Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Everyone in this House and society will agree we need to prepare for Brexit but doing so is not a neutral class-free, agenda-free, ideology-free task, with the exception of dealing with the many legal formalities and so on. Making these legal changes is fine but the approach of the Government and the majority of parties in this House in preparing for Brexit involves a continuation of their general policy, which serves the interests of the capitalist class and big business in this country. This is primarily through the mechanism of quite neoliberal economic policies. This is what is new and what has substance in this Bill as opposed to necessary legal and technical changes. The basic thrust of the Bill is to give greater facilities to State agencies, without democratic oversight, to give subsidies to companies as a response to Brexit. That is the most essential new element of what is here. Crucially, it is from public money, without resulting in public ownership and a changed nature of the economy.

We agree absolutely on the need to prepare for Brexit but we look at this from a very different standpoint, namely, that of working-class, ordinary people in this country. It should happen at State level but my colleagues will have raised the point about having a conference of workers from across this island and Britain to prepare to resist any attempt to place the burden of Brexit on working class people. The objective would also be to protect jobs, conditions, etc. The same applies in terms of what we think a government on the left would do in preparing for Brexit. It would be different in that, instead of the thrust being increasing the capacity of the State to dole out public money to private companies, it would be to seek to say there should be no attack on workers' living standards, no unemployment and no redundancies as a result of Brexit. While public resources should be used, they should be used in a way that is linked to the idea of public ownership and a changed model of the economy, as opposed to the very unsustainable model we currently have. I propose a model fundamentally based on a socialist industrial policy and a planned economy. Some of the unsustainable aspects of the Irish economy are exposed in the current discussion.

I want to focus on a couple of specific areas. My colleagues have dealt with others. Mr. Jeremy Corbyn stated accurately that Ms Theresa May's Brexit is a "bargain basement Brexit". Unfortunately, it is a bargain basement Brexit that is supported by all the major parties in this Dáil and it represents a vision of low tax, low regulation and a race to the bottom in the interest of finance capital and a section of British capitalism. The basic approach of the Irish Government in response, definitely supported by Fianna Fáil but also by others, is to go deeper in terms of building a basement under the British Government's basement, which is extremely dangerous.

Let me draw attention to the impact of the influx of global finance companies into Ireland as a result of Brexit. According to a Financial Timesspecial a couple of weeks ago, the Central Bank has received around 100 applications from financial firms to move here. As of January, 27 financial firms were definitely moving from London to Dublin, far ahead of Frankfurt, Luxembourg and Paris. Obviously, the Government sees it as a major success that we are managing to shift these companies to Ireland. What will be the consequence, however? The result will be a doubling down, as an economic model, of the idea of Panama on the Liffey, with the prospect of all the negative features of the so-called finance curse, like the oil curse, coming to be bear even more. According to Mr. Nicholas Shaxson, this is where an oversized financial sector comes to control the politics of a finance-dependent country and to dominate and hollow out its economy, displacing productive activities and giving great political and economic power to a small financial elite. It will also have the impact of exacerbating the housing crisis as thousands of highly paid executives move here looking for high-end rental accommodation close to the areas of the city where the jobs will be located.

We know from the banking inquiry, for example, that light-touch regulation applied to international banks in order to attract them to the IFSC was one of the major triggers for the deregulation of the domestic banks. In his evidence to the inquiry, banking expert Professor Gregory Connor testified as follows:

The IFSC ... specialises in regulatory arbitrage and tax-type situations that are perhaps pushing the limits. That ... is partly what offshore centres do, but it probably has been done to excesses in some cases in the IFSC. Furthermore, that tendency or philosophy washed back to the domestic economy. The regulation of financial markets in domestic Ireland was hobbled by the very light-touch approach that was one of the founding principles of the IFSC.

The former head of the banking supervision department of the Financial Regulator, Ms Mary Burke, confirmed this, explaining:

[T]he strategic decision that there should not be two different regulatory regimes - one for domestic firms and another for those in the IFSC - meant that a different approach was not taken to the domestic financial services sector. This decision was driven by a concern that the IFSC might otherwise be categorised as an off-shore centre with associated negative connotations.

Therefore, in terms of being Panama on the Liffey, there is a dynamic of pressure for renewed deregulation for the offshore sector. That pressure is likely to spread back into the domestic sector. Already in the United States, for example, most of the stronger financial regulation that was introduced in the aftermath of the financial crisis has been reversed, and there will be pressure for the same to happen here. It is likely that the same will happen here in competing for international financial investment. The IMF identified the relatively large size of the financial system, amounting to multiples of GDP, as an important reason Ireland and Iceland suffered worse financial crisis than elsewhere.

