A Case For Proletarian Nativism
This article was originally featured on Stephen J. Delaney’s Substack.
It has been syndicated with the permission of the author.
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Irish Socialism was Unique and Traditionally Nationalistic
Against all of the misconceived perceptions about race relations in Ireland, and in the midst of a red hot immigration debate, there is a massive undercurrent of thought that lends itself knowingly or not to the socialist positions of Irish patriots of old. Namely historical labour heavyweights James Connolly and Jim Larkin. I want to lean into their life’s work as I make the case for what I will call Proletarian Nativism. I describe myself as a Nationalist because I am an economic isolationist who is ethnocentric or nativist. Although generally not a fan of socialism, in regards to modern or foreign interpretations of it, I do see some aspects of “our” socialism as meritable, particularly the rejection of laissez faire migration. Because this article is addressed primarily to those who use both Connolly’s and Larkin’s legacy as a cloak while they act as a mudguard for the Capitalists, I am going to ask: Who did Connolly and Larkin define as the working class? Was their legacy full of welcome parades at the docks as the Brit-Huns and the Chinamen came en masse to undercut them and facilitate desirous political or cultural change? No. Connolly and Larkin were not captured by this bleeding heart ruse we face today. They held national identity firm in the face of Trojan Horse class struggle rhetoric such as “refugees welcome here”.
“We are out for Ireland for the Irish. But who are the Irish? Not the rack-renting, slum-owning landlord; not the sweating, profit-grinding capitalist; not the sleek and oily lawyer; not the prostitute pressman – the hired liars of the enemy. Not these are the Irish upon whom the future depends. Not these, but the Irish working class, the only secure foundation upon which a free nation can be reared.” — James Connolly, The Irish Flag, 1916
With the massive influx of foreign labour into Ireland, far exceeding acceptable or normal levels at any time in our history, the native Irish worker can see he is being devalued and forgotten. In fact, this insane migration policy has now this week been recognised by Dave McWilliams as extremist and that the “far-right” were in fact correct and rational in their views. It is clear that opponents to this insanity were being demonised by a sophisticated propaganda campaign that weaponised the a-political coarseness of the common man’s vernacular and labelled it as hate-speech. Unfortunately many in the socialist/republican concentric circles found common cause with the propaganda machine rather than with the common man and chose to not represent him and his grievances, despite the fact that the very origins of their movement was rooted in this very issue. The native Irish working class are owed an apology, and beyond that a committed Republican solution to their representation deficit. As Connolly described who the Irish actually are above, The common Irish man is the working class and the only secure foundation on which our nation can be built. It is therefore within not only the interests of socialists but nationalists too to agree with Connolly here and reject the demographic change that is happening in the slaughter houses, the kitchens, the hotels, the cafés and the high street. The building sites, the roadworks, security and the tills in every grocery store and petrol station. The hospitals, the care homes, the schools. It is now at levels where the employer class of this country have us over a barrel. We can find no job anywhere, never mind get an interview. Our nation is being eroded piecemeal by the greed and need to keep us down and out of our own economy. By Connolly’s definition, we are under siege — mass migration serves the capitalist and political classes.
“Provided the position was an ordinary one, with no war in question, and these people came to this country they ought to be welcomed no matter what their nationality might be. But the present position is an extraordinary one. It is not a case of a man or two men, but a possible case of a whole army being dumped down here.” — James Connolly, Belgian Refugees And Fair Labour
Both Connolly and Larkin understood rightly the value of local and native labour and what the end result would be if cheap foreign labour was not resisted. They were even prepared to vilify and demean these foreign men, against their own good character, in order to stave off the capitalist attack on their livelihoods. It was that important and fundamental to their socialist principles that they did not allow themselves to be defeated by cries of xenophobia or class solidarity or the puppy dog eyes of outsiders who had in fact betrayed the native working class by coming there in the first place. There is a reason there are statues of Connolly and Larkin in Dublin and none of any of the current class of “Labour” or “Union men”. Connolly and Larkin were heroes to their fellow countrymen and were regarded as Nationalists, not just because of their Republicanism, but because of their resistance to the presence of foreign Scab/Slacker labour. By seeing the nations border as a de facto picket line, anything other than modest numbers of working age men coming in from outside are scabs on arrival and that is the position that was taken by these real, gritty socialists of our past.
