The Irish Republican Socialist Party, and the wider working class in general look on in alarm as the Green Party enter negotiations with the current Fine Gael government and their historic rivals in Fianna Fáil.
The Green Party were one of the principal beneficiaries of the recent sea-change in Irish electoral politics. The results of the February 2020 General election showed that the Irish people had enough of the cosy consensus between the established parties of the 26 counties which had lasted for the best part of a century. For the first time since the formation of the state the ‘big two’ civil war traditions represented today by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael failed to receive more that 50% of the total vote between them.
Faced with this radical new vista and the potential to build real opposition to the ruling class establishment parties, we are very concerned to see the Green Party flirting with the idea of betraying the vote for change in the recent election – and in fact toying with the idea of a coalition government with the parties most representative of exploitative Irish capitalism and environmental pollution.
This will be an issue the Greens will have to grapple with internally, and we see it as a contradiction in terms that cannot be easily resolved. We implore the Green Party and all the parties of the progressive left to turn away from the seductive glances of the capitalist class and their representatives in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and join the working class left in a real fight for economic and environmental justice.
