Strong potential for Syriza-like movement in Ireland, Boyd Barrett says

The potential in Ireland for a Syriza like movement amongst left wing politicians and movements is now very strong,People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett has said.

"If you had gone to Greece or Spain two years ago, you'd have said exactly the same as you do now about Ireland," he said.

In both countries the backdrop to the Podemos and Syriza movements was “mass mobilisation” rather than “charismatic characters,” he said. Hard-left Syriza won the Greek general election on January 25th and formed an anti-austerity coalition government.

Speaking on the Inside Politics podcast, the Dun Laoghaire TD said in Ireland the focal point had been the water protests which he described as a “symbol of many things”

“It’s about the housing crisis, all the income cuts, the accumulated impact of austerity, it’s opposition to privatisation, it is a deep concern for all our natural resources, not just water.”

Mr Boyd Barrett said he believed that voters were moving “broadly to the left” and the “pendulum was now swinging against the neoliberal/austerity model of the last 30 years.” People were starting to become “active whereas before they left it to professional politicians,” he said.

When asked about the traditionally fragmented nature of left wing politics in Ireland, Mr Boyd Barrett said he believed the left was “beginning to learn something”.

However he suggested Sinn Féin was facing “an existential choice” between “the left and the establishment.” In the South there was “no doubt” that Sinn Féin’s base and many of their activists and their rhetoric is “to the left”. “That is why they are gaining support and that is why they are very keen to link up with the rest of the left and why they are very keen to be part of the right to water movement,” he said.

However the party had a “difficulty” in the North where it had just signed up to and passed an agreement which is “the North’s version of the Troika’s austerity programme,” he said.