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LAST UPDATE | 26 Sep 2019
PAUL MURPHY TD has parted company with the Socialist Party.
The party, which contests elections under the party banner of Solidarity (formerly the Anti-Austerity Alliance) had three TDs elected at the last election – alongside Murphy, Ruth Coppinger was elected in Dublin and Mick Barry in Cork.
Murphy is currently a TD for Dublin South-West.
He was elected in a by-election in 2014 under the Anti-Austerity Alliance banner. AAA changed its name to Solidarity in 2017.
At the height of the water protests in 2014 and 2015, Murphy played a leading role in campaigning against the introduction of charges.
Murphy parted ways with the party last week.
Murphy has confirmed that he intends to launch a new socialist group.
“After an extensive debate within the Socialist Party, a group of members, including me, have decided to leave and intend to launch a new socialist group,” Murphy said.
“When we decided to leave, the party accepted that and we all aim to have an amicable and cooperative relationship in the future in the interests of working class people,” he said.
Murphy said he will continue as a member of Solidarity-People Before Profit.
“All six TDs in Solidarity-PBP will continue to work together closely in Dáil Éireann and in building and assisting struggles in workplaces and communities,” he said.
The Irish Times conducted a joint interview with all three Solidarity TDs today – with the Dáil deputies telling the paper the two groups within the Socialist Party had disagreed over the extent of involvement of the party in grassroots movements such as Extinction Rebellion and coalitions like Together for Yes.
The new socialist group is due to be launched on Monday at 1pm.
- With reporting by Christina Finn
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Maybe he’s going to get a real job?
@Owen Slattery: Like all the FFG TD’s?
@Fr. Fintan Stack: what does ffg stand for?
@Rocky: The party currently in government.
@Honeybee: not sure the initials make sense.i thought it would be something witty or clever
@Owen Slattery: What an idiotic comment to make.
@Ronaldo Blanc: why is it ?
Rich daddy paid for his private education
Rich daddy bought him his first home
Never held a real job in his life .
A champagne socialist who only craves attention
@Gordon Hughes: that old chestnut. I’ve encountered Murphy out countless times on protests and at political meetings, you can throw the ‘champagne’ and ‘smoke-salmon’ socialist slur around as much as you like, he’s a very-hard working activist and TD who has shown, time and time again, that he has the courage of his convictions. I’m left-wing and from a working-class background and I don’t begrudge him the fact that he might have grown up in a comfortable middle-class home. I wish there were more like him. It isn’t where you came from; it’s where you’re going that counts.
@Dietrich Död: its not a slur if its a fact
His first political seat was also handed to him with zero effort
He’ll start a new movement and now split and possibly reduce the 3% socialist vote with his latest charade, all while keeping ff/fg planted in power, the left grow weaker with these moves.
@Dietrich Död: it’s a lot easier to be an activist than have a job
@Dietrich Död: define ‘hard work’ in this age?
@Dietrich Död: well said
@Dietrich Död: he hasnt done a tap since Jobstown. Only place he’s going is the job club because he won’t be Re elected. Before you go off on one… Enlighten us and tell us what he’s achieved since Jobstown?
@Ronan Herlihy: he didn’t achieve anything before or during jobstown either.
You can say whatever about him, but most of the policies he called for would have genuinely bettered the country. I wouldn’t like to see his party or any of the alliance ones in a majority govt but we do need things to swing pretty heavily in that direction. It’s far too easy to dismiss anything that benefits the underprivileged parts of society as just being handouts for dole hounds but that’s just because we’ve been taught to think that way rather than addressing the real inequalities.
@SFNutters: Amazing rebuttal…
@SFNutters: A stellar contribution as always. throughout my adult life I’ve actually have mostly voted FG because they’ve generally been the best of a bad lot, I’ve never drawn a penny of the dole, but I would like to sing a swing left in a lot of our economic policy to address the huge imbalance. But you go ahead and just dismiss everyone you don’t like as looney lefties.
@Terrence Edwards: *like to see
@Terrence Edwards: his policy recommendations were almost entirely urban focused and populist. What policy recommendations of his would actually have bettered the country?
@Joe Vlogs: Not specifically him, but the group of parties he worked with were instrumental in getting water charges and Jobbridge scrapped. I’m also in favour of a higher corporate tax rate (not high enough to drive anyone away, just… higher) and higher taxation on earnings above a mental amount. We all saw the stroy a few days ago about complaints from those earning over a million that they were going to have to pay the same tax rate as the rest of us.
@Terrence Edwards: I think ” Battered the country” would be more appropriate!