I am not saying the next crisis will be a carbon copy of the last one but it is certainly the case that Ireland's outsized financial sector, which will be even more outsized as a result of the Government's response to Brexit, makes the Irish economy more vulnerable to financial crises than less financialised economies. This whole approach is mistaken. Instead of seeing this as an opportunity to make Ireland even more of a finance centre, we should take the finance and banking systems into real democratic public ownership under workers' control and utilise them as a public utility in the interests of the economy and society as a whole, channelling the resources that exist into productive, rather than speculative, investments. A publicly owned financial system could be the bedrock for planning in a democratic way the necessary transition of the Irish agrifood sector from the polluting, greenhouse-gas-heavy industry dominated by meat and dairy to a green horticultural economy, for example.

That brings me to my second point, which relates precisely to the agriculture sector, which is an example of an unsustainable model that is overly exposed. This applies to finance but it also applies to agriculture. The agrifood sector is most unsustainable in the context of the environmental crisis. The sector is the number one contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the economy.

It is simply unsustainable to continue on the basis of 10 million cows in Ireland. It has also had economic consequences and has left that sector and the jobs associated with it extremely exposed with the likely collapse of beef and dairy exports in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

How can a conversion take place in our model of agriculture? The roles of public ownership and the State are central. We should take the major agrifood companies, such as Kerry Group, Total Produce, Greencore, Glanbia etc. into public ownership and use them to restructure the agricultural sector and point it in a different direction. We should also change the model of grants currently given out in order to consistently incentivise a shift towards a different type of farming without any loss of income for small and medium farmers.

I want to make a couple of points about the political situation in Britain, which obviously has significance for how things play out and affect ordinary people in this country. Solidarity-People Before Profit has always said that the prospect of a Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour Government with a leftist and socialist programme had the potential to transform the discussion about Brexit and reopen negotiations on a different basis. Different proposals would result in no borders to trading relationships and discussions being conducted in a very different fashion. Such discussions would reach over the heads of the likes of Angela Merkel, Jean-Claude Juncker and Emmanuel Macron to ordinary people across Europe who oppose fiscal rules such as those in the Maastricht treaty and the austerity that has been imposed. Those people are also opposed to the militarism and the lack of democracy of the EU. They are in favour of agreeing a new deal across Europe and popularising ideas that are a part of a vision for a socialist Europe. That is the best possible outcome for ordinary people in this country as well.

The first thing that must happen to get to that point is for Theresa May's Government to fall and a general election to be called. That requires parliamentary manoeuvres and mobilisation from below by the trade union movement, Corbyn and others, to demand that Prime Minister May goes. The Labour Party needs to enter that election with a leftist programme without repeatedly conceding to the Blairites. In that context, the past week has been a bad week for British politics and therefore for politics here. It started with the Blairites walking away from the Labour Party, which was no problem. They were always out to damage Corbyn and chose the best moment to do so. Good riddance to them because they did not agree with the policies that Corbyn represented. The line taken started well and was that these people were elected on the Corbyn programme for the many, not the few, that they should stand down and there should be by-elections. Unfortunately, that narrative then shifted because of pressure applied by the Blairites who remain within the Labour Party and that was the beginning of significant concessions.

Two significant mistakes have been made this week and should be reversed. The first mistake was the shift in the Labour Party position to say it is now in favour of a second referendum with the option of remaining within the EU. That is a disastrous position because it potentially allows the Tory Party to present itself as the only party that will respect the outcome of the previous referendum. If a second referendum was to take place, regardless of the result, it would lay the basis for a deep alienation in British society and an opening for the far right. Corbyn should be uniting the working class, those who voted to leave and remain, behind the idea that the original referendum result would be respected while questioning the type of Brexit they want and in whose interest it would be. I refer to the point about a left and socialist exit.

The second mistake was Corbyn's move to suspend Chris Williamson, MP, effectively for telling the truth about the role of the attacks on the Labour Party and the mistakes made by a section of the leadership of the Labour Party in apologising and retreating. The reaction to that confirmed everything Chris Williamson was saying and that is disastrous. It shows that the Blairites and the right wing in the media and elsewhere will continue an unrelenting attack on Corbyn and a left leadership of the Labour Party because they do not want a left Government to come to power in Britain. It is a mistake to retreat and to suspend Chris Williamson at a time when the Blairites are the ones who should be suspended.

The ordinary members of the Labour Party who joined in support of Corbyn's left programme should be listened to, not the various backbench Blairites. I send my solidarity to Chris Williamson. The left, socialist, labour movement needs to mobilise to prevent what has been a week of retreats by the Corbyn leadership becoming a rout and a negative turning point for the prospects and potential of the Corbyn leadership and the popularity of socialist policies in Britain.

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