BOYD BY THE RISE OF THE LEFT:
When one first enters The People Before Profit office on Georges Street in Dun Laoghaire, you are greeted by a photograph of a protester holding a placard which reads “Our patriotic duty REVOLUTION”
This photo encapsulates in many ways the man I am about to meet; Richard Boyd Barrett
Over the years the constituency of Dun Laoghaire was known for its dynastic political families, such as the Dockrell’s and the Andrews’, so eyebrows were raised when the far left People Before Profit TD was elected in 2011.
Two issues dominating the media discourse at the moment are the Israel-Palestine issue, and the way the Gardai operated, and these were two issues that first made Richard Boyd Barrett politically aware -
“I first got involved in politics in 1989–1990 when I got back from Palestine.
I’d become politicised really by my experiences in Palestine, where I happened, not deliberately, but I happened to arrive in Palestine at the time of the first Palestinian ‘Intifada’, and was very much affected by what I saw, the terrible plight of the Palestinians, that led me to get active.”
When I broached the subject of the Gardai, he related his own personal experiences of dealing with them -
“Back then in the early 1980’s, when I was a teenager, you’d get a belt over the head from a baton by the Guards in this area, just for having spiky hair and wearing Doc Martens and punk gear, and all that sort of stuff.”
In relation to the current situation he added -
“ I think the upper echelons of the Guards have been tied in with a deeply conservative establishment, the frontline of that establishment and sort of trying to keep people down, and we’ve seen that in spades recently with the Maurice McCabe scandal.”
Given the fact that Dun Laoghaire is renowned for it’s familial political dynasties, I asked Richard if there was much politics in his family?
“ Well there was always a lot of politics talked in the house.
Now my parents wouldn’t have been directly political as in active, but I had aunts who were in Fine Gael, I had an uncle who was in Fianna Fail, and I had another uncle who was in Labour.
So I had all, different parts of the traditional political spectrum around me.”
The political landscape has radically changed between now and when he joined the Socialist Workers Party back around 1991.
Back then there was no far left TD’s in the Dail, with the moderately left Roger Garland of the Green Party, and Independent Tony Gregory the only two ‘radical’ TD’s in The Dail.
Today we have a large ensemble of Far Left TD’s in Leinster House, be it some of the Sinn Fein TD’s, Anti-Austerity Alliance-People before Profit, and Independents4Change.
Their number now stands at over 30.
What were the Dun Laoghaire deputies observations as to the difficulties faced by the left in organising in the 90’s, compared today?.
“Ah it was a different world, a totally different world.
I mean the very first branch meeting I ever went to with the Socialist Workers Party, we had one branch in Dublin with about twenty five-thirty people.
In the whole country there were three branches.
Today People Before Profit has about 45 branches across the country.
I think our membership is up to about 1200 now, so it’s just a different world and lots of people are joining, and you don’t have to chase people, quite the way you used to chase them.
People actually approach and ask to join”
People Before Profit was a major part of the United Left Alliance, which was formed prior to the 2011 General Election.
The Alliance managed to get 5 TD’s elected to Dail Eireann - Joe Higgins and Clare Daly for The Socialist Party, Richard Boyd Barrett and Joan Collins for People Before Profit, and Seamus Healy, the sole non Dublin U.L.A. TD elected, who is a member of the Workers Unemployed Workers Action Group (WUAG) in Tipperary.
Sadly with a lot of acrimonious wrangling, the U.L.A. unraveled in 2012, not long after Clare Daly had left the Socialist Party.
When Richard is asked for his thoughts, in hindsight, about the ULA project, he opined -
“I think it was the first step on the road to the different parts of the radical and revolutionary left trying to re-align and work together.
The problem was people were still - and I say that about everybody who was involved — there was still a tendency to be overly protective about your own individual organisation within this wider alliance.
But I do think now people have matured quite frankly, I think they’ve learned some lessons.”
In the aftermath of the break up of the United Left Alliance, there were many of the smaller groupings, particularly the large ‘unaligned’ group of independent activists who joined together in a sort of technical group, who were both scathing and deeply saddened by the way the U.L.A folded.
So when it was announced that The Anti Austerity Alliance, and People Before Profit parties were to merge, it came as no surprise when many people from across the political spectrum scoffed at this development.
