Madeleine Johansson: Red Network

Irish Left Archive Podcast

In this episode we talk to Madeleine Johansson of Red Network. Madeleine moved from Sweden to Ireland in the 2000s where she became active with the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) and People Before Profit (PBP). She was a party organiser and director of elections for the 2016 General Election campaign in Dublin Mid-West, subsequently co-opted on to South Dublin County Council in 2016, and returned in the 2019 and 2024 local elections. Madeleine was a founding member of Red Network, which was formed in 2021 within People Before Profit before becoming an independent party in 2025. She is the author of Class War – Not Culture War (2025) and Reform or Revolution – Sweden, Socialism and The Welfare State (2022), available from the Red Network website.

We discuss Madeleine’s early political experience and the contrast between Sweden and Ireland; her work as an activist and organiser with SWP during the austerity years and campaigns against household charges, property tax and water charges; her experience as a local councillor and the particular challenge of the housing crisis; the formation of Red Network and the political differences that led them to leave People Before Profit; and her position on the politics of class, identity politics, reform and revolution.

You’ll find more details of Red Network’s politics on their website at rednetwork.net.