Derry City and Strabane Cllr. Shaun Harkin argues that we need socialist organisation to build a challenge to an increasingly dangerous and authoritarian elite.
Nigel Farage, Ian Paisley Jr. and Conor McGregor were all in the US to celebrate Donald Trump’s inauguration as US President.
The danger Trump and his administration poses to the globe is clear from his saviour speech and the many Executive orders he signed immediately.
Mass deportation of immigrant workers, attacks on the LGBTQ community, pardons for fascists behind the January 6 2021 US Capitol putsch attempt and the lifting of sanctions against murderous Israeli settlers all demonstrate the direction of travel of Trump’s second administration.
The prominence of Elon Musk, the richest man on the planet, and a raft of billionaire CEOs, makes clear this is an administration of the ruling class and for the ruling class.
Often governments seek to hide the influence and control of ruling elites in order to maintain a semblance of class neutrality, but not this administration.
The Trump Administration is a blatant example of James Connolly’s warning to the working-class that “governments in capitalist society are but committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class”.
All of Trump’s billionaires oppose trade union rights for workers, and are lining-up with his promise of a more authoritarian state.
Billionaires and capitalist elites have never thought democracy is a good idea. Trade unions challenge their ability to profiteer with no concern for those labouring, for communities or planet.
Elections are a nuisance because there’s always the possibility a government will be elected that will try to tax them properly and constrain their ability to commercialise every aspect of human existence.
Trump’s billionaires want a stronger American state that can use the threat of military and economic terror to dominate the globe and protect their wealth.
Farage, Paisley, McGregor and others were in Washington because they want to be proxies to the project of promoting toxic division in the service of billionaire authoritarian rule.
Working-class communities across Ireland, North and South, should heed Connolly’s warning and set about the urgent task of building resistance to destructive government policies on health, housing, energy and education that are hurting ordinary people and rewarding profiteers.
Justifed working-class resentment needs to be directed upwards at government and capitalist elites and towards the project of, not just a Shared Island or New Ireland, but a Socialist Workers Republic for all.
Mass movements are a requirement for effective resistance and fundamental change, but revolutionaries should also build a mass party.
People Before Profit is a 32-county Socialist Party inspired by James Connolly’s revolutionary politics and vision.
People Before Profit representatives in the Dáil, Stormont and Council’s in the North and South practice revolutionary parliamentarianism as a means of giving expression to working class resentment, exposing the corruption of government officials with corporate elites, encouraging and amplifying campaigns and movement demands, and putting forward alternative proposals that challenge the logic of capitalism and Ireland’s entanglement with imperialism.
A party rooted in working class communities with activist leaders in workplaces, trade unions, schools and local campaigns is key to resisting right-wing ideological assaults designed to cause division and to constructing the conditions for mass movements and struggles to take shape.
Our ultimate goal is a government and society without billionaire parasites and corporate elites, a government of and for the working class and all those in favour of equality, justice, democracy and global solidarity.
Our demands are most moderate, we want the earth. And we need it urgently to give humanity a chance.
