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# Shattering Stained Glass: The Constitutional Order and the Fight for Democracy
- URL: https://new.horizonmag.ie/shattering-stained-glass-the-constitutional-order-and-the-fight-for-democracy/
- Published: 2026-09-09T15:10:42.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-09T15:16:17.000Z
- Author: June Kelly
- Tags: Articles, Communism, Constitution, HorizonMag, ireland, Marxism, Partition, Socialism, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-10-25 13:58

The Irish Presidential elections and the New York Mayoral elections, held less than two weeks apart, delivered definitive victories for two centre left political outsiders. The Connolly and Mamdani campaigns have been compared, analysed and dissected, by supporters and detractors alike. Supporters see these victories as an indication that the left has found its footing within the current period of reaction, attracting working class people back to progressive politics and forging a roadmap for future struggle. Detractors criticise the candidates, and more importantly socialists involved in their campaigns, as not being principled and co-opting the resentments of the masses, ultimately bringing them back into the fold of status-quo politics. Many of the campaign’s details have been pored over in hope of replicating their achievements: the charisma of the candidates, the aesthetics and use of social media, the messaging on cost of living and Gaza – all in search of the silver bullet. One aspect that has gone under-examined however, is the positions themselves. Now that the dust has settled it is perhaps the right time to examine how (and if) these positions of power can be used effectively to further socialist struggle. 

The arguments in favour of participating in elections for legislative positions do not cleanly map on to executive positions, such as the mayor of New York City. By its very nature, an executive position does not lend itself to being an oppositional figure. A representative of the House, or a Teachta Dála can effectively run on a socialist platform, and continue to hold these principles once elected. You can use the position to challenge the government at every turn, propagandising to your base, and connecting day to day economic struggles to a higher political one. This is not the case with an executive position, which is judged by how effectively one can manage a locality or a state, within the confines of the capitalist restrictions. The favourability of a mayor depends on results, and results are dependent on compromise. Thus, the choice is to either be principled and ineffective, or conciliatory and competent. This is not to say that one cannot fight for more equitable relations and living standards from within the executive, using the weight of the position to put pressure on legislatures for effective reforms. However, while you could perhaps fight for police reform, you are simultaneously responsible for the police. This contradiction unveils itself in cases such as Mamdani, who has kept on Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and is doing his best to keep the NYPD on side, responding to the police shooting an unarmed man on January 26th of this year by thanking “first responders”.[1](#62eb745c-e715-417a-9457-32241887a33b) Most executive positions may come with significant power but what you can do with that power is curtailed by the legislative branch. Thus, you are reduced to being a part of the liberal constitutional order, rather than challenging it. 

The case of the President in Ireland is different. Firstly, Uachtarán na hÉireann is not an executive position, but part of the legislative branch of government, thus not possessing executive power or judged by how one wields it. Secondly, and more importantly it is a mostly symbolic position, with even its legislative aspects being more of a formality than having any real power. However, the function of the position, being the last line of defence for the liberal constitutional order, is similarly problematic for socialists. What both of these positions have in common is that they act to reinforce a managerial, legalistic and paternalistic relationship between the state and those living within it. 

This brings us to the crux of the issue. The end goal of socialists is different from that of social democrats and left populists, precisely because we do not desire to administer a capitalist system. We want a system within which the working class wields economic and political power, and is able to execute that power in a meaningful sense. Our end goals being of a different quality, means that our strategy must follow, and it is why socialists emphasise class struggle first and foremost. However, this class struggle cannot emerge either spontaneously or through a process within which the working class are a passive non-agent. If we are to reach the goal of building a social republic it is incumbent on socialist parties to foster a sense of class protagonism. What is meant by this is the realisation by the working class of its own political subjectivity and necessity of self activity. It does not only concern the objective interests of the class as a class, but rather their historically necessary role in the fulfillment of those interests. To do so requires not enforcing, but at all times being critical and truthful about the liberal constitutional order, through which the rule of the bourgeois class is mediated. Failure to do so may help the party’s political viability in the short term, but it would mean an abandonment of class struggle, thus, relegating us to nothing more than a small fish in the big pond of the left-bourgeois. In the words of Wilhelm Liebknecht “We may not do as other parties, because we are not like the others”.[2](#89887219-0df2-4c74-8b63-bda2d4edc912)

## Paper tigers, cast shadows

Firstly, let us address the elephant in the room. The office of Uachtarán na hÉireann is de facto a symbolic role. On paper it holds some power such as referral of bills to the Supreme Court before promulgation if there is a question of constitutionality, although the decision on whether a bill is constitutional or not rests with the Supreme Court.[3](#440c294d-a776-47a8-8585-7859a4bc1db5) The President also has the hypothetical power to refuse to dissolve Dáil Éireann in cases where the Taoiseach has lost a majority, although this power has never been used and would likely lead to a constitutional crisis.[4](#4f54459f-5ba7-408a-ba94-2cb81f5a6250) However, the powerlessness of the role in any concrete decision-making capacity, does work to its benefit as a symbol. It mystifies the role in the public consciousness, the occupant of the office not dirtying themselves with the day-to-day scandals of politics, and therefore remaining a distant, yet dignified figure that anyone can project onto and be proud of. 

