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4 December 1997 Edition

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Back issue: 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.

An Phoblacht 3 December 1987


An Phoblacht
44 Parnell Sq.
Dublin 1
Ireland