The Irish election returned five TDs for the United Left Alliance, with 2.8 per cent of the first preference votes. But this victory for the Left is only part of a bigger picture of political change, writes Brendan Young, in an article commissioned by Scottish Left Review. Republished here with kind permission of the author [...]

The new issue of LookLeft is in shops now - including all Easons outlets in the North of Ireland and Easons in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway. Full list here
Articles include interviews with the newly-elected ULA TD Joan Collins, band The Vagabonds and Comedian & activist Mark Thomas.
‘White Noise, bleak hope’, Irish media crisis: Gavan [...]

The United Left Alliance will be holding a number of events next week to which everybody is invited:
March the Dail Wednesday March 9, 10.45am Central Bank Plaza
The five new ULA Deputies are inviting their supporters to join them in a March to the Dail. The ULA Deputies will be using the Dail a platform [...]

Elegy for Bettino Craxi (1934-2000)
- Bettino Craxi was leader of the Italian Socialist Party
and Prime Minister. He went into exile in 1994 and died in Tunisia.
Poor Bettino Craxi, you’ve been taken to your grave
and we won’t see your likes again.
Your social democratic bones were barely cold
when your obituaries began to bitch.
All week long it’s [...]

Whatever happens in the coming weeks in terms of forming a coalition government, this election represents a great leap forward for the Irish Left. That’s not how the media here sees it - naturally - but it’s still objectively true.
In the last Dáil (parliament) the left vote stood at approximately 15%. After this election that [...]

When I re-tweeted Labour Councillor Cian O’Callaghan’s news statement calling on Labour not to enter coalition with Fine Gael, Brendan Ogle suggested such an eventuality was akin to pigs flying. Maybe so. But then humans don’t fly either. So let’s take a hypothetical flight with our fellow unwinged mammals and see what the landscape looks [...]

It looks likely that there will be 14 Sinn Féin and up to 10 progressive left deputies in the incoming Dáil.
These 24 progressive left representatives need to eclipse Fianna Fail as the opposition to the incoming conservative administration and ensure that victory could be grasped from the jaws of defeat, so to speak.
This is a [...]

Okay, it’s finally here. So let’s talk briefly about outcomes.
The issue of coalition is problematic. It’s true that if, for example, the Labour Party went into government with Fine Gael then that might ameliorate the tone and thrust of FG policies, particularly as regards privatization, many of which are profoundly inimical to left and progressive [...]

Just thought I’d post these videos from Trade Union TV of the last session from the ‘New Political Possibilities in Ireland for all Left-Wing Parties in Partnership with Civil Society’ Conference on the 5th of February in the Gresham Hotel. These were not included in the last post showing videos from the conference.
The links for [...]

There is no doubt that the current crisis in Ireland, and internationally, has major implications not just for the economy but socially and politically as well. However, in Ireland at least, there are no signs that policy makers have grasped the full extent of the problem yet.
It appears that the main pre-occupation is still how [...]