Act now if you want to save the Soldiers of Destiny, Micheál!
Sliding in the polls. Squeezed by Sinn Féin. Losing voters in the cities. Yes, FF can bounce back: but only if it’s ready to go to war with Fine Gael...
AS the new Dáil term settles in it is all set to bring much angst to the Fianna Fáil party. Health, homelessness and Brexit stalk the political landscape. The October budget looms, the Confidence and Supply Agreement is due to come to an end and Fianna Fáil, the party that dominated Irish politics for much of the State’s existence, finds itself in the throes of an existentialist crisis.
In the 15 months since he became Taoiseach, Fianna Fáil has barely been able to throw a political punch at Leo Varadkar, never mind land one.
This is reflected in Varadkar’s audacious attempt to extend Confidence and Supply and ask Fianna Fáil to consign itself to opposition for close to another two years.
That must have stuck in the craw of all self-respecting Soldiers of Destiny.
Public dissatisfaction with the perennial problem of the health service and the relatively new scourge of homelessness has not damaged Fine Gael’s relative popularity and the party has remained ten points ahead of its main rival in the opinion polls pretty much throughout this year.
Last week’s Fianna Fáil party think-in was full of condemnation of the Government’s inaction and various policy failures. It also featured much talk of new policy initiatives. The result is the same – an electorate still disinterested and bored by it all.
It’s hard to blame them. Fianna Fáil is keeping Fine Gael in power. In that context it is in the awkward position of trying to pull off the impossible trick of claiming credit for the Government’s successes while lambasting it for its failures. Politically, it can’t be done.
LAST October’s budget is a classic case. Fianna Fáil gave a tepid welcome to what it called the progressive measures in the budget while at the same time excoriating the Government for its paltry efforts in house-building and the miserable increases in take-home pay for pretty much every group in society.
Confidence and Supply, by its very nature, helps the main Government party and causes difficulty for the main opposition party. The Government claims credit for success and adopts a ‘we’re all in it together’ approach towards failure. It’s the nature of the beast and thus it’s no wonder Fianna Fáil is struggling to make any inroads with the electorate.
Fianna Fáil has had a long and proud history but it’s a history based on being in government. The 1937 Constitution, the opening up of the economy in the 1950s, entering the EEC, social partnership and the Northern Ireland peace process are all worthy achievements.
It is also, however, the party of the bank guarantee scheme and the bailout.
Fianna Fáil’s success was based on its chameleon-like ability to offer itself as different things to different social classes.
It was the party of the developer class, of the ruthless entrepreneurial class on the make, of the ambitious middle class who saw Dublin as the place to make their fortunes, and of the Irish Financial Services Centre. Yet, it also presented itself as the champion of both the urban and rural poor and the party who offered the people a safety net through social welfare when they needed it. It was the party that built social housing and provided free secondary school education.
Rural Ireland, according to itself, was safe in Fianna Fáil’s hands. Not the rural Ireland of the big farming ranchers of Fine Gaelers on tractors that Fianna Fáil was so contemptuous of, but the rural Ireland of the small farmer, the labourer, the party of the plain people of Ireland who had their dinner in the middle of the day.
And of course it was always the party with a plan for the reunification of the country and the return of the fourth green field. While that still remains a cherished if essentially lost goal, Fianna Fáil has been central to the peace process since 1987.
Fianna Fáil offered themselves as the party who offered the people of Ireland hope, the party who made it possible for their lives to be better, and for their children to have more opportunities than they had. Ten years ago all that history went for naught when the economy crashed.
While Fianna Fáil’s critics have long accused them of being opportunistic political hucksters, willing to abandon any principle on the cause of political expediency, the party has always held pragmatism as a core philosophy. Its politics have never been about right or left. Instead its core idea has revolved around being responsive to the public. It’s the very reason the party was founded.
This pragmatism is at the very heart of Micheál Martin’s
own politics. It’s why he is in Fianna Fáil in the first place. He is on record as bemoaning the perils of ideological inflexibility, stating that remaining committed to the same programme as realities change is not something to be admired. A keen student of history, Martin is proud of Fianna Fáil’s centrism, seeing the party as being at the vanguard of a liberal democracy which responds to the needs of the public.
In that context, Fianna Fáil, throughout its history, has been a responsive and evolving centrist party whose political programme adapted as the demands of particular times changed.
This explains, amongst other things, the move from protectionism in the 1930s to free trade in the 1960s, the change from hostility towards the Anglo-Irish Agreement in opposition to working it in Government and the jettisoning of single party government for coalition.
