After far right forces brought thousands onto the street at the end of April, Barney Doherty responds to the confusion on the left, arguing for a return to basic anti-racist, internationalist principles.
The march organised by an assortment of far right forces in Dublin at the end of April should mark the end of complacency on the Irish left. Six or eight years ago it may have seemed as if Ireland was immune from the growing influence of right-wing populism making deep inroads elsewhere: in Brazil, the US, Italy, France and the UK, the political polarisation festering since the 2008 crash found expression in the rise of an ‘anti-establishment’ far right. But Ireland seemed to be an exception: as late as 2023, observers noted that the absence of a credible far right made Ireland an ‘outlier across the globe’.
When a gaggle of grifters and wannabe führers tried to organise meetings in parts of the South for Nigel Farage and others of his ilk, they could count the crowds that turned out on two hands. In the North, the long association of the British far right with the most notorious sectarian murder gangs—and the Belfast left’s ability to respond with well organised united front counter demonstrations—meant that organised fascists had a very small pond in which to swim.
Although the Irish far right remains relatively weak—more the pet project of a few notorious landlords and grifters than a well-organised political movement—the turnout for the Dublin march means that the time for complacency is over. North and South, the left across Ireland must make it their priority over the coming period to build an anti-racist united front that will work day and night expose the far right as the tool of the status quo, and to redirect the deep despair that fascists aim to exploit into a fight against those at the top.
Confusion on the left
While breaking from the illusion that ‘it can’t happen here’, we must resist the sense of panic and confusion that has gripped sections of the left since the Dublin march. Debate and discussion about the way forward are essential, but we need to avoid the temptation to abandon fundamental principles for a political quick fix. The panic among some on the left is obvious: commentary has been circulating on everything from the necessity of public mobilisations against far-right rallies to our approach to immigration.
For some, the answer to building bigger lies in meeting the far-right nonsense halfway. But at a time when migrants, refugees and long-established Black Irish citizens are being subject to vile and aggressive racism, it’s an embarrassment that sections of the left are echoing the right in talking up ‘concerns’ on immigration; elsewhere there are some arguing that the solution lies in ‘reclaiming the tricolour’—as if the problem has been the shortage of flags.
Nobody should be surprised by the size of this demonstration. The deep and sustained crisis of global capitalism—managed by a vicious ruling class in Dublin for the benefit of mega-corporations and vulture landlords, and from Stormont by a ‘cross-community’ elite that has overseen the decimation of the NHS and the collapse of public services—has brought deep despair to large sections of the working class. While posing everywhere as an ‘anti-establishment’ force, the essential function of the far right on both sides of the border (but especially in the South, where their growth is more impressive) has been to shore up the existing inequalities—by redirecting legitimate anger over massive inequality, the ongoing housing and homelessness crisis, and the gutting down of public services against immigrants and migrants. Presenting themselves as a threat to the establishment, they are instead the very opposite: a gift to the status quo.
The right has gained a foothold for their racism among some workers who are looking for answers to the crisis. At the same time, in every city and town there are majorities that can be mobilised around a clear vision that combines class politics and uncompromising anti-racism.
Being outnumbered, considering the way the right have held the initiative for three years, should not be a challenge to the general strategy of counter protesting fascist-led rallies. The growth of the far right was not going to be solved in any one off encounters, but the united front that was pulled together is a template for the left to build on. It represented forces of the organised working class that will be necessary to turn the tide and smash the organised coherence of the far-right.
Parts of the left are seemingly unable to recognise this longer term orientation. They are demoralised by the past years of difficulty and the reality facing us: the widespread racist and reactionary sentiments growing in society. It’s all too common today to hear talk of ‘legitimate concerns’ about immigration in working class neighbourhoods.
These ‘concerns’ start from the reality of significant inequality in Irish society but rather than appointing blame in the rich and landlord class, migrants are scapegoated. The movements led by these particular concerned citizens never call for increased services but rather join a race to the bottom by targeting the most vulnerable in their communities. Some on the left are flinching and want to tail the shift to the right by ceding ground on questions of immigration control or whether it’s right for asylum seekers to be housed in working class communities. Their justification is that under capitalism there exists artificial scarcity, and so we must defend the ‘Irish working class’.
