Sectarianism strikes again: Irish ULA crisis

On January 26, the Socialist Party (affiliated to the Committee for a Workers International, CWI) posted an article on its website announcing the end its membership of the United Left Alliance. This was one of the least surprising political developments on the Irish left as the Socialist Party (SP) had been steadily moving away from the alliance for more than a year.

Of course the SP was not the only component that has come under criticism. The SWP launched a front organisation, “Enough!”, within weeks of the 2011 election (in which the ULA had won five parliamentary seats). Early into 2012 the SWP then went on the re-launch the People Before Profit Alliance (PBPA) as a direct rival to the ULA .

Many cynics at the beginning of the process maintained that the SP and SWP would not be able to work together after decades of intense rivalry. Unfortunately, as the SP rank and file didn’t engage with the ULA, sectarian barriers were not broken down. A more nuanced view might be that the SWP viewed the alliance as a “popular front” to recruit from, while the SP viewed it as solely an electoral alliance, neither wanting the ULA as such to develop into a party as such.

The future of the ULA is uncertain at best – the basic notion of even non-aggression has already collapsed as the SWP, in a highly sectarian manner, is targeting ULA TD Joan Collins’ seat, and the SP is also said to be planning to run a candidate against Clare Daly. While the SP challenge will probably have little effect on Daly, and it has made no formal decision, the SWP is running a serious candidate who could easily split the vote and lose the seat.

The remaining independent (ie non-SP/SWP) ULA members are due to meet with TDs Clare Daly and Joan Collins to discuss a way forward on February 2, but it is unlikely that Collins and the SWP could remain in any form of alliance with the SWP threat hanging over her. Whether ULA independents are ready to continue in the husk of the ULA is an open question.