“Larkin displayed an energy that was almost superhuman. The division was one of the storm centres of religious strife, and the stronghold of the Orange Order, through whom Mr. Houston held the seat. My being a Roman Catholic naturally made the situation still more lively. But nothing could frighten Jim. He plunged recklessly into the fray where the fighting was most furious, organized gigantic processions against Chinese labour on the Rand, faced hostile mobs saturated with religious bigotry who were howling for our blood” — James Sexton, leader of the National Union of Dock Labourers, wrote about James Larkin in his autobiography, Agitator (1934)
Although themselves not racial supremacists, they recognised that the bargaining power of the native worker is immediately at threat when cheaper labour that will work in poorer conditions is allowed to enter the labour market. By this very principle, Nationhood itself is fundamental to the socialist position on labour which should therefore be opposed to open borders. Capitalists who can displace and replace at will would have full control over the means of production, even the labour of the individual themselves. Each link in the chain, as in each nation and its proletariat class, must hold its own and not allow the capitalist class to play them against each other. No proletarian of the Connolly or Larkin persuasion would jump on a plane or a boat with thousands of their fellow country men to take the jobs of other people in their homelands. They would sooner communicate the treachery to them and help them organise against it and that is in fact what they did. That is clearly what internationalism was meant to be. Cries of racism and xenophobia would have been roundly rejected and laughed away by a violent mob of active, unionised natives. Both of these men knew this and wrote and/or campaigned on this extensively.
“The Belgian people, I believe, have been sold by their Government for something which we can only guess at. While carefully avoiding saying anything against the Belgians, we ought not to do anything that would give the employers in this country a chance to ‘sack’ Irish workers and take on Belgian employees. We ought not to give any loophole to the employers. If it was true these Belgians had fought for their own neutrality then they should not be brought here to supplant the workers of Ireland but as a charge on the British Empire.” — James Connolly, Belgian Refugees And Fair Labour
Although not an astute political science graduate myself, I can easily read history and the words of the men themselves. The verdict is in. They opposed cheap foreign labour. When your ears get assaulted by “when workers rights are under attack, stand up fight back, when migrant rights are under attack, stand up fight back” echoing in a South Dublin accent, know that you are being opposed by the children and dependents of the political and Capitalist classes and those class traitors who have been renumerated to stand beside them. We as nationalists should embrace the traditional positions of Connolly and Larkin and their badly needed manifestation within the Republican school of thought and organise against what has now become a crisis.
National Liberation and the Working Class
I personally hold it to be true that any race of people who fought for and established the right to self determination should also then be within their rights to conserve that franchise from demographic erosion. That is even before race relations and cultural differences come into play. All racial grievance is secondary to our claim. I do not believe this has to go any further than that when we are addressing the immigration debate but the labour market question is one that presents the strongest arguments and the most responsible pathways to resolution. National and Labour movements are nothing without each other. With our nation partitioned into two states seeking to unify this island through the mechanism of referendum or plebiscite, we must consider the effects of sweeping demographic change driven by the demands of the political and capitalist classes. What is the point of liberating the Irish people from British rule or EU imperialism if we allow the erosion of the franchise? As it stands the promise of a Unity poll in the North is holding Irish Republicanism in stasis while the slow drip of demographic ruin rots the very foundations of Irish life. We know for a certainty that immigrants in the north are more likely to vote with Unionism rather than for Irish reunification, as too are they more likely to be pro EU in the 26 counties than the natives. Are we to delude ourselves into believing that National Liberation is equally as possible today as it was a year or two ago? or even yesterday? every day with every new wage slave that walks through Belfast or Dublin airport it is a new antagonist in the opposing trenches not only on the labour front but also on a demographic front. Political change/preservation of the status quo is being achieved through this method in real time and both empires that lay claim to our island are militantly pro mass-immigration. The capitalist class are only too happy to enjoy the benefits of wage suppression and lucrative state contracts to house the Scabs too. We need to act in our interests again.
There is no National Liberation without National Conservation and what that means is not merely an effort of cultural revival, of language, art, dance or attitudes. It is in fact the preservation of the Irish Race as the dominant and overwhelming presence within the labour market at all stations. From the binman to the doctor, the teacher to the politician, the shopkeeper to the labourer. You can not expect an underclass of foreigners, which would already be morally intolerable and akin to the Indian caste system, to play a role in a Gaelic revival or vote with the Irish people for a 32 county Irish Republic. Indians behind every shop counter is a death knell for ár dTeanga Duchas. They are all economic migrants and will vote to sustain and advance that life as they mount our beautiful Éire like a cheap whore. As it stands we are nearly already in a position where we have to ask our beloved guests, door to door, to give us that Republic through electioneering. Excuse me kind sir, would you please give me my ancestral home back? This is equally as embarrassing as asking the English parliament for our country back. We have given the foreigner leverage over us again and it is already far worse than I can rightly put in words here but I will say this, when foreigners are being bussed to polling stations by the establishment using your money and the bus drives past your house without stopping, there is a reason.
