Clare Daly (left) and Joan Collins are set to launch a new political party in the coming weeks

Clare Daly (left) and Joan Collins are set to launch a new political party in the coming weeks

A NEW LEFT-WING political party is set to be launched next month following the apparent collapse of the United Left Alliance.

TDs Clare Daly and Joan Collins are set to launch ‘United Left’ sometime in May, TheJournal.ie has learned, but many of the Dáil’s most high-profile left-wing members, including Joe Higgins and Richard Boyd-Barrett, will not be involved.

This follows the apparent break-up of the United Left Alliance (ULA) – an umbrella body of the Socialist Party, People Before Profit and the Workers and Unemployed Action Group – amid divisions over the advancement of the organisation.

The split became public last September when Daly resigned from the Socialist Party, saying it was time to “prioritise the building of the ULA” amid criticism from the Socialists of her links to controversial TD Mick Wallace.

However in January, the Socialist Party said it was withdrawing from the ULA citing the alliance’s “weakened state as ordinary working class people had not joined it in any significant numbers”.

It is understood that Wallace will have no affiliation to the United Left party which was registered with the registrar of political parties and clerk of Dáil Éireann, Kieran Coughlan, earlier this month.

The registration appears in the latest edition of Iris Oifigiúil which lists the new party’s address at 30 Ring Street, Inchicore in Dublin 8. The domain name unitedleft.ie has also been registered in the name of Clare Daly “as an unincorporated association”.

Daly did not respond to numerous requests for comment.

Her colleague Joan Collins acknowledged that she was part of discussions about the formation of a new political party, adding: “But it’s only discussions at this point in time.”

TheJournal.ie has learned that the collapse of the ULA was partly down to many members believing it was no longer working as many proposals to advance the party had been vetoed by some of its member parties.

Initial divisions over the progress of the ULA emerged in an article on this website last June when Socialist Party MEP Paul Murphy said that his party would not give up its existence in favour of being subsumed into the ULA straight away.

By contrast, Collins said it was “imperative” that left-wing parties united, saying: “It would be irresponsible of organised groups not to move forward in that direction.”