Socialist Party

The Socialist Party is an all Ireland party organised throughout the South of Ireland and Northern Ireland. We have been active since the early 1970s, previously known as Militant and Militant Labour we became the Socialist Party in 1997.

The Socialist Party has a proven track record of campaigning and fighting for the rights of working class people. We were instigators and leaders of the successful campaign which defeated the water charges, an unjust double tax that a government minister claimed would be €700 a year if it was still in place. Socialist Party public representatives Joe Higgins and Councillor Clare Daly spent a month in Mountjoy Prison because of their leadership of the campaign against bin charges, which as we predicted have increased year after year.

Joe Higgins and the Socialist Party played a crucial role in the victory of the Gama workers struggle which resulted in them being repaid tens of millions in “stolen” wages. We have supported and assisted countless workers struggles and strikes over the last forty years. Our members are organising throughout the trade union movement to build an alternative to the right-wing trade unions leaders who for decades have been in social partnership deals with governments and the employers that have resulted in a huge shift in wealth away from the working class to the profits of big business and the super-rich. We believe there is a need for workers to reclaim the trade unions to transform them into democratic fighting trade unions who put the interests of working class people first.

For a new working class party
All of the major political parties including Labour support the capitalist market system. The Socialist Party believes that the working class need a new political force capable of providing a real alternative to the establishment parties and we support the building of a new mass working class party which is committed to struggling for socialism.

Joe Higgins
Joe Higgins was a Socialist Party TD for ten years before narrowly losing his seat at the last general election. As a TD, Joe Higgins was known as the real opposition and he continues to campaign on behalf of working people and played a major role in the campaign which defeated the Lisbon Treaty.  The Socialist Party has councillors on Fingal Council, South Dublin County Council and on Cork City Council. The party in these and many other areas around he country has been to the forefront in campaigning against for a decent public health service, against the health and education cuts and has fought for years against the crazy planning rezonings that allowed developers to make billions whilst leaving communities with no schools and facilities.

Anti-war, anti-racism, anti-fascist
The Socialist Party and our youth section Socialist Youth have campaigned against the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank and the Sri Lankan government’s war against the Tamils. We have also organised against racism through our Youth Against Racism in Europe campaign, and have organised and successfully stopped the fascist historian David Irving from speaking in universities around the country. In Northern Ireland and Britain we have proud record of campaigning against the fascist National Front and other fascist groups including the BNP.

Socialist Youth members were involved in the establishment of Free Education for Everyone which is campaigning against the re-introduction of third level fees.

Northern Ireland
In Northern Ireland the Socialist Party we have campaigned for nearly 40 years for unity of the working class, Protestant and Catholic as the only solution to the conflict. We have been the only political party of the left which has consistently refused to bend to the pressures of religious sectarianism. We based ourselves on the broad labour movement and on the youth. Arguing that the labour movement had the potential power to cut across the sectarian division and show a way forward we challenged the refusal of the trade union leadership to intervene. It was our members who organised the first strikes against sectarian intimidation. We answered paramilitary threats against Catholic workers in the civil service with walkouts by Catholics and Protestants. When similar threats were made by republicans against Protestants we did the same. It was the movement that emerged from these initiatives that began the peace process.

Whereas the trade union leaders have refused to get involved in politics we have argued that the only way to cut across the influence of sectarian and right wing parties is to challenge them by building a mass party of the working class, based on socialist policies. We support the continuation of a peace process rather than a return to a sectarian conflict which would set back the working class movement. However the current process is based on uniting sectarian politicians and keeping the working class divided. It institutionalises sectarianism and will not bring a lasting settlement. A real peace process must be built from the bottom up; through people in the working class communities coming together to tackle the problem of sectarian attacks, of injustice and of poverty. It will not be handed down from the ruling classes of Britain, the South of Ireland or the US. It is the working class who have suffered from the troubles and it is the working class who can bring a solution.

The national problem is intractable and insoluble on the basis of capitalism. We are for a socialist solution - working class unity to bring about a socialist Ireland as a free and voluntary part of a socialist federation of Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales and, on a wider scale, of a socialist European federation.

International socialism
The Socialist Party believes that the economic, social and environmental problems of society are caused by capitalism. On an international basis it is possible to provide every human with a decent standard of living that affords them a good education, quality health care, a home, a healthy diet and a safe and clean environment. Yet we live in a world in which 43% of the global workforce lives in absolute poverty earning less than $2 dollars a day. A world where hundreds of millions are refugees forced to flee numerous wars, ethnic and civil conflicts. A world in which there is a shortage of 2.3 million doctors, nurses and midwives and 536,000 women die in childbirth every year because of inadequate healthcare, were 80% - 5.3 billion people have no social security coverage yet $1.5 trillion a year is spent on armaments and in 2009 the global financial system and the banks will receive a $15 trillion bailout! In the USA, CEOs are paid on average 521 times the wage of an average worker and in Ireland the top 1% of the population owns 34% of the wealth.

This poverty and inequality is caused by the capitalist system which puts profit before the needs of people. In a socialist society production would be planned to meet the needs of the majority and on a global scale socialism would be capable of eradicating poverty, end the causes of war and conflict and collectively use the resources of humanity to deal with global warming.

We believe it is necessary to build an international of socialist parties committed to the overthrow of capitalism and for the building of a socialist world which is why the Socialist Party is affiliated to the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) which brings together socialists in over 40 countries – see www.socialistworld.net

Join the Socialist Party – today!
The world recession is inflicting unimaginable suffering on the working class and poor of the neo-colonial majority world and in the advanced capitalist countries tens of millions are losing their jobs and are being impoverished. Increasingly people are questioning capitalism and are looking for an alternative to provide a better life for them and their families. The Socialist Party is committed to building a viable political alternative that can unite the majority of people in a struggle for socialism.

We want you to join the Socialist Party – every new member has an important role to play in helping to build a political alternative to the capitalist establishment parties. Join us today and join the struggle for a socialist society.