People Before Profit activists quit party over possibility of Sinn Féin-led government

A People Before Profit councillor has quit the party over concerns it would enter a future government with Sinn Féin.

Dublin City Council member Madeleine Johansson, who has been vocal in relation to the issue of evictions, is one of some 30 activists in the Red Network who have unanimously left the party.

In a statement, the network said People Before Profit should only support a future Sinn Féin government on a “case by case ... to force them to deliver on their promises”.

However, it said a Sinn Féin-led government would “coalesce with the establishment and leave untouched the real government, the permanent government – the State bureaucracy, army chiefs and head Guards”.

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“Every incoming government has to sit down with top civil servants and negotiate a programme for government within parameters acceptable to the system.”

The network said the party was in danger of being taken over by “student moralism” while attempting to recruit middle-class people who want it to become part of a future government.

Instead, it stated that the “fake democracy of the Dáil, or Stormont for that matter” should be replaced by a 32-county workers’ republic where “assemblies of workers in workplaces and communities elect delegates, who are recallable, to a workers’ national assembly”.

Such a change could not happen without a “working-class revolution – mass protests and strikes leading to workplace occupations and a challenge to the old state”.

Red Network said there were good politicians in People Before Profit, citing Richard Boyd-Barrett, Gino Kenny and councillor Conor Reddy as people who work hard for their communities.

“But the nature of People Before Profit as an organisation means the fruits of all that work are often wasted and the party’s senior politicians frequently tone down their socialist politics in public,” it said.

It accused People Before Profit of being a “frenetic organisation that jumps from issue to issue, dropping one campaign to set up another”.

In response, a spokesman for People Before Profit said the party acknowledged the resignation of Cllr Johansson and “the departure of a small number of affiliated members who have cited strategic differences”.

“Our organisation remains committed to building a 32-county socialist Ireland and the unwavering defence of working people and the oppressed,” it said. “The departure of a councillor elected under People Before Profit’s banner is unfortunate but will not deter us from this work.”