@Terrence Edwards: higher corporate tax rate? The companies don’t even pay the full amount as it is at 12.5%
If anything we should lower it and see if more revenue can be collected. The aim should be to keep the companies here
@Terrence Edwards: “but most of the policies he called for would have genuinely bettered the country.” He will be remembered for the water charges only. Do we need a proper water utility? Yes. Was Irish water the solution? No. But instead of fighting for what was needed, he fought for was was populist, i.e. no water charges. As a result, we will never have a water utility like other countries that have a fair pay by use system. In the mean time, we will tell some people to boil their water, and we will keep pumping raw sewage into the sea.
@Terrence Edwards: how was he going to pay for them. Left that bit out.
Champion of The Scrote Vote .
Arch typical smoked salmon socialist.
No loss to the Socialist Party.
@Colonel Grant: hes a careerist selling out Trotsky’s principles.
He is going to hold his next party AGM in a coin box in Crumlin.
@Owen Lynch: Does he even know where Crumlin is?
A champagne socialist who had everything in life handed to him on a plate from ‘Daddy’.
@Gordon Hughes: Compared to?
@Gordon Hughes: Why did my comment regarding Harris and Varadkar get removed because they and many like them have no history of real work and they also got handouts from Daddy?
Name one single thing he has achieved. The only thing I can remember is him stoking up a bunch of bottom feeders in Tallaght one evening. He sure is no Parnell.
They are having a testimonial whinging match for him
For tickets contact. pat h
You’d think socialism would be dead and buried by now.
@Robert Dungan: it’s doing alright in Finland and Sweden..
@Bart Teeling: Neither country is socialist.
@Joe Bloggs: that is highly debateable. They have socialised medicine and housing policies and are far from he neo-liberal privatising model.
@Damon16: Does their motor tax pay for water like here? Smart Alec.
@Joe Bloggs: hate to break it you ‘I’m gonna be a millionaire soon, just watch types’ but you don’t have to have gulags to be a socialist country. The NHS is socialist. Even the American new deal was socialism. And it wasn’t socialism that wrecked the world in 2008.
@Robert Dungan: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” – Margaret Thatcher
@Robert Dungan: not for the rich it’s far from dead and buried.
@Bart Teeling: I hate to break to you, but you do have to have central control of all facets of the the economy to be socialist. Sweden, while offering more in terms of health & social welfare, is a free market economy. Sweden was nearly bankrupted by socialist-type policies introduced in the 60′s, and had to go through serious & painful reforms in the 90′s to correct this. Swedish citizens get great benefits from the state, but they pay for it in high taxes.
@Bart Teeling: There is a very real difference between ‘social policy’ and socialism; redistribution of wealth, free education and free healthcare are forms of ‘social policy’.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary socialism is “A political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.”, or as some would argue, the state.
Passing off things like the NHS and the New Deal up as socialism, or indeed the Nordic states as being socialist does not make it so.
Your daily reminder, ‘socialism does not work’ because people are corrupt and the government is terrible at everything.
@DMW: “so, instead, I’ll make sure my mates get all of it”. Reagan and Thatcher were instrumental in getting the neo-capitalist model embedded, and we’re still running out of other people’s money, primarily because a fractional percentage of people hold, or just as importantly, control, most of it.
@Bart Teeling: Trotsky would not recognise those countries as socialist. The working class does not control them.
@DMW: Yeah. That well known and highly esteemed philosopher Margaret Thatcher.
He’s been so totally silent since the Burton case, I thought he was gone from the Dáil!
If anyone wants to know why we will NEVER have a govt that doesn’t feature FF or FG, you need look no further than this split. Splits and fractures in left wing politics is endemic. The Alliance, the Social democrats, Labour, the abundance of one-trick-pony parties on the left. None of them seem to be able to get on or see past their own importance, thereby hamstring their whole movement. It’s hilarious!
@lambda sensor: whereas on the right we had the PDs and Renua, both disappeared from the political landscape. If people cannot align themselves with or have different ideologies to existing parties then what’s the problem with new parties forming?
@lambda sensor: What’s absolutely hilarious is the hysterical spin ,from annomyous commentators, born from palpable fear that a new party might agree to unite with other left parties to form a Government!!
Any man FFG absolutely hated is a good guy…
@Willy Mc Bride: There was only one thing ever on Paul Murphy’s mind and that’s Irish Water. It was on the ticket of IW that he came into politics.
@Alan Scott: well that gets my vote
@Alan Scott: he was on his soapbox protesting in solidarity with the refugees who climbed onto the roof of St Patrick’s cathedral in 2006 long before Irish water.
Splitters!
@Gavin: Socialist People’s Front on they way! Or is it the People’s Front of Socialism?
