This week 100 years ago, a young Serb was practising his shot in a Bosnian forest. A month later, he would be successful in his murderous mission. John Redmond, the undisputed leader of Nationalist Ireland, had, after an epic parliamentary struggle, just forced through the Government of Ireland Act. Home Rule was here. It had massive public support.
Had anyone suggested that the Irish Parliamentary Party, the dominant force in Irish politics for the previous half century, would disappear over the next few years, that person would have been laughed at.
Had anyone gone on to suggest that the Russian, Austro/Hungarian and Ottoman Empires would also disappear, they’d have been committed. Indeed, had someone suggested that soon Britain would fight Germany and win, but soon after the war victorious Britain would have lost more of its pre-war landmass than defeated Germany, there would have been howls of laughter.
Yet all this happened.
By 1918, the mighty Home Rule party had only one Home Rule MP in Ireland. But stranger things happened. For example, the first President of the New Irish State was a man who was the subject of nationalist Ireland’s ridicule because he believed that Irish men shouldn’t wear long trousers – as they were too bourgeois, too English and not worthy of proper Irishmen.
My point is that what you think can never happen, sometimes does.
In 1914, the Irish Parliamentary Party gambled on a short war. Had the war been “over by Christmas” as many expected, there can be little doubt that Redmond would have prevailed and the extreme republican Sinn Fein would have remained on the fringes of history. But this didn’t happen.
As the war dragged on, the credibility of the Home Rule Party’s support of the British war effort disintegrated.
The Home Rule Party argued that, given the prospect of a civil war with Ulster in 1914, there was “no alternative” but to support the war. But with its guns aimed at its enemy, the pro-British unionists of Ulster, the Home Ruler never saw the enemy within, Sinn Fein, stealing up behind. In the end, Irish Nationalism was defeated not by extreme Britishness, but by extreme Irishness!
Today, our mainstream parties are making a similar mistake. They are gambling – and have been for 10 years now – that orthodox economic polices will get them out of the economic mess. But it was orthodox policies that got us into the mess in the first pace. The more orthodox economics fails, as it is failing now, the parties that embrace orthodoxy will fail too.
We are not just seeing this in Ireland but all over Europe. Like the World War I general the mainstream are fighting the last war, not realising that everything has changed. But they stick to yesterday’s blueprint.
In Ireland, the policies of blind allegiance to the euro, trying to please the ECB at every juncture, forcing people in negative equity to pay back all their mortgage debts, paying the gambling debts of bank creditors and allowing the currency to appreciate against our major trading partners, these are the types of economic orthodoxy that commit a country to a long economic war.
Constant looting of the middle classes to keep the show on the road engenders resentment of the very class they are trying to protect.
The rhetoric is the Government is sorting things out but its inability to balance the budget means that the country falls into even more debt at a time when the Government is supposed to be sorting things out financially.
The casualties of the long economic war are both the unemployed and, ironically, the working middle classes who see their tax rates rise and their disposable income fall. When faced with too much debt and slow or no growth, austerity is like putting an anorexic on a diet and expecting that person’s body to strengthen.
The only people who benefit from this situation are those who are already very wealthy, who can profit from cheaper asset prices by picking them up now in the expectation of being able to sell them back to the squeezed middle in a few years.
This process of opportunistic speculation is playing itself out in the housing market now and on a much bigger scale in the commercial property market.
Out of this, can the emerging Sinn Fein alight upon a set of economic ideas that are (a) attractive to the broader but struggling middle and (b) likely to push the growth rate up?
It is argued that Sinn Fein has no economic policies, but maybe that is a good thing. Having no economic baggage means it is not wedded to anything good or bad. It means it can pick and choose. It also means it can choose wisely, if it wants.
At the moment, the charge levelled at Sinn Fein is that it has no experience in government; however, given what a mess the “experienced” parties have made of the place, maybe having no experience isn’t a bad thing.
Sinn Fein has already claimed the scalp of the leader of the vanquished Labour Party. Who could be next?
The easiest way to take scalps is to be a party of permanent opposition constantly pointing the finger – a sort of democratic version of Robespierre. But this doesn’t offer the country a route to prosperity. It might maximise Sinn Fein’s pre-government strength but it will not exercise power in any meaningful way.
Sinn Fein voters are young. The party with the young voters is the party of the future, by definition.
They didn’t desert Sinn Fein even when Mr Adams was arrested on suspicion of the heinous murder of a Belfast mother in the 1970s. Is it because new voters don’t care? No, it is because history is doing what history does: becomes less and less relevant and more and more distant.
The political message must be that yesterday is not so important when tomorrow looks so uncertain.
To win tomorrow, Sinn Fein must come up with a set of workable economic ideas. Can it do that? There must be a fair chance. If you were a betting man, what odds would you give? In 1914, no one saw Sinn Fein coming. After last weekend, there’s hardly a person in the country who can’t hear the thundering hooves of a stampede.
www.davidmcwilliams.ie
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Not the most sensitive headline by the copy editor considering developments in the High Court yesterday:
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/anorexic-woman-on-brink-of-death-to-be-forcefed-after-court-ruling-29945722.html
“To win tomorrow, Sinn Fein must come up with a set of workable economic ideas. Can it do that?”
David, give them a call and get them going. 7 years from now you’ll be Minister of Finance in a Sinn Fein government and we’ll all be better off.
It’ll take two more elections to get there but they’ll do it. Don’t you want to be part of that David?
You’re right Adam, David is looking for a job with Adams. Gerry understands banks – they are where the money is. Good luck David, you two make a right pair.
