Davy Stockbrokers Says Sinn Féin Safe For Capitalism

Davy Stockbrokers, a voice of the greedy rich, say a Sinn Fein government would be a safe pair of hands for investors, for vultures and the rich.

The report says Sinn Féin are more like Tony Blair’s New Labour than like Jeremy Corbyn’s wing of Labour and says the policies that most threatened landlords have been watered down.

The ruling class can sometimes be very honest when it comes to defending their money. But is our class, the working class, clear on what a Sinn Féin led government will actually do?

Obviously most workers want to get rid of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. They’ve lorded it over us for close to a century and brought us the worst housing crisis in memory. Most workers would vote for the Devil himself if he promised to get rid of the establishment parties and deliver housing!

If only there was a way for working class socialists to support a Sinn Féin government, get rid if Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael but keep an independent voice so that we could stop Sinn Féin’s inevitable merger with the establishment?

Luckily there is - it is called external support. Socialist TDs could simply stay out of a Sinn Féin government and when the vote for Taoiseach happened vote against the establishment and for Mary Lou McDonald but warn Sinn Féin our support is case by case and only as long as they continue to win gains for workers.

Remember a Sinn Féin led left government would need to make up numbers by including the austerity imposing Labour Party, the rotten Greens and the weak Soc Dems. This is not a radical government and socialists would have a duty to squeeze as much from it as possible.

We have to warn workers of the danger of Sinn Féin ditching the left and joining with Fianna Fáil in power. If they refused to form a left government with socialists supporting from an external position of strength then that simply reveals their true intention is power and not real change.

From Palestine to pandering to anti immigration forces Sinn Féin have already shown their inability to stand up to the ruling class. This is nothing new - remember when they wouldn’t advise people to tear up water bills because they didn’t advocate breaking the law?

Why aren’t socialists popularising external support? There is a problem inside People Before Profit because the two biggest factions, the Socialist Workers Network and Rise, both suggest insinuating to workers we’d join a government under capitalism and that is our best bet.

They say such a government could “break the rules” of the system. In reality, talk of a left government that breaks the rules when we face the slim prospect of a Sinn Féin led left government is insulting to workers.

The idea of a parliamentary majority of socialists any time in the near future is silly. It took the intense water movement to get a handful of socialists into the Dáil and the level of struggle required to fill the whole chamber would mean a revolution had come and gone.

In reality when you push the SWN or Rise on this they’ll say the idea of a parliamentary majority of socialists forming a left government that breaks the rules is an “imagination projection” or a “creative illusion” (seriously!)

It other words it’s a fantasy we tell workers to get them to feel we’d join a left government of the future, insinuating in the present we’d join Sinn Féin in government. They are committed to avoiding talking about reality.

Patronising to workers eh? Give workers a fantasy to avoid spelling out what we actually need! And at a time when the entire political spectrum is shifting right.

That’s why we have the Red Network fighting inside People Before Profit - we need to push for a working class left that’s willing to do everything we can to squeeze as much from a Sinn Fein government as possible while maintaining an independent working class voice voice that can lead protests and strikes.

It starts with believing in our class, mobilising our class to fight and having grown up conversations about Sinn Féin’s shift to the right and the joy felt in ruling class circles that they’ll be a “safe pair of hands!”

Davy Stockbrokers see it - why won’t you?