In many ways, Uachtarán na hÉireann fulfills the same role that a monarch does in a constitutional monarchy, except with the authority not of hereditary right, but of being chosen by the people. In *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte* Marx describes how the election of the President by plebiscite, unlike the representatives of the National Assembly, granted him a moral authority within the nation that proved to be far more important than any constitutional limits placed upon him:

> While each separate representative of the people represents only this or that party, this or that town…he is the elect of the nation and the act of his election is the trump that the sovereign people plays once every four years…As against the Assembly, he possesses a sort of divine right; he is President by the grace of the people.[5](#f8bdc052-6a4d-4785-ab2e-be14556637d2)

The President therefore acts as the personification of the nation, of our institutions and most importantly our constitutional order; an order that they swear to protect, thereby becoming guarantors of its undemocratic legal, economic and political structures. Catherine Connolly herself made her admiration for Bunreacht na hÉireann a key talking point of the campaign, occasionally reading from a pocket sized copy of the constitution at events.

As an example of such structures, the constitution provides an illusory framework for justice in the form of an independent, non-political judiciary, and a right to trial by jury. This is of course with the exception that “Special courts may be established by law for the trial of offences in cases where it may be determined in accordance with such law that the ordinary courts are inadequate to secure the effective administration of justice, and the preservation of public peace and order”.[6](#70f93225-894b-4ff2-8909-b16e61b10322) This constitutional clause justified the enactment of the Offences Against the State Act 1939 (OASA) and the Special Criminal Court (SCC)[7](#fae8db72-6fe1-4088-a2d2-521214fdf772) which has been criticised by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL). The ICCL makes the case that the OASA was an emergency measure that has become a permanent fixture of our legal system, and that the procedure of the SCC amounts to:

> an egregious violation of the rights of the accused and an affront to the democratic common law system which has otherwise sought to protect the rights of the accused since the foundation of the State.[8](#459b5316-a049-49c8-ad12-25515e3f1c0e)

The issues with non-jury trials are various: prejudiced information affecting the impartiality of judges, the director of public prosecutions ability to refer cases at their discretion and the accused’s inability to appeal the decision to try them there at all . 

Despite the various criticisms though, one cannot really make the case that the OASA and the SCC, or in fact any non-jury court[9](#f530cbf5-073b-4bce-bab8-b92a11b4bbe1) is, in actuality, unconstitutional. Liberal constitutions are able to present themselves as rational legal documents that express a universality, an equality between citizens and the state, and their protection from arbitrary power. However, they contain within themselves contradictions that entirely destroy any such illusions. As Marx says of the 1848 Constitution of the French republic “From its very wording, it is rendered *impossible* to violate it, for every one of its provisions contains its own antithesis — utterly nullifies itself”.[10](#c8efd01f-7b10-4b57-a560-ec8b90f92add) By championing candidates for the Presidency or referring to the constitution in cases such as the government’s failures in providing school places for children with additional needs, socialists put themselves in a tricky position. We ultimately end up championing the current constitutional framework and perpetuating its hegemony. This is not a problem of ethics, but rather one of strategy in the pursuit of fostering class protagonism. There cannot be an expectation of the working class to wield power if they are operating within this framework.

# The People?

One way in which the hegemony of the liberal constitutional framework suppresses the fostering of class protagonism is through the obscuring of class categories with an abstract category of “the people”. Article six of the constitution for instance declares:

> All powers of government, legislative, executive and judicial, derive, under God, from the people, whose right it is to designate the rulers of the State and, in final appeal, to decide all questions of national policy, according to the requirements of the common good.[11](#0ace3de3-e0a7-4fbc-881b-d81404ae8f8e)

What the “common good” is supposed to be is never specified, which is unsurprising when reading this as a marxist. The working classes and bourgeois have diametrically opposing interests due to their class position that simply cannot be resolved. Thus, the proposition of a “common good” in a class society is entirely fanciful. However, if you strip this rudimentary understanding of class politics away, replacing it instead with an all encompassing national interest, or an interest of “the people” you are able to reconcile this contradiction. This ideological framing is institutionalised in legal governance structures and mechanisms such as the separation of powers and referendums.