Fianna Fáil has never been a
party that believed in basking in ideological purity and consistency. Rather it has been a broad church whose aim has been the constant march of the nation through progressive and pragmatic policies. Such an approach garnered it a constant 40% of the vote at election time.
The electorate, in its own pragmatism, blamed Fianna Fáil for the economic crash and took its brutal revenge at the ballot box in February 2011, reducing the party from 42% in 2007 to 17% in 2011. In real terms this was a drop of close to half a million votes between those two elections. The Soldiers of Destiny have been playing catch up ever since.
Micheál Martin brought Fianna Fáil from the edge of extinction in 2011 to the brink of power in 2016. He is not without courage. And as was evident from his appearance on the Late Late Show last night, he is also an extremely intelligent and likeable man. And a politician of considerable substance. Indeed,
two episodes over a 15-month period of his leadership defined him as such. These were his challenge to the leadership of Brian Cowen in January 2011 after the humiliation of the bailout, and his attempt to expel Bertie Ahern from the party after the Mahon tribunal reported in March 2012. These were courageous and not easy steps to take in confronting Fianna Fáil royalty.
The first was taken in the sure knowledge that Fianna Fáil was in for a crushing defeat in the looming election when many of the men of destiny who Martin had soldiered with couldn’t wait to get off the electoral pitch.
The second was taken when Martin led just 20 TDs in the Dáil and presided over a decimated and demoralised party. He had come to the conclusion that if Cowen stayed on, the very future of Fianna Fáil was at stake.
On Bertie Ahern he decided that Fianna Fáil had to cut all its ties with its former leader if it was to
offer itself as a credible political alternative in future elections.
Martin, both in the 2014 local elections and the 2016 general election, made Fianna Fáil that credible political alternative.
However, now Fianna Fáil, and Martin himself, face a decisive election and a decisive choice. And that choice is when to pull the plug on the Confidence and Supply Agreement and precipitate the general election.
People in Government, particularly the independents, get very antsy about the possibility of an election. As ever the reason for avoiding an election, we are told, is Brexit. This is bogus. There is nothing irresponsible or indeed unpatriotic about a general election being held before any final Brexit deal is agreed between Britain and the EU. That smacks of a strange throwback to the colonial mentality of not doing anything to upset our masters.
We have had a change of leadership in Government already since
the British voted for Brexit, and a change of Government after any general election won’t change the basic Irish stance to which pretty much all parties agree.
The British themselves have had what can best be described as an irresponsible election in the middle of Brexit negotiations.
The clarion call of irresponsibility sounds mighty fine when uttered from the safe confines of Government Buildings.
The suspicion must be that Fianna Fáil’s self-respect cannot really take much more of being lectured at, as to their responsibilities by members of a Government who are cossetted by the trappings of power.
The reality is that the Confidence and Supply Agreement is sucking the marrow out of Fianna Fáil’s DNA of being in government.
Micheál Martin desperately wants to be back in power as taoiseach. The next election is his only chance. After resurrecting his party from the trauma of 2011 and getting so close in 2016 it seemed his soldiers were destined for power come the next election.
But the agreement, and its telegenic leader, has emboldened Fine Gael and demoralised Fianna Fáil. It would be electoral suicide for Fianna Fáil to renew it any time beyond October’s budget. What it should do is agree a budget, adopt a constructive opposition to the Government, and decide when enough is enough.
Fine Gael won’t like it but Fianna Fáil is in a fight for its very survival as a party with ambitions to lead the government.
IN 2016 Fianna Fáil caught the mood of the electorate far more accurately than did Fine Gael. Its Ireland For All slogan with an emphasis on social solidarity rather than tax cuts brought it to within touching distance of government. But it did not get there and the last two and a half years have been difficult ones for the party. Yet an Ireland for all remains relevant in a State in which homelessness is a stain on both public consciousness and our country itself.
The route to government lies in two specific policy areas; housing and education, and the key to both is the judicious use of the State.
Building social houses and providing free secondary education are two of Fianna Fáil’s crowning historic achievements. Give the citizens a place to live and educate them to better themselves. That mantra worked in the past and it can do so again.
A massive investment programme in social housing and education at all levels, properly costed, should be the twin pillars of Fianna Fáil’s electoral manifesto. It will appeal to young people from whom the party has grown disconnected as these are the issues that are central to their lives.
The two people to campaign on it are Lisa Chambers and Stephen Donnelly. Let Michael McGrath do the figures and Fianna Fáil will have an agenda for Ireland into the 2020s.
The lesson of 2016 is that campaigns matter. Martin, himself, is a formidable campaigner. He proclaims himself not to be worried about opinion polls. If that is true, he should abandon Confidence and Supply after the budget and prepare his troops for an election.