Fuel protests a chance to ‘rattle our failed status quo’

Protestors have blocked numerous major roads across the north of Ireland in response to fuel price increases resulting from the illegal US-Israeli led war on Iran. The highly effective disruptive actions mirror those that have taken place in the south of the island over the past week. Slow moving tractors held up traffic on the Sydenham bypass and West Link in the Belfast area. The Belfast Telegraph reported protests still ongoing in County Tyrone well into Tuesday evening. There were at least eight sites of protest in total.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) responded by issuing fines. In a statement, they said:

…a number of other persons were cautioned for public order offences.

People Before Profit (PBP) MLA Gerry Carroll said the police had behaved “disgracefully”. The West Belfast Assembly member also highlighted how the:

Irish Government’s majority has been shrunk by the cost of living protests.

Taoiseach Martin hit by backlash on cost of living failures

This is in reference to the fallout following a confidence vote on Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s regime that resulted in two TDs leaving the government for the opposition benches. Leading licker-of-the-US boot Martin now has 92 TDs backing him. 87 are needed for a majority in the Dáil. The government ultimately won the confidence vote by a margin of 92 to 78.

The Irish government responded in brutish fashion at the weekend to fuel protests. They brought in the army, while the Garda needlessly deployed pepper spray, including against a 14 year old boy.

Martin has faced intense criticism, both for the response to the blockades, and for allowing things to escalate to that point. Sinn Féin’s leader Mary Lou McDonald described the government as:

Arrogant and incompetent. Half measures don’t cut it. We need to see the maximum reduction in fuel prices at the pumps. The people have no confidence in this useless government. They should back their bags and go.

Martin ultimately said the government would provide €505 million in funds to tackle the fuel price crisis his government helped to generate.

Carroll concluded his X post by saying all the above showed:

…a simple truth: a cost of living movement can rattle our failed status-quo. Workers & unions can lead the charge!

In a longer statement, People Before Profit called on those groups to step forward:

We must demand that our unions enter the fight. Workers did not cause this crisis. Energy companies, war-makers and a government that serves corporate interests did. The unions have the membership, the resources and the leverage to force real change on the cost of living. It is time to use them. Every trade union branch, every shop steward, every community organisation should be discussing what action can be taken and building for it now.

Belfast — Far right hijacking protests fuel protests

They criticised unions for failing to lead thus far on the cost of living crisis, leaving a vacuum for the far right to exploit::

Some of the loudest figures attaching themselves to these protests are cheerleaders for Trump, for racism, and in some cases for Israel. They want to blame migrants, LGBT people or whoever else is convenient, instead of the profiteers, war-makers and politicians actually responsible.

Failed presidential aspirant Conor McGregor is one such clown. The washed-up ex-MMA fighter has previously voiced anti-immigrant ‘Ireland for the Irish’ views. In an X post, McGregor gave his support to protestors, while attempting to push immigration as a central woe alongside the cost of living. He railed against:

[The government’s] complete failure on housing, their refusal to ease the crushing cost of living crisis, the disastrous handling of immigration that has overwhelmed their communities and services and the shocking way that they have treated ordinary Irish people in recent days.

A farmer protesting near Belfast was quoted by the BBC offering a similar formulation:

We have money for everything else – we can spend overseas, we can help people coming to this country, we can’t help our own people.

As we’ve recognised before, the class configuration of the protests is complex. PBP suggest that the movement is currently:

…led by people who own companies, employ workers and have access to expensive machinery.

Nonetheless, they correctly point to:

…a real mix of people in and around this movement, including many working class people looking on sympathetically.

The imperfect politics of those involved shouldn’t be a reason for the left not to seize low hanging fruit for progressive organisers – the cost of living crisis exacerbated by illegal wars abroad.

Pro-Palestine group BDS Belfast had an idea along those lines, showing the similar treatment Palestine protestors and fuel protestors received, even if the latter were granted slightly more leeway by the state. In an Instagram post, they said:

We’re all bearing the costs of illegal US and Israeli violence. The Irish government must end its support for these crimes NOW!

One struggle, against those in power harming us all.

Solidarity

Featured image via the BelfastTelegraph

By Robert Freeman

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