Why we still need a strong Labour voice
LABOUR is down and some privately concede fears that it may even be out. But surely it can take strength from the support showings of President Michael D Higgins, who served the party for over four decades. There are few silver linings in the clouds overshadowing Ireland’s oldest political party with the best international connections. Opinion polls suggest it may be even worse off than its electoral meltdown of the last General Election in February 2016, with 7pc of the vote and just seven TDs.
It’s hard to consider that exactly this time seven years ago the Irish Labour Party was on an all-time high. Having won a first-ever record 37 Dáil seats in February 2011, it added the office of Uachtarán na hÉireann via the nomination and susbsequent victory of Michael D Higgins.
And it even won a by-election in Dublin West, something no other political party in government had done since May 1982, when the redoubtable Noel Treacy took a seat in Galway East for Charlie Haughey’s short-lived Fianna Fáil administration. Labour’s steep and rapid fall thereafter has been well and repeatedly documented.
What concerns us is that its revival since returning to the opposition benches in May 2016 has been non-existent. It contrasts with other marked Labour revivals following bruising elections after emerging from being junior coalition partners in 1987 and 1997.
Such revival difficulties had been predicted in the run in to its calamitous 2016 General Election. A resurgent Sinn Féin, the growth of Solidarity and People Before Profit, and the emergence of the fledgling Social Democrats, have all eroded Labour’s support base.
Its seven TDs, five senators, and a large number of its 50 local councillors gathered yesterday in Drogheda for a two-day think-in ahead of the Dáil’s return tomorrow.
They are putting the bright side out – but just as they gathered, another opinion poll told them things were as bad as they have been for two years.
A Red C poll for the ‘Sunday Business Post’ puts Labour on 6pc. That was certainly not going to lift the mood of the councillors, many of whom survived a serious drubbing for the party in the 2014 local elections, and face into another very challenging contest next May.
Some of the councillors have been saying it is time for the party’s leader, Brendan Howlin, to step down. The gift-wrapping of such calls in tributes to Mr Howlin’s distinguished record in public life since 1982 are really not much help.
Brendan Howlin, whose energy belies his 62 years, is not going to go quietly. He argues that changing leader does not promise any reversal in the party’s fortunes.
And it is certainly true that the graceless dumping of its hither-to most successful leader ever, Eamon Gilmore, after 81 council seats were lost in May 2014, did not bring any benefits. Mr Gilmore was forced to resign by a parliamentary party revolt just four days after the local polling day. But Labour still suffered that woeful defeat under his successor, Joan Burton, in the February 2016 General Election.
Similarly, it has to be said that Fine Gael went through two decades, between 1990 and 2010, of periodically either replacing its leader, or unsuccessfully trying to replace the leader, in unsuccessful efforts to revive its fortunes. It is arguable that this internecine feuding did not help Fine Gael, in fact on many occasions it lost the party energy it did not have in abundance, and left damaged relationships in the ranks.
Yet there is an undeniable difficulty surrounding Brendan Howlin’s leadership right now. It dates back to 2016 when its five TDs gathered to pick a successor to Ms Burton. Under the rules, candidates required the endorsement of the party’s TDs to get on a ballot of members.
With just five TDs it became unduly tight and personal, and this atmosphere was added to by chairman Willie Penrose, and outgoing leader Joan Burton, both saying they were taking no part in proceedings. Two people expressed an interest, Mr Howlin, and Alan Kelly, of Tipperary, a former environment minister.
To outsiders, Alan Kelly appeared a far better prospect as a tougher party leader capable of winning the public’s attention. He was also, arguably, less tainted by involvement in coalition with Fine Gael, having only been elected TD for the first time in 2011, and finally getting a senior cabinet post in July 2014.
His Dáil colleagues thought otherwise, and lacking a seconder, Mr Kelly never got on the ballot paper. Brendan Howlin took the reins without a members’ vote.
Through this summer, as some councillors became restive, Mr Kelly was more and more visible. But the parliamentary party and others have rallied to Brendan Howlin and some clearly mistrust what they see as Alan Kelly’s undue egotism.
But there is a clear need for Labour’s pragmatic advocacy for working people at a time when the country has its highest number of people in work. Sinn Féin’s leftist credentials are suspect and other parties lack Labour’s realism.
Labour must note that President Higgins – whose Labour DNA stretches back to the late 1960s before he ran as an independent candidate for the Áras – still commands two-thirds of popular support around the country. That must surely offer some hope.
To outsiders Alan Kelly appeared a far better prospect as a tougher party leader capable of winning attention