Left Gain in Irish elections

There have been some significant gains for the left in local elections in Ireland.

The Anti-Austerity Alliance (which includes the Socialist Party / CWI) have won 14 seats - and now have councillors in the three main cities in Ireland. There were 4 outgoing Socialist Party councillors.

The People Before Profit Alliance ( which includes the SWP) have won 12 seats. The PBPA had 5 outgoing councillors.

The Socialist Party also won a hard fought parliamentary by-election and now have 2 members of parliament in Ireland.

There were also a number of left independent councillors elected.

The Euro elections have yet to be counted - outgoing Socialist Party MEP Paul Murphy is fighting to retain his seat but is likely to lose out as a result of a massive surge to Sinn Fein in the Euro elections in the last few days.

Sinn Fein's EU Parliament gain is the biggest Irish left gain of them all.

Is Sinn Fein a left party though? I'm not being snarky, I actually don't know.

Sinn Fein are not a left party - their vote is an anti-austerity vote - but they are already doing deals with right-wing parties to divide up the spoils of office on the local councils.

Furthermore Sinn Fein have refused to back a boycott campaign against the imposition of water charges - saying they will abolish them when in government (in the meantime - potentially years - what are working class people supposed to do?)

A quick update - PBPA have won a further seat in Sligo.

Not that this in and of itself makes Sinn Fein not a left party. Several left parties all over Europe vote for austerity measures, be it mostly on more local/regional levels.

Sinn Fein, not the Can't-get-their-acts-together-and-stop-gossiping United Left Alliance or now United Left, is the European United Left / Nordic Green Left's grouping from Ireland.

[This should be clear - if they vote for austerity they are not 'left'

Being part of the GUE/NGL grouping in the EU Parliament does not indicate being on the left. Sinn Fein are a nationalist party using left rhetoric and playing an opposition role in the Parliament but saying on the streets 'vote for us and we will make it better' rather than organising opposition on the streets and in the communities - the approach of the AAA (and to a lesser degree the PBPA) is the opposite. Now the blatant sectarianism of the SWP has the potential to cause many problems - but we will deal with these as they come up. I haven't checked the counts but it looks like the PBPA running candidates who split the left vote cost other lefts (AAA and others) possibly four other seats (and two of the seats they won were on the piggyback of the campaigns of other lefts).

Update - PBPA won another council seat in Wexford. Paul Murphy SP/CWI fails to retain MEP seat being eliminated with just over 41,000 votes.

Die Linke isn't left? The Danish Red-Green Alliance? (these were the only ones that sprung to my mind atm)