## Separation of Powers:

In 1787, during the ratification debate in the United States, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists were entrenched in a debate about how powerful and centralised the federal government should be. One of these debates concerned the separation of powers. The Federalists supported a Checks and Balances system, in which each branch of government, executive, legislative and judicial, has the ability to exercise some power over another to counteract its power. The Anti-Federalists, who adopted a pure separation of powers position, criticised this on the basis that checks and balances would make the three branches not truly independent, and thus lead to a ‘tyranny of the majority’. In the Federalist Papers James Madison, turns this argument on its head. The vagueness of the limitations of each branch, the opaqueness of the government and the lack of clarity on each branch’s responsibilities were *necessary* to avoid this sort of tyranny. If there was to be a true separation of powers, it would be the branch that is closest to the people that would come out on top as the legitimate power. “In a republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates”.[12](#8f9e9e51-2c73-4282-bf32-d6364552349f)

Separation of powers as a mechanism effectively neuters the working class, by curtailing the legislative branch and ensuring that decision making is often made by unelected and unaccountable bodies, not subjected to public opinion or the democratic will of the people. The tyranny of the majority, of the working classes, is kept at bay and the supremacy of “the people” is upheld. Within the legislature itself the Oireachtas is split between the aforementioned president, the house of representatives, Dáil Éireann, and the Senate, Seanad Éireann. Senators are not elected by the general voting population. Rather eleven are nominated by the Taoiseach, six elected by graduates of Trinity College Dublin and the National University of Ireland[13](#21092b36-a0a1-47ea-9231-66a65c1f8564), and forty three elected from five candidate vocational panels, by senators, TDs and county councillors. [14](#da14f0fe-7100-4266-b883-888709267288)

Similarly to other bicameral systems such as in the United Kingdom and the United States, the purpose of the upper house is to constrict the power of the popularly elected lower house. It is a vestige of the Irish Free State within which it was an even more elitist and aristocratic body, designed to protect the interests of the southern protestant minority and curtail a potentially radical new Dáil. Writing in a letter to Churchill William Brodrick, the Earl of Midleton, stated plainly “The Irish are morally cowards…the powers of the senate will be the only defence against extravagances”.[15](#801b80ea-dfdb-4153-8763-baf94f8df4ea) When the 1937 de Valera constitution was created the Seanad was kept, although in the form that it exists under today. A technocratic body inspired by the “ideas of corporatism contained in Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quadragesimo Anno”.[16](#ff2105a1-12c8-42ee-8bb0-2aa909c8b8b7) While the Seanad does not have the power to stop legislation passing, it can delay legislation and propose amendments. In this way it can effectively shatter any momentum that a radical, working class government could have by grinding things to a halt with every piece of new legislation. 

Beyond the Seanad, there is still the question of the bloated executive, civil service and the judiciary, which would require in themselves an investigation beyond the scope of this article. However, what is clear is that the mechanism of separation of powers in the south today exhibits all the attributes of vagueness, opaqueness and lack of clarity that the Federalists insisted were necessary during the ratification debate in order to avoid the tyranny of the majority. It not only makes the actual process of governance inaccessible to most within the working classes, it also complicates the question of accountability. Who is to blame for certain decisions that constituents feel are not in their interest? Marx leveled this same critique at the constitution of the second French republic stating:

> Here we have the old constitutional folly. The condition of a “free government” is not the *division*, but the *unity* of power. The machinery of government cannot be too simple. It is always the craft of knaves to make it complicated and mysterious.[17](#82cefbd2-f273-4d63-9ce9-0a5c6003b4ae)

As Bruno Leipold expands in his book *Citizen Marx*, Marx’s call for the concentration of power seems authoritarian in the context of liberal constitutional thought. However, Marx did not value the concentration of power for its own sake, but rather recognised what proponents of liberalism also recognised at this time. That there cannot be a “balance” of class power, that would be recognised as legitimate, without the arbitrary curtailing of the democratic will of the working classes through the legislative. Thus Marx favoured the simplicity of government as opposed to “complicated constitutional designs deliberately set up to thwart the democratic will”.[18](#8f0d6b1d-5d74-4950-9fc6-50b9a500875e) The simplification of government and the supremacy of the legislative branch as the true expression of democratic will is therefore a necessary aspect of building working class power.

## Referendums:

Why the need for the legislative at all? Surely the most sufficient barometer of democracy is a referendum. Referendums are an important and integral part of the south’s political system. This is because any change to the constitution itself requires a referendum to be held and the change to be approved by the voting population.[19](#469108b1-5b9b-4924-807a-4f8dfa84d34d) Socialists and centre left parties in the republic are major advocates of also holding ordinary referendums for matters of importance such as the abolition of the Triple Lock. One reason for this is the historic victories of the Marriage equality and the Repeal the 8th referendums. There has been a belief that the voting population tends to sway more leftwards in referendums, though this assumption has since been cast into some doubt by the defeat of the Family and Care referendums in 2024\. Nevertheless it is (correctly) assumed that if there was to be a referendum on the abolition of the triple lock, the majority would most likely vote against it.[20](#0a0379a1-10b4-42b4-bbe5-c15c01ce8037) The referendum is also often brought up in relation to questions such as reunification or leaving the European Union.[21](#d92598d3-9565-4002-ba23-b48e2ff41373) Through the lens of political calculus the referendum is usually seen as a smart bet for socialists. Despite this, there needs to be a sceptical approach to referendums as a tool of decision making, especially in relation to the question of building class protagonism.

