{"id":143990,"date":"2025-11-17T04:55:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T04:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/143990\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T04:55:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T04:55:10","slug":"ivana-bacik-speech-heralds-major-step-change-for-labour-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/143990\/","title":{"rendered":"Ivana Bacik speech heralds major step-change for Labour \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The takeaway from Ivana Bacik\u2019s<\/a> address at the Labour Party\u2019s<\/a> annual conference was \u2013 surprisingly \u2013 that she wrapped herself in the green flag more so than the red. <\/p>\n

Like all the parties which have been extant since the Civil War, the Labour Party has never shied away from describing itself as a republican party. <\/p>\n

That said, it has not tended to assert its republicanism like, say, Sinn F\u00e9in or Fianna F\u00e1il. <\/p>\n

In what was a clear step-change, Bacik called on the Irish and British governments to commit to a timeline for a referendum on a united Ireland<\/a>. It will be received as a clarion call for a united Ireland from Labour. <\/p>\n

Describing the party\u2019s tradition of being \u201cConnollyite Republican\u201d Bacik called for a new form of republic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want a fourth green field for its own sake,\u201d she told delegates in the Radisson Blu hotel in Limerick on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know better than to run a referendum in haste \u2013 without sufficient preparation, or groundwork.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we do need a clear time frame to allow for preparation of a Green and White Paper, for citizens\u2019 assemblies,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

That was a bold assertion by Bacik and won loud approval of delegates in the hall. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Labour Party leader calls on governments to set out timeline for Irish unity referendumsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In another section of the speech, the party leader decried the attacks on accommodation centres for asylum seekers and criticised the right-wing groups and individuals behind many of the protests. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Irish flag belongs to everybody,\u201d she declared to sustained applause. <\/p>\n

The newly elected mayor of New York, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani<\/a> was namechecked more than once during the course of the day. One of his great successes was framing his ideological arguments around practical, everyday, issues such as the unaffordability of rents and of spiralling prices for everyday goods. <\/p>\n

Much of Labour\u2019s policy focus during the daylong conference was practical \u2013 be it on housing, public services and the cost-of-living. The Government\u2019s new housing plan was portrayed as \u201cold milk in new bottles\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cBills are rising. Grocery bills, energy bills, insurance, rent, mortgage costs are all rising at a rate that vastly outpaces take-home pay,\u201d Bacik said in her speech. <\/p>\n

Labour is a party which looks like it is on the rise. After almost a decade of being in the doldrums, it almost doubled its seats in the general election, and has ambitions to make more gains. Its most immediate target is the Galway West byelection in the new year, where new Galway city councillor, Helen Ogbu, looks like being its most likely candidate. <\/p>\n

Bacik\u2019s speech was a good primer for where the party stands in 2025. It is to the left of the centre, wants better public services, more investment by the State, a full roll-out of Sl\u00e1intecare and for the Land Development Agency to be replaced by a new State investment company. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Official approach to a united Ireland is \u2018please, please don\u2019t ask us to think about it\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Its stance on Gaza, and indeed on Ukraine, hardly needs to be stated. Bacik said it would table a new motion on the Occupied Territories Bill and challenged the Government to enact it by Christmas. She also laid out arguments for just transition, renewables, sustainable and public transport that could have come straight out of a Green Party manifesto. <\/p>\n

Neutrality and the triple lock also featured strongly. Ms Bacik essentially called for a referendum to enshrine it in the Constitution.<\/p>\n

Burnishing the party\u2019s \u201cprogressive\u201d policies, she reminded delegates of its role in referendums on divorce, same-sex marriage and abortion. Her speech also included calls for the decriminalisation of drug users; improved healthcare for transgender people; and a full separation of church and State in education.<\/p>\n

The landslide victory of Catherine Connolly<\/a> in the presidential election was another ever-present backdrop in generally upbeat policies. In several interviews, and in her speech, Bacik outlined the possibilities for a united left approach in Irish politics.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s version of overcoming a Herculean task is the Republic of Ireland\u2019s unanticipated victory over Portugal at the Aviva Stadium on Thursday. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Irish unity has come closer, thanks to Catherine Connolly and Jim O\u2019CallaghanOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Bacik evoked it when countering dismissals of the likelihood of a government led by the left after the next election. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s ambitious, of course \u2013 just like believing the Irish football team could beat Portugal two-nil,\u201d she told the conference.<\/p>\n

But such a united left has its limit. In effect, they circumscribed the alliance to only three parties, Labour and the other parties to which it is closely aligned politically: the Social Democrats and the Green Party. <\/p>\n

It was clear from the tenor of her remarks during the day that Sinn F\u00e9in wasn\u2019t totally within that territory. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe now have three bigger parties. And we have significant differences with each of those,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

The political reality is that a left-led government will not be possible without Sinn F\u00e9in. There remains, if not an antipathy, a hesitation within Labour to the second-largest party. <\/p>\n

For the moment, a cohesive united left alliance contesting a general election sounds as improbable as an Irish victory over Hungary in Budapest on Sunday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The takeaway from Ivana Bacik\u2019s address at the Labour Party\u2019s annual conference was \u2013 surprisingly \u2013 that she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,3657,6189,43],"class_list":["post-143990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ivana-bacik","tag-labour-party","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}