@Gavin: have a read about the current splitting of the Committee for a workers international on Wikipedia. The bosses must be crapping themselves in fear of these militant revolutionaries!
@Gavin: https://youtu.be/WboggjN_G-4
@Ray Breen: it’s the Front of Peoples Socialism !
@Gavin: It’s unreal the way the left continue to split and then try to form alliances – the mind boggles.
@Ray Breen: no it’s the front of the socialist people
Once again proof of the old truth at every meeting of socialists the first topic on the agenda is the split. https://youtu.be/WboggjN_G-4
He’ll split with himself one of these days.
Just what the country needs, another lunatic fringe party
@George Bradley: Out of idle curiosity, if he was to start a new party, does he get to claim the party leaders allowance? €40k or €50k ,something like that? Genuine question, just curious
“Point of personal privilege, Paul Murphy he/him”
any man the government tried to jail must be doing something for the working class in ireland
@☘: The man comes from a privileged upper middle-class family, went to private schools and never had a proper job in his life; he’s a real working-class hero.
@☘: No Govt can jail anyone, with separation of powers, only the courts can do that
The word is, he is starting a new political party,interesting, anything that would change the political landscape is to be welcomed.
@Honeybee: be rest assured that your life is all the better living off the crumbs of capitalism than living off a three course feast of socialism.
As Maggie Thatcher said, the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples money.
Recite 100 time a day Paul.
1st question for the left is still the same…..when is the split?
@Paul Kavanagh: Splitting and splitting and splitting creates atomic fission chips and lots of radiation in the Irish Sea.
Not another bloody party! Haven’t we enough of small parties!! Never mind the big ones!!
Paul, best of luck with your new party. I might look to join in the future.
Good stuff. The more leftist parties that split the vote the better. If they united, we’d be screwed.
Hopefully he’ll now go after Irish whiskey and we get someone else to pay for our liquor as well.
Finally broke free from the Chernovites in Solidarity to pursue the true Socialist dream
@Hans Flouride: yes it’s never been implemented properly dont you know
He’s a hard grafter who has worked tirelessly all his life, he’s up there with the greats for his achievements nobody could walk in his boots he’ll go down in history.
@commoner: oh, man, my ribs hurt now!
He would want to brush up on a few more subjects . The only one he ever talks about is Irish Water and that gone by its sell by date. But the best of luck to him he will need it.
I always liked Paul, has a very principled approach to issues, even if you might not agree with them. Perhaps he thought the whole “take back the land, take on the rich Marxist lark” wasn’t working out.
The Life of Paul.
Good luck to any one tryin to create any thing with the trade unions. A total Waste of energy.
@Stephen Maher: How will the Polsters divide up the 1% support in the next opinion poll?
Irish water are looking for a good solicitor
Top wages
“It is understood that after difficulties arose between the Socialist Party and the Committee for a Workers International, the party’s parent organisation, Murphy sided with the CWI” is this correct so Paul Murphy hasn’t left the CWI but the Irish Socialist Party has left?
@steve white: they got rid of that line now
Bald man. Who does he think he is
And then people wonder why FF & FG keep getting re-elected? It’s because of clowns like these who form a new party/group every other week and split the alternative vote. In every constituency you’ll have one or two FF/FG candidates while a half dozen “socialist”/lefties slug it out among themselves for the leftovers.
Paul Murphy never held any appeal for me and would be very much left leaning in my political beliefs. His politics and policies he espoused always seemed to impractical and a step to far for ordinary people to understand. That said you could never fault his courage and commitment to pursue what he believed in.
Explain the split in 100 words. Do not quote what Lenin wrote in 1905 or what Trotsky said in 1923. Some of my acquaintances are fans of the late Big Tom and Larry Cunningham and I’ve met a few neighbours who queued up to buy tickets to hear Daniel O’Donnell. Please do not quote what Mao Tse Tung wrote about art, culture and the proletarian and peasant masses.
Ffs….. give me a break!
@Niall Binéad: is ffs a split from ffg?
Another ‘Socialist’ party that doesn’t agree with the Socialist Party he was a member of? FFSis it anywonder FG+FG dominate Irish politics.
He’s going to join labour Joan Burton forgive him for locking her in her car over water charges something we all should pay for
He a nut .
Another ‘Socialist’ party that doesn’t agree with the Socialist Party he was a member of? FFS is it any wonder FG+FG dominate Irish politics.
Another ‘Socialist’ party that doesn’t agree with the Socialist Party he was a member of? Is it any wonder FG+FG dominate Irish politics.
Vote FF/FG/LAB. Keep the recovery going
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