Just as with the election of Uachtarán na hEireann via plebiscite, part of the allure of the referendum is its democratic credibility. It is not a decision of one-step removed representatives but of “the people”. The problem lies again in the presumption of a universal national interest, which entails the obscuring of class interest. As Karl Kautsky argues in *Parliamentarism and Democracy*, parliament and parliamentary elections act as the battleground of class interest. When you vote for a representative from a particular political party, you vote in line with the class interests that political party represents.[22](#006bb70b-88d4-4e67-91aa-946ecbf03e1f) Thus “Whenever they involve class struggles, parliamentary battles and election campaigns in particular stimulate the separation of the individual classes”.[23](#ce29443e-9541-4682-aace-2cd3b27caa21) Direct legislation such as the referendum collapses the separation of various classes and their class interests. It instead splits the working class into two separate camps, alongside the bourgeois and the petit-bourgeois. Jack Conrad makes the same argument in relation to how socialists should approach the Brexit referendum, characterising it as what it was; a “blue-on-blue power struggle” neither outcome of which would advance the proletariat’s position in the class struggle. [24](#ee4d2f56-61f3-4812-b046-6debc8a1a894)

This is of course not to say that socialists should not participate in, or outright call to boycott, referendums at all times. We must have a tactical orientation to referendums when they are called, based upon an analysis of current conditions.[25](#8cd9e191-bff1-4670-beef-b7c36b19cd26) What socialists must recognise, and in this recognition also communicate in their propaganda and education, is that referendums are reactionary in nature as they actively counteract class struggle. They too are a tool of the liberal constitutional order that diminishes the importance of differing class interests, collapsing them into a homogenous “people’s interest”. Thus a part of fostering class protagonism is going to necessitate a sceptical and wary outlook towards the referendum as a process and a championing of representative democracy.

## The North and “International Law”

An integral part of fostering class protagonism is the recognition of the international nature of class struggle itself. The bourgeois class does not restrict its fight to national boundaries, and neither can we. As a previously colonised nation, a nation that is still in part occupied by an imperial power in the North, the general Irish population holds within itself a contradictory position towards anti-imperialism. On one hand , there is a prevailing attitude of opposition towards military action and occupation of countries in the imperial periphery by powers such as the United States or the United Kingdom. On the other there is a deep rooted reverence for the idea of sovereignty and so called “international law”. This is exemplified by the importance of Irish peacekeepers in the neutrality debate, the role they play within imperialism going unquestioned even by the left.[26](#fd750344-2092-46ea-94c7-face7560dc8a) International law and neutrality was also a major pillar of Catherine Connolly’s presidential campaign, and a significant reason for her victory. Due to the significance it holds, socialists have often appealed to international law in order to express outrage at our governments complacent acquiescence and co-operation in imperial endeavours. While this is generally done with the knowledge that the concept of actually existing international law is a laughable proposition, particularly in a post October 7th world, it nevertheless muddies the waters and reinforces the liberal constitutional order on the global stage.

Where this is most relevant to the Irish context is the prevailing attitude towards the north in the south, shaped by decades of liberal constitutional thought. The previously mentioned Offences against the State Act was justified primarily as a necessary tool of defence of the legitimate government of the south against paramilitary threats from republican militants.[27](#da5fe6bb-b161-4cbd-b886-2fb6f14d5b97) This framing of resistance against a colonial occupier as an illegitimate use of violence that must be stamped out, not only reinforces the monopoly on violence that the state holds, but also attempts to distance the “legitimate” state in the south from any such resistance. It is a framing that entirely concedes that the occupied six counties are in fact the rightful territory of the British state. Today this idea is hegemonic in the south, especially after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) in 1998\. 

The GFA provides legal legitimacy for the colonial incorporation of the occupied territory in an era where such pursuits are generally frowned upon. It does so by basing its legitimacy, as all liberal constitutions do, in the “consent of a majority of its people”.[28](#3d1d3d22-dd9f-40b7-ab86-e2566a23e269) The document institutionalised sectarianism through its provisions for how the Assembly operates, ensuring each member is registered as a Nationalist, Unionist or other and that major decisions such as the election of the First Minister and Deputy or budget allocations are done on a “cross-community basis” that is requiring parallel consent or a weighted majority. While the liberal argument posits that these are necessary safeguards to protect both communities, it is not only fundamentally undemocratic but fully endorses the legitimacy of both points of view. The will of the occupier and the occupied are codified to have equal weight and validity, and thus their contradictory positions must be resolved through compromise.

