7 hours ago
People Before Profit members leave party over stance on coalition with Sinn Féin
A group of People Before Profit members, including a South Dublin County councillor, have left the party, criticising it for being open to government with Sinn Féin.
In a 3,000-word statement, the group calling itself the Red Network, which includes Clondalkin councillor Madeleine Johansson, says People Before Profit should not go into government with the main opposition party.
The group says it 'has always and will always push for united front social movements — like the water charges movement — to take on the government', but that 'practical unity on particular issues must be accompanied by free and open debate about political strategy and tactics'.
The group added: 'Political differences should be discussed openly in front of the working class. We feel that the Red Network has a special voice on the socialist left, a working-class voice, and we think it needs to be heard.'
While the group praises the likes of Richard Boyd Barrett, Gino Kenny, and councillor Conor Reddy, it says 'the nature of People Before Profit as an organisation means the fruits of all that work are often wasted'.
'32-county worker's republic'
The group says it will continue to work alongside many of the same activists, but 'the lines of political demarcation will be clearer'.
It says a Sinn Féin government would 'coalesce with the establishment and leave untouched the real government, the permanent government — the state bureaucracy, army chiefs, and head guards'.
The Red Network says it wants 'a 32-county worker's republic where assemblies of workers in workplaces and communities elect delegates, who are recallable, to a worker's national assembly'.
The statement says the current left is 'divided into those who talk about revolution but sit on the margins of the working class, or those who stand in elections and do work in communities but play down their socialist politics'.
The group says that People Before Profit has 'argued ... that we needed to drop anger and appear more respectable — in order to chase white-collar votes'.
'Those of us who went on to form the Red Network argued that failing to articulate the deep anger people felt in the estates would leave an opening for the far right to misdirect that anger."
The group says it believes 'student moralism has overtaken People Before Profit as the class basis of the party has changed'.
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