Back to Bob Gould

["D OC" <donaloc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bob,

Mostly agreed with everything you had to say in your last post. My
accusation of 'anglo-centrism' was leveled because of the position on Wales
and that the countries you chose to assess. I am glad to retract it.

The problem with getting a good appreciation of Wales is the dominance of
English history books and media. Wales, like most colonial countries, has
had its history told by a foreign tongue. Indeed, if you talk to English
people they generally accept the over-statement that Wales has been pretty
much integrated into their country over the last 800 years of occupation. I
know a little about the country as I lived there for a year in my youth and
my mother's family are all Welsh. There is certainly a tendency in South
Wales for working-class socialists to disparage the need for devolution even
never mind independence - but this is reflective of two things - the
existence of a deep socialist vein in South Wales society and the dominence
of British cultural forms in those areas. Elsewhere in Wales, there are
whole patches of almost entirely colonised areas (e.g. 'Little England
beyond Wales' in the far Southwest) - these areas are populated by large
numbers of English retirees and holiday-home owners - who dislike anything
more than a little Welsh culture (suitably commodified and packaged of
course). In North Wales there is a much more dispersed rural population with
strong Welsh Nationalist tendencies.

I think the last twenty years in Wales have seen a variety of changes from
this more traditional situation - the growth of the Welsh language
throughout the population has clearly reinforced a greater Welsh
consciousness, the closure of mines and steelworks in the industrial South
has created huge swathes of an industrial underclass and areas suffering
some of the highest levels of deprivation and crime in Western Europe, the
complete failure of New Labour to stand against the neo-liberalist concensus
has led to previously hard-left heartlands transferring to the more left
wing Plaid Cymru.

As far as the exact policies advanced by Plaid goes, I cannot help hugely -
Ed may be able to give a better direction. In the short-term, Plaid may act
to radicalise Welsh Labour by positioning itsself to its left flank - and
Welsh Labour, despite all its failings, is very clearly part of many Welsh
communities.

> In these sorts of questions, there is no substitute for accuracy and
detail,
and I'd really appreciate it if DOC would explain exactly how the electoral
system works in the Irish Republic and the six counties, and compare them,
if possible, with a straight PR system. That would be very useful to me and
I would incorporate it in further analysis, which I will try to make more
specific. I also have an underlying feeling that it might be useful to
others in this discussion, some of whom seem to me to not take differences
in electoral systems -- and electoral systems themselves -- with the
seriousness that they warrant.

On PR V STV (Please skip this if you're not a sephologist). Voting in the
Free State is consistent for both Leinster House (parliament), Strasbourg
and the various county councils. You have names and photos and you vote down
the card 1,2,3,.. until you get tired. When they count the votes in your
area they find out what the quota will be by taking the total number of
votes cast (and not spoilt) and dividing by the number of seats to be filled
plus 1. That figure is then added to one to yield the quota. Any candidates
with tallies above that figure are automatically elected and their surplus
(divided pro-rata in electronic counting) is then distributed to their
second preferences. If by this stage someone else is over the quota the
process continues. If no-one gets over the quota then they look to see how
many of the lowest polling candidates can't get elected on surplus and then
exclude them and transfer their votes to the remaining candidates. That
continues until they are all elected or only two unelected candidates remain
(in which case the highest polling one wins).

Clearly, such a voting mechanism is much more fair than first-past-the-post
because people's preferences get counted. However, its a long way from PR -
which is one vote and then seats allocated from lists in proportion. The
only (alleged) advantage of STV is that it retains a geographical link
between candidates and the area they represent. PR tends to lose that. The
difficulty with the system is that it favours larger parties over small
ones. You could theoretically get 15% first-preferences in every
constituency and fail to get a seat (in a five-seater, the quota is
16.667%). The other thing is that transfers tend to favour more moderate
parties.

The system in the North's elections is the same for both Council, Assembly
and Strasbourg elections. For Westminster its first-past-the-post. The same
voting methodology is used for the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish
Parliament.

I am glad to see we look at involvement in SF in much the same way. As for a
united front with the SDLP - I guess that's the pan-Nationalist Front.
Although it seems to have gone off the rails over the past two years. The
SDLP are facing melt-down and they are dodging like a rabbit in the
headlights between 'post-nationalism' and 'nationalism'.

> In the Irish Republic, it seems to me the tactical problems for socialists
are a bit more complex. Sinn Fein, while it has a strong basis in the always
present and extremely durable republican tradition, is only one grouping
among the four that I consider significant.

In a sense, I can understand this. The twenty-six counties is as you say
much more of a typical modern EU state - it's no longer trade-dependent on
Britain. The problem of the North can be ignored to an extent and instead
'bread and butter' focused on as Partitionist Labour and the Socialist Party
do to varying degrees of success. However, outside of Dublin, this approach
will have only limited success. People in rural Ireland are still pretty
Nationalistic and Fianna Fail has built a near hegemony in many areas over
the past 80 years. In regional urban centres, it is much more difficult to
get established although I think that the way the host of Sinn Fein leaders
are on TV most days helps greatly. As for the Worker's party, I think that
they are pretty much finished - most of them are now journalists, writer's,
commentators, partitionist Labour TDs. The good ones are working as
independent socialists (John O'Neill on this list is an example). There is
definitely a mood within SF to create a progressive opposition in the 26
Counties - that will include ourselves, the Greens, Socialist party, Workers
and Unemployed party and the independents. I think that we are also looking
towards Labour to form linkages with them but Ruairi Quinn's last few
utterances about the necessity of IRA disbandment are the sort of thing
which doesn't help.

As for your comments about what we need to focus on, I am in broad
agreement. There are differing views about the tactical ramifications of
tackling issues like abortion. As you might imagine its a subject which
would seriously damage any party broadly reflective of the people. I know
many religious people who don't vote Sinn Fein simply as a result of our
relatively 'luke-warm' position on abortion. Your 'Catholic cultural
influences in Sinn Fein' is not something I would have noticed hugely. Even
Phil Ferguson, the great champion of a 'pure' Republican Socialist
coalition, will admit that he saw little of that in his time as party
activist. It's something you hear about in British papers and in sectarian
screeds against us.

>I'm grateful to comrades Ed and DOC for correcting me in relation to Wales
and I tremble in fear that we may have opened up a new line of serious
discussion on Marxmail that may drive our genial sorcerer, Louis, and my
patient editorial mate, Steve, slowly round the bend.

Yes, enjoyed your appraisals too. The conversation's much more useful than
the nth Trotsky-Stalin re-run anyway.

D OC.


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