Statement by the Communist Party of Ireland
16 June 2016
In a clear demonstration of how bankrupt the Irish political establishment is, the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, and a number of his Government ministers, as well as the leader of the increasingly irrelevant Labour Party, Brendan Howlin, and other Labour Party TDs, are about to spend a number of days canvassing among Irish citizens in Britain—those who were forced out of their own country by the very policies imposed by the EU and implemented by the internal troika of Fine Gael, the Labour Party, and Fianna Fáil.
Their intervention in the internal affairs of Britain by actively campaigning for a “remain” vote in the forthcoming referendum exposes their subservient relationship to the EU and the big-business establishment in Britain. They will do and say whatever their masters’ bidding demands. They are intervening at the behest of the Cameron government to bolster the “remain” campaign.
Generations of Irish people have been forced out of this country to find work and a future in Britain, because of the continuing imperialist domination of our country and because of the failed economic and social policies of the Irish establishment, including their promotion of backward cultural and moral values, to maintain their political control.
This is the same Irish establishment that has ignored those Irish people living in Britain, who have consistently denied them any possibility of influencing affairs back in their homeland, an establishment that accepted the wholesale harassment and surveillance of Irish people living in Britain over many decades. They have become interested in how they vote now only because the interests of the the Irish establishment and their EU masters are facing a serious challenge.
They wish the people to ignore the fact that the Irish people were forced by the European Union to take on board 40 per cent of all EU banking debt to save German, French and British banks and finance houses. They want the people to forget this, rather than make a stand against the “Programme for Ireland” imposed upon our people by the troika.
Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Labour Party obediently implemented that programme. This resulted in savage austerity, the cutting of public services, a growing housing crisis, the threatened privatisation of water, and turning our people into permanent debt slaves, forcing another generation of Irish youth to leave their homeland to seek work and a future denied them at home.
To our fellow-citizens living in Britain: Ignore the calls by the Irish establishment to vote to remain in the EU. Ignore them as they have ignored you. You have an opportunity to stand up for democracy, national sovereignty and workers’ rights throughout Europe—in defiance of the EU institutions. A vote to leave is potentially an act of solidarity with working people throughout Europe.