These conservative forces of the left counter-pose countering the far right with local community work – in effect, a return to the gas and water socialist politics of William Walker. It should go without saying that local work is vital for socialists. We must sink roots in working class communities by finding issues that relate to people in their day-to-day lives and agitate on them. But this cannot be counter-posed to conscious anti-racist and anti-fascist organising. The argument for why we need to counter has been put elsewhere, here I want to talk about the pitfall of the approach that rejects principled anti-racist politics in building the working class movement. Far from winning back layers of workers who have been influenced by the far right, this approach will relinquish even more ground to the reactionaries and only further weaken working class unity. A cursory glance at our movement’s history would show how revolutionary socialists responded to previous iterations of immigration hysteria.
Old arguments
In the late 19th and early 20th century there was a major wave of international immigration. Debate broke out in the international socialist movement. Parties from the USA and Australia led calls for limitations on the movement of workers across borders. Like sections of the republican and socialist left in Ireland today, they spoke of the immigrating workers as competition for resources and a challenge to wages in the west.
They were reacting to the growth of racist ideas among their national working class, with workers agitating for laws barring immigration from countries like China and Japan. In the Second International, the organisation of socialist parties and trade unions, this opportunism found significant opposition. These proposals were roundly defeated and instead a policy of defending the freedom of movement and organising immigrants as fellow workers with common interests in an international class struggle was passed.
Contemporary attempts to veil anti-immigration ideas in the language of class politics are nothing new: immigration being presented as a particularly significant factor of globalised neoliberalism to disrupt labour conditions; border controls being said to be an expression of progressive national sovereignty; or the opposition to house asylum seekers in working class areas being said to be simply about resources. These capitulations are just the latest expression of a history of opportunistic failure to uphold the principles of the socialist class politics.
In standing for limitations on immigration, they give credence to the false idea that there is some shared ‘national interest’. This undermines the basic building of working class consciousness by sowing illusions that it is divided into rival national camps. This will only deepen divisions within the class and weaken any class consciousness, not strengthen the position of Irish workers. There can be no socialism in one country.
The internationalist working class tradition goes back to Marx. In 1870 he was arguing in England that any working class political movement would be ruined if it did not unite with the interests of the most oppressed section of the working class, the Irish immigrants:
“Every industrial and commercial centre in England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker he regards himself as a member of the ruling nation and consequently he becomes a tool of the English aristocrats and capitalists against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself. He cherishes religious, social, and national prejudices against the Irish worker. His attitude towards him is much the same as that of the “poor whites” to the Negroes in the former slave states of the U.S.A. The Irishman pays him back with interest in his own money. He sees in the English worker both the accomplice and the stupid tool of the English rulers in Ireland.
“This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short, by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes. This antagonism is the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite its organization. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power. And the latter is quite aware of this.”
In Marx’s time, England was the most advanced capitalist country and therefore a vital site of struggle for the workers’ revolution. Despite the importance of the English working class to Marx’s perspective he never suggested that socialists should adapt to regressive demands to end Irish immigration. He was adamant that the success of socialist politics in England was impossible if it was not united on the basis of the demands of the most oppressed workers. He stated the ‘sole means of hastening’ revolution in England was to make Ireland independent and so English workers must take up this call.
Marx tasked the English branch of the International Working Men’s Association (the First International) to “make the English workers realise that for them the national emancipation of Ireland is not a question of abstract justice or humanitarian sentiment but the first condition of their own social emancipation.”
Building on this internationalist tradition, Lenin was even more forceful in attacking those in the workers’ movement who argued for immigration controls. In 1915 when attempting to establish the new Third International, a direct response to the opportunistic betrayal of the Second International during WW1, Lenin wrote the following to socialists in the US.
Internationalism
Principled approaches to immigration and working class unity for revolutionaries like Marx and Lenin were a red line. For them, it was up to class-conscious workers to resist any artificial national and racial division and endeavour to organise the entire class. This internationalist understanding of working class politics retains its importance today, it would be ruinous for the socialist left to forget it.