This extends further into the outlined process of reunification. We need not go over the inherent issues of referendums again, rather we can simply analyse the internal problems of the process itself, and how it reinforces the legitimacy of British rule. Firstly the ordering of a border poll is itself entirely in the discretion of the UK Secretary of state to Northern Ireland.[29](#921735e3-dd97-4f9e-90e4-ff391688e73e) It is stated plainly that this power *may* be exercised whenever it “appears likely to him” that the majority would vote in favour of leaving the union. If the border poll returns a majority vote in favour of reunification, and there is a corresponding similar result in the South, implementation of this decision still requires the secretary of state to “lay before parliament such proposals to give effect to that wish as may be agreed between Her Majesty’s government in the United Kingdom and the Government of Ireland”.[30](#7f7163b4-c758-4497-a092-858df697c58f) The GFA therefore not only requires the consent of the British state for a referendum on the question to take place, but it legally justifies and concedes the power of the British state over the status of the North in the final instance. 

The GFA is a perfect example of how international law is used to deradicalise and neuter any sense of class protagonism and need for solidarity within the Irish working classes, and this can be extended to the working classes of the imperial core more broadly. Rather than viewing ourselves as a class that knows no border or boundaries, united by our shared interests against the international bourgeois, international law functions to separate the violence and injustice inflicted on our comrades across the globe, from our own actions. If war and exploitation is perceived to be the business of states, not people, the working classes of the imperial core are absolved of our responsibility to the working classes of those countries whose misery benefits us. International law ideologically enforces the de facto power imbalance and exploitation between countries and populations in a “legitimate” de jure manner. Just as liberal constitutions obscure the idea of differing class interests, replacing them with a universal interest of the people, who under the law are all equal, international law exists to obscure the contradictions between countries who benefit from imperialism and those affected negatively by it by insisting that there is a universal code of conduct by which all territories are judged and must act within. “All are held to the same standard!” the liberal exclaims. In order for socialists to therefore successfully spread anti-imperialism, a key component of fostering class protagonism, we must not align ourselves with these illusions, which already have a firm grasp on the minds of most people. We must be willing to point to international law as a mechanism *for* imperialism, instead of claiming it in reaction to acts of imperialism.

# No Shortcuts

In her analysis of the Russian Social Insurance movement Sally Ewing argues that workers’ expectations and attitudes were shaped through Bolshevik ideological practices. The 1912 social insurance bill was an attempt to stifle increasing workers’ discontent through democratic insurance organs, kassy, which would have elected workers representatives alongside factory owners representatives on a kassy charter. At the same time the Tsarist government, afraid of allowing the workers too much control, used all legal and illegal means necessary to limit workers participation in the drafting of the charters. This included the delaying of the election of worker representatives, which resulted in general apathy towards the project from the workers. 

The Bolsheviks and Mensheviks had differing approaches to the charters. The Mensheviks, who in early 1913 had a stranglehold on the campaign due to a Bolshevik boycott, approached the charter as a legitimate legal document and proposed a series of modest reformist demands. This sincere approach towards the kassy as legitimate democratic entities, only demoralised workers more and discouraged their participation as proposed changes to kassy charters were outright refused by factory owners. The Bolsheviks however, had a different approach. They insisted on participating in these institutions, in order to challenge the very ideas of bourgeois legality and destroy their legitimacy. In Petersburg, they raised the demand for an all-city kassa, as opposed to the Mensheviks who were working on organising craft wide kassy. Over time many of the workers united behind Bolshevik demands, even in the kassy that were previously Menshevik strongholds. In March 1914, the Bolshevik slate of candidates won the central elections. By choosing not to just raise demands that were plausibly winnable within the confines of the kassy system, but rather raising demands that proved the foundational undemocratic character of the kassy “the Bolsheviks translated the workers’ skepticism toward legal reform into the language of a powerful revolutionary ideology”.[31](#601e533d-3fd9-4897-a3fa-63784c395a0c)

It is not enough to nod one’s head in agreement, knowing the limitations that liberal constitutionalism presents to the socialist movement. Armed with the knowledge of these limitations, it is the job of socialists to break the grasp that these ideas have on the working class, to tear down the legitimacy that bourgeois democracy possesses in their minds and empower them to fulfill their world historical task as the revolutionary subject. It will require a reorientation away from left populism and pure “bread and butter” economism, towards a strategy of raising high politics in all arenas of class struggle where we are active. To not only meet the advanced sections of the working class who possess some form of class consciousness where they are at, but to raise their expectations of what demands they should fight for. Demands that if realised will assert the political supremacy of the working classes in the form of a social republic. 

