The election of a government in Ireland that includes Sinn Féin is no more certain to deliver for workers and trade union members here than the election of a Labour government is in the UK, Mick Lynch said at event in Dublin on Saturday.
Mr Lynch, general secretary Britain’s RMT rail union, said that Sinn Féin had many positive policies, just as in Britain “the Labour Party manifesto is good on paper” – but both parties will be subject to pressures from all sides in the event they win power, and trade unions will face a challenge to ensure they deliver for their members.
“I think it would be naive to think otherwise,” said Mr Lynch at the Robert Tressell Festival, organised to celebrate Dublin born author Robert Tressell (Noonan) and his book, The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists. The Liberty Hall event was also attended by former British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and Dublin MEP Clare Daly.
“We can’t buy into the myth that Sinn Féin or anyone else is going to come in and save trade unionism, save working class organisation,” said Mr Lynch. “We’ve got to do it ourselves. We’ve got a treat every professional politician in exactly the same cynical way that they treat us. It’s a world of opportunity for us but we’ve got to go and seize it.
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Adding that Sinn Féin has taken over from the Labour Party in respect of many trade union values, he added: “They’re going to find out that the realities of being in power, whether it’s in the North or the South or both, are difficult to live with.
“We’ve seen it with the SNP in Scotland which has found it difficult to live with it in the long run, to keep going and delivering to a lot of audiences, especially as a nationalist party,” he said.
Also speaking at the event, Mr Corbyn said he believed the war in Gaza would have the same impact on the current generation of young people that Vietnam had on his.
“As a young person,” he said, “I was very involved in campaigning against the Vietnam War. It moved me, It changed me and motivated me. The same thing is happening all over the world now. As people wake up to the reality of watching live on television, the destruction of a whole society and destruction of hope for so many Palestinian people.”
President Michael D Higgins and the American labour organiser, Chris Smalls, are to address the event on Saturday evening.
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