Galloway or other far lefts willling to tag along) and the absence of a secure electoral base such as the inner-city Islamic communities that gave Galloway his seat and a passable percentage to other Respect candidates. Instead the Irish SWP has been restricted to trying to build a political front from single issue campaigns, of which the most successful has been the IAWM. The problem they have faced with this is that the IAWM has no purchase in working class communities and has alienated the direct action/libertarian section of the anti-war movement which is dominant outside of Dublin. Other campaigns that might provide a possible foundation, such as the anti bin tax or the various anti racist campaigns are not really suitable because the SWP do not dominate and these contain many experienced politicos, wise to the party's manipulation.

The 'Davitt League', with genuine Rossport and other campaigners naively fronting it, is the SWP's way of overcoming these difficulties, leap-frogging most of the left and drawing in the more inexperienced elements. It would also have the benefit of checking the development of the initiative launched by the independent TD Seamus Healy and a number of smaller far left groups to build a new left party, an initiative from which the SWP was seemingly excluded. The SWP leadership hope the 'Davitt League' will attract campaigners from various community and single issue campaigns (who they believe are more easily manipulated), force others on the left to get involved despite SWP domination, overtake their rivals in the Socialist Party and challenge Sinn Fein at a grassroots level. It remains to be seen if this takes off and how long it lasts before disillusioned fellow travellers exit in disgust at the inevitable manipulation by the party faithful a la IAWM, Socialist Alliance etc.