A lot of people were forecasting its rapid demise, with many quoting Brendan Behan’s famous quip ‘the first item on the agenda will be the split’
Regarding the newly formed AAA-PBP Alliance, I asked him as to what his hopes for the future are -
“We’re getting on really well - We still have differences and emphasis on things -but the good thing is we’re able to accommodate that.”
He added “ I see no signs that that’s going to break up, I think that’s strengthening that relationship.
I personally would like to see it reach out to others on the radical and independent left, who are genuine people, people who aren’t going to sellout for a ministerial seat.
I also hope it can be a catalyst to bring new political forces that have been radicalised on a range of issues, there’s a whole range of movements out there that are looking for political leadership.”
A big issue dominating the news in the U.K., and exercising the left in a manner not seen since the early 80’s, is Jeremy Corbyn, and his leadership of the Labour Party.
Many on the UK left have been scathing at what they see as a strong anti-Corbyn media bias in the British press.
Does Richard think there is a bias in the Irish media?
“Yeah, I mean I do see it… It’s mixed though.
In fairness it is mixed.
I mean some newspaper and media outlets are much worse than others.
Some of the newspaper titles owned by Denis o’ Brien are just extraordinary in their bias, in that they don’t even want to acknowledge the existence of the left, and the only story they want to write about the left is a bad story, where they try and demonise us.
But I do think we’ve fought ourselves to a position now. where they, at least some part of the media, have been forced to acknowledge that we’re serious people with serious policies.
That’s been a hard won fight just to get to that point.”
(An example of the type of alleged media bias Richard Boyd Barrett speaks about)
There is a lot of concern expressed around the world about the fact such a large swathe of our media consumption is in the hands of an ever decreasing bunch of billionaires, and the agenda these powerful oligarchs are trying to push.
(For example the vast bulk of the media we consume is owned by just fiver corporations — Viacom, AOL-Time Warner, Disney, Clear Channel and News Corporation, which owns a number of us National Newspapers, and Sky News among other interests)
This is of serious concern to Richard Boyd Barrett as well -
“I don’t think we should over obsess on them, but the concentration of the media in the hands of a few billionaires is a problem, and we need to address it.
Denis o’ Brien should not control half or two thirds of the media in this country.
Rupert Murdoch shouldn’t control, and a few oligarchs shouldn’t control the global media.”
Figures recently published showed an alarming rise in homelessness across the country, with more and more families forced to seek emergency accommodation from their local authority.
The housing issue is one of the key issues that has been regularly championed by Anti Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit in The Dail, with a motion they put before the Dail to effectively ban evictions from family homes, one of the key actions they carried out on he issue.
It was rejected after being voted on.
There are many who are now claiming we’re turning into 2007 again, re the housing issue. I asked Richard of he concurred with those sentiments —
“ Well to be honest I’m beginning to think it look like the Seán o’ Casey period — 1913 — I mean it’s that bad.
When you see houses being rented out literally like tenements, I mean in the last two weeks we’ve had two houses where it was discovered I think there were like. eighteen to twenty or thirty people in one case, packed in like sardines into three or four bedroom houses, paying extortionate rents, literally like tenements .
And then we have thousands of people actually in emergency accommodation, kids, yeah it’s extraordinary.
I’d say the concentration of property ownership in the hands of landlords and vulture funds now, is as bad as during the period of landlordism when The Land League and Parnell were fighting against the landlords.
This could be the lightning bolt for another big revolt I think; it certainly needs to be.”
From this interview it is quite clear that while Ireland has changed a lot in the last 30 years from 1987 to 2017 — the grip of the church has been considerably loosened, it is no longer illegal to be gay, and in fact gay couples can be married, amongst other things - Richard Boyd Barrett has not.
His hair may have greyed somewhat in the intervening period, but the issues which were close to his heart as a teenager, are very much close to his heart today.
Some politicians have shredded their political principles in return for a ministerial Merc, and more may well do so in the future, but if I was a betting man, I’d put very long odds on one of them being the People Before Profit TD for Dun Laoghaire.
As the interview draws to a close, I ask him a question that is a hot topic among many —
What does he prefer Tayto or King?
Richard pauses, and has to think quite hard a moment, before emphatically declaring “Tayto”.
(1794 words)
