“[The EU] helped us to achieve real sovereignty, ” so spoke now-Taoiseach Micheál Martin in April 2024. This sickening obedience to foreign capital, the disregard of Ireland’s history of British occupation and EU-imposed austerity, the puppetting of our political elite by Brussels elicited rage, dissent and passion from all corners of society, but this energy was captured by the Right. Surprisingly, despite the outrageous comment, no criticism came from the parliamentary Left. Today, the dividing line between revolutionary and establishment forces can be neatly drawn by their position on sovereignty, and the willingness to speak out through the lens of anti-imperialist politics.
Sovereignty should not be an obscene word on the Left, precisely because Ireland is not sovereign. Our so-called leaders are tied by a thousand threads to the sinister cathedral of Brussels, made up of unelected EU bureaucrats, military strategists and Thatcherite technocrats. Death with its bloody scythe takes respite at Shannon, before walking to lands afar, our airport used by the U.S as a military outpost to transport war equipment to the NATO and Israeli war machines. At the same time, in the fields of the 6 counties, occupation by a foreign power sowed the seeds of imperialism long ago, and with its 7,000-strong colonial military police in the RUC/PSNI partitions the land to this day. The stress placed on the domestic political elite by this tripartite nexus results in an intoxicating pull, economic and ideological, hence Ireland’s deference to centers of power, the imperialist projects of Brussels, Washington and Westminster. A subservient relationship is set up in which Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil praise these foreign capitalists, shake their hands and endow them with shamrocks, bow to their every wishes; too docile, too meek, and too cowardly to stand up for little Ireland. This state of affairs has been described to be as dire as compradorism, where the State is mechanically locked to do the bidding of foreign powers; but it suffices to say that the Irish political elite is so heavily influenced in its culture by outside forces that it abandons the national interest. The working masses of Ireland cede control to the political elite, and the political elite are co-conspirators with the imperialists, cheered on by members of the wealth-owning class like billionaire Denis O’Brien, and hence national liberation is workers’ liberation, workers’ liberation is national liberation, inextricably linked.
Sovereignty is a class issue. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash, the true nature of the EU revealed itself, as it decreed austerity on the working people of all constituted nations, particularly hitting Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain and Ireland. Unemployment, cuts to wages, downsizing of social services followed soon, enforced by the lapdogs of the state, as police violently attacked protestors: in the U.K at Millbank Tower; Greece at Syntagma Square; Ireland at the Department of Finance and so on as millions marched against the Brussels dictats, tear gassed, pepper sprayed and their skulls bleeding from the striking batons. The fighting spirit of the people was subdued, alternatives suppressed, followed by social murder: despair, suicides and poverty. Ireland burdened 42% of the financial shortfall, imposing neoliberal austerity on the people, the cause of today’s housing, cost-of-living and healthcare crisis. During the years of austerity, the wealthy got wealthier, and the poor got poorer, helped in no small part by Ireland’s role as a tax haven for multinational corporations.
It is the masses of people that produce wealth stolen by the capitalists, and it is the masses of people who will become cannon fodder in their wars. The creeping attempts to erode whatever little is left of Irish neutrality, and enjoin us to the military-industrial complex of NATO and its disastrous regime change operations across the world, is similarly a profoundly anti- working class policy practiced by our homegrown viceroys to imperialism. Statement by statement, the erosion of the ‘triple lock’ is normalized, EU re-armament presented as unavoidable and interventionism made common-sense. Post-colonial syndrome is on full display, with references to infantile Ireland needing to grow up, and enter the serious world of adult countries. The capitalist class is structurally deadlocked to counterbalance the falling rate of profit; hence Iraq, Libya and Syria yesterday, Russia and Iran today. There is only one victor in war, the capitalist class, and one vanquished, the working class. The imperial core sends its men and women to kill and to die; those in the Global South face death at the hands of overwhelming Western power, and if they survive, as they become refugees to flee the results of regime changes, are left to drown in the Mediterranean Sea by the murderous militarization of the Greek and Italian borders, sent to Libya to be tortured in prison as sanctioned by the EU, or succeeding the perilous journey, are scapegoated by the pro-austerity establishment for economic hardship they had no role in creating. In this infernal cycle, it is the interests of ordinary people which are sidelined in favour of profit.
What of our ability to dissent? When the European Commission, at its helm the Butcheress of Berlaymont Ursula Von Der Leyen, decrees to Ireland that it must implement hate speech laws, it too, is an anti-working class policy, coated with progressive aesthetics. It will be the working class who will suffer from the State’s expanded powers, as the authorities are bound to weaponize any and all legislation against resistance movements. It will be pro-Palestine activists who will bear the brunt at first. Ironically, it is precisely the EU’s austerity which has created the economic conditions to scapegoat minority groups, expressed by the rise of anti-immigration sentiments. Discrimination cannot be put to a stop by legal formalism. In the hands of a State so beholden to imperialism, such legislation is designed to do the bidding of the authorities to suppress those who dare challenge their bloody policies.
Ireland has a unique anti-imperial history, due to our struggle against British occupation. The working class of our country are natural outsiders to the Western imperial project. The instinctive sympathy of the Irish with the Palestinian cause as a result causes a dilemma for the political elite, who are forced to weigh between electoral cost and loss of favour with hegemonic actors. The political elite defer to Zionist Brussels, too cowardly to act on the initiative of the people, yet trying its best to appease in rhetoric. In the case of the Occupied Territories Bill, reference to European-level legislation as well as potential impact on foreign investment from the U.S was used to hesitate, defer and soften the bill, while with the Central Bank bonds valued between €100mn and €130mn, an outright rejection relies on Ireland’s interlocked economic structures with that of the EU, out of fear of sanctions. The use of Shannon Airport by the U.S, without the democratic consent of the people, is too taboo of a topic to even broach by the State, so it prefers to deny the weapons and ammunition facilitated through our land. There has to be a consummation at the end of this struggle: either the sovereign will of the people exorcises these foreign capitalists, or definitive alignment with Western imperialism takes place and Ireland becomes a vassal state.
If the Left cedes the debate around sovereignty to the Right, it is committing a serious error. Through defending our country’s sovereignty, the hammer and sickle is hoisted, and so is the tricolour and the starry plough. There is a people’s history of Ireland, Irish and non-Irish arm-in-arm, comprising centuries of resistance to imperialism, a legacy which needs to be reclaimed. This is the recognition that real sovereignty comes from the masses’ overthrow of the political elite, and the use of our wealth as democratically decided by the working class. This and only this will put an end to our subservience to foreign powers. The political elite cannot be trusted to bring about sovereignty; they must be overthrown in favour of workers’ rule. Inspired by success in one nation, workers of other nations will follow thereafter, aligning in a fraternal relationship, resulting in internationalist liberation. As James Connolly declared over a century ago: “The cause of Ireland is the cause of Labour”. Let this be made a reality through struggle!
