Higgins is a member of the Irish Socialist Party and was its sole Teachta Dála (TD). The SP is an member of the CWI, the toy international associated with the English Socialist Party. In the Irish election, the SP first preference vote overall dropped some 20%.
But Higgins, was from anything I've read from afar, a pretty good example of a socialist in parliament. Since he was almost unique in the English (& Gaelic) speaking world (outside of Scotland)in that regard, I think his electoral loss needs to be noted. Higgins success was a sort of benchmark that enriched the electoral work of the CWI elsewhere and here in Australia they can boast an elected representative, Steve Jolly, on inner Melbourne Yarra city council.
They have had similar initial & tentative success at the local level in England and the Scottish Socialist Party --which had been so successful electorally grew out of a split in the CWI in Scotland.
But this loss is sure to have some fallout, coming as it does with
Closer to Dublin, Splintered Sunrise has this to say about the consequences for the SP:
A bad result too for the Socialist Party, with Joe Higgins’ reputation as one of the best performers in the Dáil not saving him, and Clare Daly again failing to make the cut. It’s interesting that Joe’s result in Dublin West is very similar to Seán Crowe’s in Dublin South-West, and their electoral base is sociologically very similar. There is obviously something going on in those suburbs, probably a mix of boundary changes and demographic changes, something of the general political conditions, and possibly the SP being stretched by trying to run two big campaigns simultaneously.Much as I respect the work of the SP in Ireland -- despite what I think is its atrocious line on Irish nationalism(and you'd be right to wonder if that still exists in Ireland after the Good Friday Agreement) --Sunrise makes a telling point, and moves that are afoot to coalesce the left in the 26 counties may now have a better chance to bear fruit.If there is a silver lining – and I’m not rejoicing in Joe’s defeat by any means, he was a very effective Dáil performer and no doubt Clare would have been too – it is that it may provoke some fruitful discussion in the SP, which is likely to face some kind of mini-crisis after its perspective has run aground. The more boorish sectarian elements in the SP, the yobboes, braggarts and spoofers, will have got a knock – now it’s up to the more thoughtful elements to see what they can do. In any case the SP’s go-it-alone culture will come under some pressure.
APPENDIX:
From Irish SP statement on election results:
With no real alternative people go for the 'lesser evil'
The election confirmed the view of the Socialist Party that we are at the early stages of the re-organisation and recovery of the working class from the historic sell-out by Labour Party in the 1990s and the acquiescence in general of the trade union leadership to the capitalist market through Social Partnership. The argument put forward that the election came at a key time and represented a vital opportunity to start a new broad left movement, via an alliance of candidates, has been shown by events to be wrong. (Many who had spoken of for such a slate had minimal commitment to left principles and a little record of struggle). The absence of activity and struggle by working class people at this point and the low levels of confidence made it a difficult task to maintain existing votes in this election, let alone establish a basis for a new workers’ party.
Richard Boyd Barrett, who is a member of the Socialist Workers Party, but who stood under the front - People Before Profit Alliance, got a strong vote of 5,233 or 8.9% and narrowly missed being elected in Dun Laoghaire. It is already being argued that this exceptional result in Dun Laoghaire shows that there is now the potential for the building of a major new left movement. That would be an equally imbalanced and an equally wrong conclusion to make as the idea of a shift to the right in this election. Even in comparison to the other four People Before Profit candidates, the Dun Laoghaire vote is exceptional as the other candidates got 2,080 votes or 4.38%; 1,058 votes or 2.8%; 591 votes or 1.75% and 365 votes or 0.56%.
Whether Richard Boyd Barrett’s vote really relates to the struggle to build a new left movement for working class people is very much open to question. Through his association with the Bin Tax struggle in particular, he got over 1,400 votes in the local elections in 2004. Given his active involvement in other campaigns and with his high profile, a vote in excess of 3,000 was always a likelihood in Dun Laoghaire.
However the approach of ditching reference to the SWP and the dropping of any socialist policies or content to the campaign was clearly an attempt to attract the liberal, middle class layers in the constituency and it’s clear that this was successful. Such people are less concerned with the potential decline of the economy and this vote was less prone to be squeezed in the last days. Undoubtedly this represents a good vote but is not the same as a vote that is based fundamentally on working class communities and socialist policies and approach. In some respects it is more akin to building a base of support that is similar to the Greens, rather than a step towards constituting a new left on a principled basis.