We have placed the future of the Irish Republic declared in 1916 in the hands of people with who have been carelessly given access to the Irish franchise and who don’t care one single iota about it. They are being aggressively socially engineered by both the UK and EU empires to use anti-racism, inclusivity and diversity as a battering ram against the nationalist claim of an Ireland for the Irish and against the proletarian claim of that ownership, from the plough to the stars. If they shut their mouths and vote accordingly, they will be given the whole nine yards, including the franchise, and uphold neo-liberal control. These same people are already performatively finding it difficult to tolerate our flag and are now trivialising it’s display. Ireland’s new breed of Slacker is already demonstrating the imperialist attitudes we endured and continue to endure from the Brits and this must be confronted methodically and tore out root and stem. This will not be achieved through grumbles under our breaths but through coarse, pragmatic rhetoric. The anger of our people is already at fever pitch and begging for this representation. We should give it to them.
The labour market is being weaponised to alter the demographics and voting attitudes of our population to prevent the materialisation of the vision laid down in 1916. Both the EU and the UK want to kill the idea of a 32 county sovereign Republic and play tug of war over an island of deracinated economic units. A country teeming with Irish people will continue to yearn for that Ireland and that is why we must be replaced. I argue that only through a nativist proletarian revival can the idea of National Liberation become a reality and sustain itself. National Liberation is a forever-war in which demographic fodder from the poorer economies is the cheapest, readily available ammunition our enemies can wield against us. The labour market and all of the capitalist propaganda that comes with it is the weak point in our defences because of the abandonment of the rigid nativist and socialist principles of Connolly and Larkin. Instead we have a country burdened by trade unions and NGO’s who have sold out entirely to the elites. Name an Irish Trade Unionist, or Socialist this side of the millennium who has lifted a finger to stop any of this? there will be no statues for Paul Murphy or who ever the hell is sipping six euro coffees abroad in Liberty Hall.
A new nationalistic Union must be formed alongside a rejuvenated Republican political machine. It must be bravely and unabatingly nativist. Let no label stop it. We can no longer tolerate EU socialist ideals here that promote destructive free movement of labour from other territories into ours, an island nation. As Connolly said of people ‘fleeing war’, We ought not to give any loophole to the employers. Connolly rightfully identified the people fleeing war talking point as an emotional crowbar for the capitalist class and the political class too who would use soft touch countries as a dumping ground for human capital. Being permitted to dilute native labour in times of war would necessitate the stimulation of wartime conditions by the shareholder class, perpetuating war itself as a desirable social and economic state. I believe Connolly saw the labour market and the industrial military complex as interconnected, relying on each other to achieve the goals of the elite. By having the strength of character to oppose refugee labour Connolly actually made the mass displacement of people more difficult and therefore less appealing.
The mass movement of people under war or labour conditions is clearly a social ill that must be resisted for any nation to remain whole and prosperous, rather than colonised and profitable. Anti-foreign worker is therefore anti-war, and vice versa. Not because of race, but because of the need to challenge the root cause of the capitalist and political class gimmick. As of writing this, no less than 60% of new hires are non-native. This is clearly objectionable and far exceeds the criteria for socialism to roll its sleeves up and fight it. What would Connolly or Larkin make of all of this? What would they have done if an IPAS centre opened near them? The smoke would have been seen for miles. The first attempt to partition a bedroom into a no-Irish-need-apply barracks would have also been the last. Let us drop the fear of criticism from the captured liberal yuppies and restore order. I argue that the job market should be managed to limit new hires of non-native labour to 5% and locked at that indefinitely to reopen the avenues of opportunity to the native worker young and old. Socially cohesion would flow naturally thereafter with no need for racial witch hunts like we have seen in the US with ICE, which is what the working class here will demand if they are pushed and demonised any further.
I write this article as a very nationalistic person, active for a number of years now on civil issues. Before I was an activist, years back, I was very interested in politics in general and in particular the Republican cause. Admittedly with no network in my area I had no exposure or natural point of entry so I was relegated to a distant observer. Socialism never fully grew on me but historical figures who did embrace the philosophies and developed their own, like Connolly and Larkin, impressed me. They took part in formulating this country and the national spirit owes a lot to their efforts, of which I am eternally grateful. I respect them and agree with a lot of what they said and believe their labour policies are exactly how this island nation should view foreign and native labour. I believe through their example, pro establishment unions and champaign socialists can be challenged from within their own professed doctrines and beaten, rather than through some imported culture war that reduces the beautiful political history of Ireland down to a low IQ right/versus left paradigm. The presence of branch xenophilia within the workplace and the political arena is the first port of call and must be deconstructed. Revived nationalism in Ireland, channelled into a sophisticated, labour minded force for change can do this. No nationalist who wants remigration can overlook the labour argument or dismiss it. Proletarian Nativism is in my opinion the correct path for Ireland or at least should be a central pillar in a wider strategy to coalesce activist groups around Republicanism again.