Adam and Pat
You obviously forget my East Belfast wife and family. Me joining the Shinners would mean certain divorce, so that ain’t going to happen. The article is more about dealing with reality. There is a new reality out there and it is a thundering herd of disenfranchised citizen looking for an alternative.
D
I am part of the middle class, and I am sick to death of the looting as you put it, but I would be willing to take it and more if the government elect actually did more than lip service to balancing the budget. The HS£ is an utter joke. It has more managers and pen pushers on huge salaries and gigantic pensions than it has frontline staff who are on really basic wages. Why are so many sick people relying on charities to raise money for their care and facilities? Surely thats the government/HSEs job? We don’t need the… Read more »
I believe Davids article is liken to Eddie Irvine driving fast around sharp corners at very high speed with confidence to win and radio commenting to a public network at the same time.
It is so close , so fast , so real, so spectacular , so awe inspiring and that is just the start set up .
Tomorrow ….a new race must be started to hold the public interest ….can David keep it up ?
If Irish people feel utterly let down by Labour, wait until they see how Sinn Fein will not just continue with, but will intensify the “shakedown” policies that have plagued the middle class in this country since this recession began. Just think about this for a minute, this current government have increased VAT rates by 2%, the hated Universal Social Charge that takes at least 7% of gross income from every working person in the state on the average industrial wage, they have introduced and collected a Property Tax on every home home in the country, next up is a… Read more »
25 politicians say but this is what they really mean http://celticglobe.com/2014/05/28/25-things-politicians-say-but-what-they-really-mean/
Talking of Gerry Adams [aside from his achievements in political life ] i always imagine that he has always felt that he was ‘self-deputised’, as a member of the human race,so to say,on a personal quest and mission to seek the progression of True Freedom and Equality in his country. He has a clear vision of his Hopes for tomorrow and True to that vision, believes he will get to “The Promised Land !!” ,as was Martin Luther King’s vision.The odds were heavily stacked against King [and Adams] ,but look what the shockwaves of cultural CHANGE that King ignited ,globally… Read more »
I don’t really like re-hashing old posts that I posted on the forum before but in the light of the recent election and this article, here is one from 2009 1. jim says Given that Europe will invariably bail out Ireland and later on Ireland will ratify the Lisbon Treaty, it seems to me that the Dail per se will be downgraded to the level of a glorified County Council in the eyes of Europe. As it stands at the moment the Dail has all the appearances of a County Council at work.Look at the evidence. It has boosted its… Read more »
“Happy Gilmore,a masterclass in cute-hoorism” is what the headline in the Irish independant should have read but the editor decided on “Gilmore throws hat in the ring for €250k EU Commissioner job”. We now know why Happy G decided not to put up a robust defense of his Labour leadership, put his shoulder to the wheel and redeem himself in the eye of the Irish electorate……. Why does, now to be “More Happy Gilmore” think that the Irish people want him to be their European Commissioner given that less than 5% of them voted for his policies in the recent… Read more »
John Redmond was leader of the IPP at this point in time, and he was not exactly the sharpest tool in the box. His reaction to the war was absolutely ludicruous. He decided, that he had to demonstrate loyalty to the Imperial regime. He focussed on the superficial. A bit like the “good room theory” that David talks about. The result was a policy that sent his most fervent supporters to their own death. He advocated himself as being the leader to run a newly independent Ireland, but he was a fool obsesse with proving his dependency to the British.… Read more »
David – you need to write an aricle about the rising national debt. Nobody else is speaking about it in the media. It bareley ever gets a mention.
Look out! There’s allot sanctions and censorship about Interesting too that Sinn Fein outlasted section 31- we have none that here – censorship! Meanwhile lies over Ukraine and more continues at the pro-Brit-shit Broadcasting Company the uSAs state departments echo chamber… The pivot is on but Putin’s pivot to China comes with handshakes, gifts, and smiles while Obama’s comes with guns and poison barbed roses. If Sinn Fein wants to think outside the box it would do well to call in to Xi with bottle of Paddy, some Taytos and some ‘home grown Lyons tea!’ – The writing is on… Read more »
Sinn Fein and Dalkey? Ugh and Ugh. Liars and murderers…oh well their tactics worked.
Here’s one for the Austrians among us (whatever that means).
The Origin, Classification and Utility of Bitcoin
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2436823
Bonbon understands that homoeopathic remedies,Sudocrem and TCP are in no way sufficient to deal with a devastating gun shot wound.To guide him in his personal mission(s)in Life,he looks to the mutually supportive FACT based evidence,from Ambassadors of Truth for example; Plato,Planck-Einstein-Vernadsky,Riemann,Bach,Shakespeare,Brunelleschi-deCusa-Kepler,Shelley,Mozart,Thomas Paine,Leibniz,Schiller,Beethoven et al,whose prowess in creativity,ALL, have contributed to the genius of Alexander Hamilton’s four principles of economic science – which is a symphony of creativity,reason and logic,rooted in fact based evidence, from decades and centuries of accumulated scientific wisdom and passionate pursuit of making keystone discoveries,as a solid foundation for an economic recovery programme -FDR style- with a… Read more »
This sounds like neo-bonbonism
Thanks for the article David…. you really touched upon the fact as to how important History is…. History repeats itself..perhaps this may be a easy or old quote but this does take away from the fact as to how true I believe it is. All the scaremongering about Sinn fein is ridiculous…Why ? because they will not have a overall majority therefore wont get their own way,right or wrong and several early coalition Governments with Sinn Fein will fall. We are spending roughly 1.5 billion per month more than we take in on top of interest payments of a billion… Read more »
Correction
“this does NOT take away from the fact as to how true i believe it is”