Shoneen socialists
The fury of Dick Spring, Tomas Mac Giolla and Jim Kemmy over
continued links between Sinn Féin and members of the British
Labour Party burst into the open this week to Labour leader Neil
Kinnock in a public letter attacking, among others, Ken
Livingstone, the British MP.
The three shoneen `socialists' were especially hurt because
Labour supporters were ``ignoring the voice of elected socialist
public representatives in Ireland''. Presumptuously they claimed
to speak on behalf of all Irish socialists, saying that Sinn Féin
``is strongly opposed by the overwhelming majority of socialists''
in Ireland. They failed to mention that their own partitionist
politics are opposed by an even more overwhelming majority of the
Irish working class.
Collectively, the parties represented by Spring, Mac Giolla and
Kemmy achieved less than 11% in the last 26 county general
election and Spring himself came within four votes of losing his
seat. Only the Workers' Party dared to stand in the Six Counties
and there they received only 3%. Around 120,000 Irish
working-class people backed Sinn Féin's socialist policies in the
two 1987 general elections. The `overwhelmingly majority of
socialists' amounted to only a little more than this.
Phoblacht 3 December 1987