What would these demands be? We can start with Marx’s own conception of the social republic, which is informed by the experience of the Paris Commune and articulated in *The Civil War in France*. Constitutionally, “it has a specific form suited to maintaining and bringing about working-class social and political rule”.[32](#95ae2b41-a34c-4bd9-9c11-2d3a0d797bdd) Concretely this would require the smashing of existing state machinery and the formation of new institutions, from which our demands can be drawn. The abolition of the separation of powers and all power to the people’s representatives. This would mean abolition of the Presidency, Seanad, Dáil and Stormont, and all legislative and executive power to derive from a 32-county national assembly. Stripping the judiciary of its independence, making it answerable to the electorate, either directly or through the national assembly, and revocable. Short terms and mandates for all representatives, and the power of recall by the electorate if violated. Abolition of the standing army, and replacement with people’s militia. An Garda Siochána and the PSNI would too have to undergo a similar process of replacement by a body democratically accountable to the population. Lastly, the deprofessionalisation of public administration. This means a large downscaling of state bureaucracy and the democratisation of civil service. Combined, these demands codified into law via a 32-county constituent assembly, would fundamentally shift the state’s relation to the working classes. Its purpose would no longer be that of a body above society, administering public affairs on behalf of “the people”. It would instead be an instrument of working classes, administering and managing society themselves. 

These demands, while appearing scandalously radical to an audience of today, were part and parcel of the minimum programmes of the social democratic parties in the late 19th and early 20th century. *The Programme of the Parti Ouvrier* calls for the abolition of the standing army and “The Commune to be master of its administration and its police”.[33](#4ae1b3aa-1994-4a46-8707-06f0209c0aa1) *The Erfurt Programme* similarly calls for direct legislation by the people through “Election by the people of magistrates, who are answerable and liable to them”.[34](#e9cac755-1853-4aea-9e1f-13f6bbcaa78e) The programme of the RSDLP too calls for state power to be concentrated in the hands of a legislative assembly, as well as demanding an elected judiciary.[35](#7bb3f22c-176b-4c63-8dd9-60e5004149ea) 

More importantly, there does not seem to be a credible alternative for the socialist movement of today. Left populism may be seeing a resurgence, but is functionally inexecutable in today’s era of financialisation and the service based economy. This is even more true in Ireland, which has never undergone a major development of indigenous productive forces to speak of, and is nearly entirely reliant on multinational corporations, with some exceptions such as the agricultural export sector. The working classes are all too aware that any implementation of higher taxation on these companies would result in catastrophic results for the economy and that they would have to shoulder that burden. 

If a left government were to be elected on this left populist basis, with some transitional demands within its programme it would be unable to execute any of these demands without immediate pushback from the institutions of liberal constitutionalism. Legislation would be delayed and revised by the Seanad, referred to the supreme court by the president and in many cases deemed unconstitutional by the judiciary. The state bureaucracy and civil service would be mobilised to slow every process down to grinding a halt. Multinational corporation lobbyists would dangle the carrot in front of the soft left bourgeois parties, and if met with resistance, pull out the stick and threaten disinvestment. Imperialist powers would use every economic and military resource available to ensure the countries continued cooperation in the imperialist order, the standing army and police forces on standby if needed. This is not even considering the question of unification and the role of unionist paramilitary groups. If, in its hour of need, a socialist led left-government turns to the class as its source of power against counter-revolution, and yet the legitimacy of these systems is not in question in the minds of the working class, why would they be organically led to socialist conclusions from this sort of pushback from bourgeois forces without an already developed sense of class protagonism and state disloyalty?

The task of fostering this class protagonism cannot be fulfilled by revolutionary sloganeering, left populism, or transitional demands. The task requires a strategy of patience, of socialists contesting the political arena on a platform of demands which seek to dismantle the liberal constitutional order. As we raise the demands for the social republic at every parliamentary and council session, every election, every strike and protest. In our constituency work, at conferences and gigs and workshops. As we participate in these institutions and continue to challenge their legitimacy, and encourage workers to not view themselves as passive observers of the political process but rather a force that has the power to shape it, the working classes will adopt these demands as their own. They will internally realise their own interest in the battle for democracy and externally take an active role in it, in the ballot box and on the streets. What the socialist movement must give the working classes “is a vision of what kinds of changes are necessary to break with the political rule of the bourgeoisie and a party that can fight for these changes in the arena of mass politics and provide the organisational basis for a new proletarian sovereignty”.[36](#e9bffc14-5924-40a3-b96c-1980278db869)

***If you want to get in contact with a submission or a response to the above review reach out at contact@horizonmag.ie***

