Ireland: ULA statement on SP leaving the Alliance

I Just returned from Ireland where I had the pleasure of spending some time with the comrades in the United Labor Alliance.  Along with that, a number of members of the ULA attended a meeting in Dublin of the Workers International Network where Roger Silverman spoke on our past, and the need for a new approach from the left in the changing world situation.  The meeting was sponsored by Clare Daly and Joan Collins, two members of the Irish parliament and the ULA

Some groups have left the ULA including the Socialist Party to which many ULA members once belonged.  The Socialist Party took the decision to leave the ULA when I was still in Ireland and the statement below is a response to that and is signed by three members of Parliament. Facts For Working People agrees with this statement.

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 "The United Left Alliance regrets the decision taken by Joe Higgins TD and the Socialist Party to leave the Alliance. We believe that they have made a serious mistake. The need for a new, broad and inclusive left, which will not on principle enter right wing governments with either Fine Gael or Fianna Fail is today more urgent than ever.
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Faced with a massive attack on jobs, pay, pensions, working conditions, welfare payments and entitlements, health and education and other essential social services, working people need an independent and radical political movement which will seek to represent them, help organise them, and above all, fight on their behalf.

The ULA was formed with the intention to bring together existing left groups along with individual members to help lay the basis over time to enable a new party of the left to come into existence. It was inevitable that there would be difficulties in bringing together groups who have had a long period of independent activity and indeed rivalry.

We believe it is necessary to work to overcome such problems and to create the conditions in which the ULA can achieve its undoubted potential.

It is unfortunate that the Socialist Party feels it necessary to create or exaggerate political differences to justify their action in leaving the Alliance. In reality their decision reflects an inability to put the urgent task of building a broader movement to more effectively represent working people before the narrow interests of their own small grouping.

Richard Boyd Barrett TD. Clare Daly TD. Joan Collins TD."

Joan Collins

Clare Daly

Richard Boyd Barrett