The Jobstown Protest - Five Years On

“All hail, then, to the mob, the incarnation of progress!” – James Connolly, ‘Labour, Nationality and Religion’

November 15th marks five years since the anti-water charges protest in Jobstown against a visit by then-Tánaiste Joan Burton. In the aftermath of the protest there was an attempt to jail community and political activists, Solidarity Councillors and TD Paul Murphy on trumped up charges of false imprisonment.

Dave Murphy looks back on what happened on the day and why the protesters were vilified. A later article will deal with the historic trial and the #JobstownNotGuilty campaign which successfully defended the right to protest.

The Labour Party came to power after the 2011 General Election alongside Fine Gael. They received their highest ever number of TDs (37) having promised to end the austerity regime and protect people’s living standards - ‘Labour’s Way or Frankfurt’s Way’.

They broke every election promise they made and implemented cuts which affected the hardest pressed and least well-off such as slashing Single Parent Allowance. They implemented austerity with gusto and an arrogance that put even Fine Gael in the shade.

The Labour Party’s infamous 2011 election “Tesco Ad” - they went back on every promise after going into government.

People sought to fight back against the austerity regime, but with the trade union leaders acting as a shield for the government, it wasn’t until 2014 and the campaign against water charges that the accumulated anger erupted into a mass movement. Alongside an opposition to the new charge, the greatest resentment was against the Labour Party for their betrayal of working class communities, and in particular, Joan Burton who was then-leader of the party.

November 15th – the reality

Joan Burton had been invited to present awards by then Senator Katherine Zappone in An Cosán, an adult education centre. This was despite the opposition of students, some of whom refused to take their award from her. The trial would later reveal the cosy relationship between the two when it emerged that Burton was trying to convince Zappone to stand as a candidate for the Labour Party.

At this point, the anti-water charges movement was in full flow. Two protests of over 100,000 people had taken place, and in communities across the country local activists had set up community-based protest groups. When news reached the community that one of the chief architects of austerity was attempting to use their community for a photo opportunity, a protest was arranged on social media.

The protest quickly grew from a few dozen people to around 700. The sense of betrayal at Labour’s broken election promises was clear as Burton was met with chants of ‘Traitor’ and ‘The banks got bailed out, we got sold out’. A water balloon (or a water BOMB as it was dramatically referred to in court) was thrown at Burton.

A sit-down protest began, followed by a slow-march of the ministerial car out of the area which delayed Burton for a couple of hours. Protests like this have taken place numerous times in Ireland, and countless times internationally.

Normally, that would be the end of the story… but within hours of the protest the establishment parties and their media shills went into overdrive – Taoiseach Enda Kenny was referring to Joan Burton being kidnapped, headlines screamed ‘Mob Rule’, and TV & radio shows discussed the matter endlessly. Immediately a major Garda operation was launched which resulted in dawn raids and court cases.

“The great only appear great because we are on our knees….”

What drove this reaction wasn’t any major concern for Burton, but a fear of the water charges movement and the working class. The Dublin South West by-election in October had delivered a shock result with Paul Murphy being elected as a Solidarity candidate on a clear non-payment platform, over 100,000 had attended protests called by Right2Water, working class people in communities were self-organising street meetings and opposition to water meters through ‘Says No’ groups.

Water charges were on the way to becoming un-implementable through non-payment and protest.

In reality, working class people were stepping into politics as a powerful force against water charges and austerity, and were looking politically away from the establishment and towards the left and socialist ideas for a political alternative.

For the ruling class, this shift in power was exemplified by the Jobstown protest – it was an affront to them that the Tánaiste couldn’t freely swan into a community which had been devastated by her cuts so she could have a photo-opportunity.

But even more so that working class people, those who were referred to as 'f**cking dregs' by Burton's assistant, had discussed and voted on how long the protest would last and what form it would take. Despite being the Tanaiste, and despite all the Gardai they deployed into the area; power on the day was in the hands of ordinary people.

It was this disgust at the audacity of ‘ordinary people’ to dare delay the Tánaiste and fear of the movement which was the catalyst for the reaction of the media, Gardaíí and the state. They began a ferocious smear campaign against the protesters to paint the movement as dangerous, a ‘sinister fringe’ in order to scare away the so-called ‘middle ground’ people who had surprised the government by joining the mass protests. But also to intimidate people away from protesting by launching a vicious campaign of political policing resulting in dawn raids, arrests and an attempt to stitch people up in the courts.

“…Let us rise”

It’s easy to forget that all this happened only a few years ago. When we look around at the further damage that has been inflicted on working class communities in a hundred different ways, people can get demoralised that there’s no major on-going fight back.

This is most clear when we look at the housing crisis – over 10,000 people homeless, people being evicted by vulture funds or money grabbing landlords. While on the other hand, we see developers back racking it in, a Dáil half-full of landlords refusing to take action and corporate landlords profiting off the backs of workers.

Often you hear people complain that there’s no major movement on housing, people said the exact same about austerity before the water charges erupted. We need to build a new movement on housing – there’s already signs of that happening with the protest organised on 5 December through social media, with echoes of the early days of the anti-water charges movement.

This can be the beginning of a new battle we can win that takes the power from developers and landlords, and puts our right to housing before their right to profit. But we need to go beyond what was achieved in the water charges campaign, we need to create and develop a new party which stands for and fights for the interests of the working class.