1. B, Marlowe “Police Violence Under ‘Socialist’ Executive Power.” *The Socialist Tribune* (blog), February 6, 2026\. <https://socialisttribune.substack.com/p/police-violence-under-socialist-executive>. [↩︎](#62eb745c-e715-417a-9457-32241887a33b-link)
2. Liebknecht, Wilhelm, “No Compromise – No Political Trading”. [Marxist.org](http://marxist.org/?ref=new.horizonmag.ie). 1899 [https://www.marxists.org/archive/liebknecht-w/1899/nocomp/index.htm](https://www.marxists.org/archive/liebknecht-w/1899/nocomp/index.htm?ref=new.horizonmag.ie) [↩︎](#89887219-0df2-4c74-8b63-bda2d4edc912-link)
3. Constitution of Ireland 1937 art. 26, [https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/cons/en/html](https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/cons/en/html?ref=new.horizonmag.ie) [↩︎](#440c294d-a776-47a8-8585-7859a4bc1db5-link)
4. Constitution of Ireland 1937 art 13.2.2 [https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/cons/en/html](https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/cons/en/html?ref=new.horizonmag.ie) [↩︎](#4f54459f-5ba7-408a-ba94-2cb81f5a6250-link)
5. Marx, Karl, “18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.” [Marxist.org](http://marxist.org/?ref=new.horizonmag.ie). 1852 <https://new.horizonmag.ie/content/files/www-marxists-org/archive/marx/works/download/18th-brumaire.pdf> [↩︎](#f8bdc052-6a4d-4785-ab2e-be14556637d2-link)
6. Constitution of Ireland 1937 art 38.3 https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/cons/en/html#part11 [↩︎](#70f93225-894b-4ff2-8909-b16e61b10322-link)
7. “ICCL Submission to the Offences against the State Acts Review Group.” 2021\. <https://new.horizonmag.ie/content/files/www-iccl-ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/iccl-submission-to-review-of-the-special-criminal-court.pdf> [↩︎](#fae8db72-6fe1-4088-a2d2-521214fdf772-link)
8. Ibid. [↩︎](#459b5316-a049-49c8-ad12-25515e3f1c0e-link)
9. “Special Criminal Court to Be Replaced with New Permanent Non-Jury Court.” 2025\. Irish Legal News. May 29,2025.[https://www.irishlegal.com/articles/special-criminal-court-to-be-replaced-with-new-permanent-non-jury-court](https://www.irishlegal.com/articles/special-criminal-court-to-be-replaced-with-new-permanent-non-jury-court?ref=new.horizonmag.ie) [↩︎](#f530cbf5-073b-4bce-bab8-b92a11b4bbe1-link)
10. Marx, Karl. n.d. “The Constitution of the French Republic Adopted November 4, 1848 by Karl Marx.” [Marxists.architexturez.net](http://marxists.architexturez.net/?ref=new.horizonmag.ie). https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1851/06/14.htm. [↩︎](#c8efd01f-7b10-4b57-a560-ec8b90f92add-link)
11. Constitution of Ireland 1937 art 6 [https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/cons/en/html#part1](https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/cons/en/html?ref=new.horizonmag.ie#part1) [↩︎](#0ace3de3-e0a7-4fbc-881b-d81404ae8f8e-link)
12. Manin, Bernard . 1997\. Checks, Balances and Boundaries: The Separation of Powers in the Constitutional Debate of 1787\. In The Invention of the Modern Republic, edited by Biancamara Fontana, 27–63\. Cambridge University Press. [↩︎](#8f9e9e51-2c73-4282-bf32-d6364552349f-link)
13. The National University of Ireland is a federal university that comprises four constituent universities, University College Dublin, University of Galway, University College Cork and Maynooth University. [↩︎](#21092b36-a0a1-47ea-9231-66a65c1f8564-link)
14. Constitution of Ireland 1937 art 18\. [https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/cons/en/html#article18](https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/cons/en/html?ref=new.horizonmag.ie#article18) [↩︎](#da14f0fe-7100-4266-b883-888709267288-link)
15. Ferriter, Diarmaid, “Between Two Hells: The Irish Civil War”. 2021\. [↩︎](#801b80ea-dfdb-4153-8763-baf94f8df4ea-link)
16. The Irish Times. 2007\. “New Seanad Could Cause Turbulence.” *The Irish Times*, June 26, 2007\. [https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/new-seanad-could-cause-turbulence-1.1212104](https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/new-seanad-could-cause-turbulence-1.1212104?ref=new.horizonmag.ie). [↩︎](#ff2105a1-12c8-42ee-8bb0-2aa909c8b8b7-link)
17. Marx, Karl. n.d. “The Constitution of the French Republic Adopted November 4, 1848 by Karl Marx.” [https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1851/06/14.htm](https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1851/06/14.htm?ref=new.horizonmag.ie) [↩︎](#82cefbd2-f273-4d63-9ce9-0a5c6003b4ae-link)