History is useful to orientate socialists dealing with questions of perspective and understanding why principles emerge. However, in Ireland we have a more contemporary reason to be unsurprised when workers are influenced by reactionary views.
Loyalism is a reactionary ideology that holds sway over a sizeable section of workers. Socialists in the Connolly tradition have had a consistent approach for over 100 years. We do not write off loyalist workers, knowing that the radical Protestant tradition shows that workers can be won to socialist class politics even if they are currently influenced by loyalism.
However, simultaneously we do not give an inch to loyalism’s sectarian ideas when attempting to build that socialist support. As James Connolly warned “no good, but infinite evil, can come of truckling to [loyalism]”. But he also said that “there is no use blaming [workers influenced by loyalism]”. It is a historic law of class society that popular classes are divided and pitched against each other by their rulers. In place of either pitfall of acquiescence or moralistic blame, Connolly points to class politics.
Sectarianism and racism play very similar roles in Irish society. Both are fostered and spread from above as a means to divide the working class and distract from the reality of class inequality. Both are capable of having adherents in the working class despite being contrary to workers immediate interests. So how we respond to both can be very similar.
Seán Mitchell writes that:
The same is true for racism under capitalism. The same social anger that allows racism to sink roots in working class communities can be used in a progressive way against the very class society that creates it. This necessitates a class politics but to suggest this can be built by remaining blind to oppression is a dead end. You can ignore racism or sectarianism but it won’t ignore you. Working class politics cannot be built unless it is simultaneously and consciously anti-sectarian, anti-racist, and anti-oppression to defend it from future divide-and-rule tactics from the state or right-wing.
Who is the Irish working class?
The working class in Ireland today is not united, outside of the small advanced layers it is not yet class conscious. It is the job of socialists to intervene in the day-to-day life of the class and point a way to unity against the landlords, bosses, multinationals and state.
But who is the Irish working class? To some, particularly in the left republican tradition, this Irish working class is defined by citizenship. Their interests are therefore counter-posed to the interests of workers who are not born here. For Marxists, this is a nonsensical demarcation. The Irish working class are the section of an international class who happen to sell their labour on this island. Our power lies in our relationship to production, not in our passport.
To forge a unity of this diverse layer, we do not simply demand the integration of those new to the island. We do not bury the grievances and political demands of the most oppressed sections of workers because of potential reaction. The kind of unity we are seeking to build has to be on the terms of the most oppressed sections of our class, because it is only united that we have strength. Socialists cannot be blind to racial, gender, sexual or other oppressions because the working class cannot self-emancipate itself if it is at its own throat.
Irish workers will not advance if we don’t stand side-by-side with migrant neighbours and co-workers in the fight against racism and exploitation. Our message must be unwavering that we have more in common with migrant workers and asylum seekers than Irish bosses and landlords. This is not just about embracing diversity, but about moving beyond that to show that the divisions that are fostered by capitalism are the death knell for movements that seek to improve the conditions of workers generally.
Every workers’ campaign from trade unionism to housing will be weakened if we fail to show people born here that it is in their interest to defend the rights of immigrant workers and refugees. This task becomes impossible if we bend to and tail the growth of reaction in sections of the working class. Socialists in Ireland need to recognise the scale of the struggle ahead and steel ourselves to the task at hand. If you capitulate now, where will you end up?
Marxists argue that class struggle not only has the ability to change society but in the struggle it can change the individual. The ‘muck of ages’ can be thrown off when we fight collectively. It’s easy to lose sight of this reality when the level of struggle subsides, but it is a historical fact.
However, another historical fact is that if class politics do not simultaneously insist on challenging the sources of division in the class, whether racism, sectarianism or other forms, any resurgence of struggle will be short-lived.
We are in an incredibly polarised political moment.. Society is ripe for social upheaval, but it is uncertain which route this will take. Momentum could swiftly shift in our direction again, but regardless we will be faced with difficult times and complex questions. In this era of reaction, we must return to first principles. The working class is international, our interests are international, our flag stays red.
