Socialist Workers Party (Ireland) - From Movement To Party

From Movement To Party

The SWP grew from a mostly Dublin-based membership, where it had two branches, to today's organisation with a number of branches in Dublin as well as branches in some other Irish cities and towns, and also in some colleges and universities. At its 2004 conference it claimed to have five hundred members, although this membership figure was regarded as much exaggerated by many others on the Irish left who have estimated SWP membership at anything between seventy and two hundred. It has not made any public membership claim since 2004.

Since it began to participate in elections, both general (Dáil) and local government, in 1997, it has so far failed to have any of its candidates elected under its own name. So far the party has not run any candidates for the European Parliament or the Seanad.

In the 2004 local elections, it improved on its previous performances by polling relatively strongly in four Dublin wards. There were Artane, Dún Laoghaire, Clondalkin and Ballyfermot, where its candidates won 792 votes (5.65%), 1,439 votes (7.94%), 1,044 votes (7.36%) and 1,094 votes (11.75%) respectively. No seats were won however.

The 2002 general election was the last occasion on which SWP candidates stood under the SWP banner in a general election.

In the 2007 general election, their candidates ran under the banner of the People Before Profit Alliance. The People Before Profit Alliance stood five candidates, four of them SWP activists. Their candidate in the Dún Laoghaire constituency, Richard Boyd Barrett, was 2,000 votes short of winning a seat, scoring 8.9% of the first-preference vote.

In the 2009 local elections ten of the thirteen People Before Profit Alliance candidates were also SWP members.

Although the reasons are currently unknown the majority of the Belfast branch of the SWP broke away at the end of 2009 forming a group known as the International Socialists which is confined to Belfast.