18. Leipold, Bruno, *Citizen Marx* (Princeton University Press, 2024), 238\. [↩︎](#8f0d6b1d-5d74-4950-9fc6-50b9a500875e-link)
19. Constitution of Ireland 1937 art 46 https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/cons/en/html#part15 [↩︎](#469108b1-5b9b-4924-807a-4f8dfa84d34d-link)
20. Gash, Juliette. 2025\. “Referendum on Triple Lock Not Necessary, Says Tánaiste.” RTE.ie, November. urn:epic:1542483\. [↩︎](#0a0379a1-10b4-42b4-bbe5-c15c01ce8037-link)
21. McGann, Niall. 2026\. “We Cannot Go It Alone: Mercosur and the European Question – Horizon Magazine.” Horizon. January 30, 2026\. [https://horizonmag.ie/we-cannot-go-it-alone-mercosur-and-the-european-question](https://horizonmag.ie/we-cannot-go-it-alone-mercosur-and-the-european-question?ref=new.horizonmag.ie)/. [↩︎](#d92598d3-9565-4002-ba23-b48e2ff41373-link)
22. It does not need to be said that this is not always (or even in most cases) a conscious choice on the part of the voter, however it is the responsibility of socialists participating in parliamentary elections to try to bring this to the fore [↩︎](#006bb70b-88d4-4e67-91aa-946ecbf03e1f-link)
23. Kautsky, Karl, “Parliamentarism and Democracy” in *Karl Kautsky on Democracy and Republicanism* ed. Lewis, Ben (Haymarket Books, 2020), 146\. [↩︎](#ce29443e-9541-4682-aace-2cd3b27caa21-link)
24. Conrad, Jack, “Our strategy and tactics”, *Weekly Worker*, June 16, 2016, [https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1111/our-strategy-and-tactics/](https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1111/our-strategy-and-tactics/?ref=new.horizonmag.ie) [↩︎](#ee4d2f56-61f3-4812-b046-6debc8a1a894-link)
25. This is a point that both Kautsky and Conrad emphasise. [↩︎](#8cd9e191-bff1-4670-beef-b7c36b19cd26-link)
26. Oscair, Pádraig Mac. “A Short History of Irish Peacekeeping in Lebanon.” *Rundale* (blog), April 24, 2025\. [https://www.rundale.org/2025/04/24/a-short-history-of-irish-peacekeeping-in-lebanon](https://www.rundale.org/2025/04/24/a-short-history-of-irish-peacekeeping-in-lebanon?ref=new.horizonmag.ie)/. [↩︎](#fd750344-2092-46ea-94c7-face7560dc8a-link)
27. “ICCL Submission to the Offences against the State Acts Review Group.” 2021\. <https://new.horizonmag.ie/content/files/www-iccl-ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/iccl-submission-to-review-of-the-special-criminal-court.pdf> [↩︎](#da5fe6bb-b161-4cbd-b886-2fb6f14d5b97-link)
28. Agreement Reached in the Multi-Party Negotiations on Northern Ireland, April 10, 1998 [↩︎](#3d1d3d22-dd9f-40b7-ab86-e2566a23e269-link)
29. Ibid. [↩︎](#921735e3-dd97-4f9e-90e4-ff391688e73e-link)
30. Ibid. [↩︎](#7f7163b4-c758-4497-a092-858df697c58f-link)
31. Ewing, Sally. “The Russian Social Insurance Movement, 1912-1914: An Ideological Analysis.” *Slavic Review* 50, no. 4 (1991): 914–26\. [https://doi.org/10.2307/2500472](https://doi.org/10.2307/2500472?ref=new.horizonmag.ie). [↩︎](#601e533d-3fd9-4897-a3fa-63784c395a0c-link)
32. Leopold, Bruno, *Citizen Marx* (Princeton University Press, 2024),357\. [↩︎](#95ae2b41-a34c-4bd9-9c11-2d3a0d797bdd-link)
33. Marx, Karl, and Jules Guesde. ‘Programme of the French Worker’s Party’. In *Marxists.Org*. 2019\. [https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm?ref=new.horizonmag.ie). [↩︎](#4ae1b3aa-1994-4a46-8707-06f0209c0aa1-link)
34. ‘The Erfurt Program 1891’. www.Marxists.Org. 1891\. [https://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/1891/erfurt-program.htm](https://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/1891/erfurt-program.htm?ref=new.horizonmag.ie). [↩︎](#e9cac755-1853-4aea-9e1f-13f6bbcaa78e-link)
35. Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party Second Congress Part 1’. [www.Marxists.org](http://www.marxists.org/?ref=new.horizonmag.ie).  
[https://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/rsdlp/1903/program.htm](https://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/rsdlp/1903/program.htm?ref=new.horizonmag.ie). [↩︎](#7bb3f22c-176b-4c63-8dd9-60e5004149ea-link)
36. Parkinson, Donald.“The Revolutionary Minimum-Maximum Program”, *Cosmonaut Magazine*, May 5, 2021, [https://cosmonautmag.com/2021/05/the-revolutionary-minimum-maximum-program/](https://cosmonautmag.com/2021/05/the-revolutionary-minimum-maximum-program/?ref=new.horizonmag.ie) [↩︎](#e9bffc14-5924-40a3-b96c-1980278db869-link)