The Rise of Sinn Fein in Neoliberalism's Fifth Decade

Ireland voted last Saturday, and for the first time in a general election Sinn Fein won the most votes, and not by an insignificant margin. As Benjamin Mueller summarizes in "Irish Voters Cast Off Relic of Entrenched 2-Party System":

By the time the votes were counted this week, Sinn Fein held one fewer parliamentary seats than Ireland’s main center-right opposition party, Fianna Fail, which had been expected to romp to victory. And it captured two more seats than the current center-right governing party, Fine Gael, led by Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s frontman in negotiations with London over Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.

Sinn Fein would have won more seats, but the party didn't field enough candidates.

Fianna Fail has ruled out governing in coalition with Sinn Fein because of its historical association with the Irish Republican Army and the Troubles. So now it is up to Fine Gael to see if it wants to eat crow and join Fianna Fail. Both centrist parties had previously ruled out governing together.

What's interesting about the Irish election is the role that housing played. Mueller reports that

“Every other politician, they say they’re going to do this and that,” said Tony Hayes, 64, who lives in central Dublin. “But at the end of the day, they’re feeding you loads of lies. So why not go to somebody you feel like you can trust them? Sinn Fein, you feel like you can trust them.”

There was one issue above all that drove Mr. Hayes’s anger at Ireland’s two old political heavyweights and endeared him, like many voters, to Sinn Fein: housing. The number of homeless people has been rising for years, eclipsing 10,000 in 2019. And average rents have increased by as much as 40 percent in some counties over the past three years.

[snip]

Ailbhe Smyth, 73, a political activist and feminist scholar who played a leading role in the campaign to repeal Ireland’s abortion ban, said that many were feeling the anguish of a crisis that had forced people to wait weeks or years for some medical appointments, despite the government’s lavish spending on health care. She said older people, too, had woken up to the pain that Ireland’s cultural and political norms had inflicted on the younger generations.

While power was passed back and forth between the two center-right parties, parts of Irish identity, such as the expectation that people could grow up to own their own homes, began to vanish. And just as Ms. Smyth said the vote for abortion rights had been driven in part by “a very deep sense of national shame at the way women had been treated historically in this country,” she said that the turnout this weekend reflected the regret of some voters for not vanquishing an outdated political system sooner.

“Older people voting for Sinn Fein are saying, ‘Well, actually, my son, my daughter, my grandchildren, they haven’t got a house,’” Ms. Smyth said. “So there is that feeling of guilt that we’re not leaving them a very good world — and we’ve wrecked the planet, too.”

Facing up to rivals like Mr. Varadkar, who focused during the campaign on Brexit achievements that few voters cared about, Sinn Fein stuck to a few clear, tangible promises. And rather than harping on the government’s failures, as it recently had during unsuccessful campaigns, the party tried to home in on what it would get done. It vowed, for instance, to spend 6.5 billion euros, about $7 billion, building 100,000 homes.

The gestalt of the Irish general election is similar to the one facing voters this year in the United States; call it the zombie neoliberalism gestalt -- a housing/homelessness crisis and a failing healthcare system. After four decades of market fundamentalist orthodoxy the basics -- housing, education and healthcare -- are being priced out of the reach of an ever greater number of citizens. Rather than make an adjustment and correct these failures of the market, the elites who control the political process prefer that the citizens bear the brunt of the failures. Whether that means paying more and working harder to pay more or going into debt or living on the street, the rich don't care, as long as you don't upend their gravy train.

Vlad Trumps the West Once Again

Yesterday at the Kremlin Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich and Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a financial aid agreement between their two nations. Russia will purchase $15 billion in Ukrainian bonds and provide a 33% discount on natural gas exports. The Putin deal is better than anything the EU and IMF can offer. The EU and IMF, before abandoning negotiations with Yanukovich, were pushing for Ukraine to raise the price of natural gas and cut the salaries of public workers. The muted response from protesters occupying Kiev's Independence Square is proof once again of Putin's political skill. Andrew Kramer and David Herszenhorn have the story, "Ukraine’s Prime Minister Hails Deal With Russia":

It was a bold but risky move by Russia, given the political chaos in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, where thousands of demonstrators remain encamped on Independence Square, protesting their government’s failure to sign political and free trade accords with Europe, which had been seen as an alternative to the Russian deal. 

The protest continued on Wednesday much as it has in previous days, but seemed in a state of drift. Fires in drums burned in the central streets and square and protesters occupied three large buildings, including City Hall. Protest leaders, speaking on Tuesday evening, announced no new actions on the street to counter the government’s defiance of their demands.

The Putin deal eviscerates the opposition, who are now threatening to block the agreement in the Ukrainian Parliament, because protesters will be unable to avoid the unfavorable spotlight of protesting for austerity, something that makes no sense other than as a form of quasi-religious public self-flagellation. And make no mistake, this is what Europe has to offer. The Gray Lady's anti-Putin Kramer and Herszenhorn can barely conceal their resentment:

While Mr. Putin portrayed Russia’s assistance as a gallant move, requiring Ukraine neither to commit to the customs union nor to put in place any of the austerity measures demanded by the I.M.F., the rescue plan carries serious long-term economic and political risks. Experts say that unless Ukraine carries out overhauls, including increases in household utility rates, limits on government spending and pension increases, and improvements in the business climate, the country’s economic problems will continue, raising the likelihood that the aid will be wasted.

For an idea of what is in store for Ukraine should Yanukovich accept a deal with the IMF and sign an association agreement with the European Union all one has to do is scan the coverage surrounding Irish premier Enda Kenny's Sunday night announcement that Ireland was exiting after three years its IMF-EU engineered bailout. A particularly good story was in the New York Times itself. Written by Liz Alderman and appearing last week, "Hardships Linger for a Mending Ireland" is chock full of statistics regarding austerity's impact on Ireland's economy, but it also contains vivid accounts of the everyday travails of a guy like John Donovan who lost his hardware business, got retraining, but still has to shoot pigeons and grill them on an outdoor barbecue to get by. According to Alderman:

As the austerity measures have played out, the number of people in need has jumped. Homelessness is up nearly 20 percent since 2010. A study by Growing Up in Ireland tracking 11,000 families with young children found 67 percent could not afford basic necessities, and were behind on utility bills, rent and the mortgage. 

Consumer spending has been flat. Through the end of the third quarter this year, 18.5 percent of homeowners had missed a mortgage payment and 12.5 percent were three months or more behind on their repayments, according to the central bank. Half of all loans to small- and medium-size business are also in arrears. 

More than 200,000 of Ireland’s population of 4.6 million have emigrated since 2008. Youth unemployment is 28 percent. Over 60 percent of job seekers have been out of work for a year or more. And 20 percent of children now live in households where neither parent works, the highest rate in the European Union.

This is what signing an association agreement with Europe entails, something you won't find in the "think" pieces written by Gray Lady apparatchiks like Bill Keller who Monday penned a lengthy tirade, "Russia vs. Europe," against a Stalinist, homophobic, atavistic Putin bent on dominating Ukraine. Keller treats the pitfalls of joining Europe in the following two sentences: "It is true that during the recent years of recession and austerity Europe has lost some of its dazzle. But it is still more alluring than Ukraine’s threadbare economy, presided over by an ineffectual and corrupt governing class."

Keller should read his own paper.