House-building pledge could propel Fianna Fáil back into power
AT LAST. The ‘no deal’ scenario has been exposed for what it is, a Brexiteers’ bluff. The deadbeat duo of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn have been bludgeoned into surrendering to the reality that Westminster just won’t tolerate a no-deal crash-out.
Economic imperatives have a way of restoring sanity even in the midst of political bedlam.
Swerving the Brexit bus away from the cliff edge now has the support of 560 out of 630 MPs in Westminster. The other 27 EU member states agree the status quo must be sustained in the short term. The first phase of withdrawal seems to be heading for one of two interim solutions at the end of next month:
Solution A: EU-UK-Irish agreement around a legal codicil to attach to the unamended treaty, which will craft a fudge around the temporary nature of the backstop.
From the Irish perspective this will be spun as merely an alternative phrasing of the ‘unless and until’ mantra of a long-term trade agreement, without major concessions.
The Brits will say it means a time limit on the backstop – not hand-cuffing them in perpetuity.
Solution B: put the whole Article 50 process into cold storage for up to 21 months, while all parties negotiate the ultimate political declaration, which would seek to displace the backstop by defining longterm EU/UK trade.
Either way, Britain stays in the single market and customs union beyond this PM’s shelflife. And into 2020.
The domestic political significance of lifting the dark Brexit thunder-head clouds means the phoney pretences of New Politics can’t be sustained too much longer.
It’s no longer ‘if’ but ‘when’ the next general election will occur. The Government’s survival on the basis of 50-plus TD votes lacks authority.
How and when to end it?’ are the key questions that both authors of the Confidence and Supply renewal agreement (CSA), Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar, are pondering.
The central axis within Fianna Fáil has shifted immeasurably towards terminating the propping-up of the posh boys relishing the perks of power. Natural competitive instincts have been stirred in the context of the Euro/local elections on May 24.
The National Children’s Hospital debacle has added an edge. A dip in Leo’s personal approval poll ratings to Trump levels of 38pc has also not gone unnoticed in FF.
Simon Harris has exercised poor political judgement. He took his eye off the ball by not alerting everybody to the dire National Children’s Hospital cost overrun. A more experienced minister would have disregarded the civil servants’ cultural default position of secrecy.
Keeping vital information from ministerial colleagues between August and November was compounded by not including FF while the CSA renewal talks were underway.
Martin’s strategy has been to hold the local elections in advance of the next general election, in order to procure potential additional candidates. For him to be Taoiseach, he has to increase FF’s 45 TD base to 55 seats – half of which must come in the Dublin area. FF is still struggling on 15pc in the capital, while polling 30pc across the rest of the country.
Winning three MEP seats (one per constituency), given zero representation in Brussels currently, would represent a tonic to his troops and provide a public/media platform to credibly challenge for government. Maintaining the 2014 local election result of more than 300 councillors, as the largest party, would also be a significant milestone.
Martin’s long-term strategic tactic of being seen to act in the national interest, selflessly keeping FG in office, without any trade-offs, was the ultimate antidote to FF’s legacy culpability for the crash.
The CSA told Middle Ireland that FF put the country first, beyond party opportunism. This allowed Sinn Féin to outmuscle it in the outrage opposition stakes, but it gained responsibility credits among floating FF/FG voters.
In 2018, it also prevented a serious split in FF. Can you imagine if FF had been in government during the holding of the Eighth Amendment referendum campaign?
Abortion is to FF what the EU is to Britain’s Tory party. Even in opposition, the party leadership favoured repeal, while the majority of its TDs openly campaigned on an anti-abortion stance. Fully dispensing with abortion constitutionally and legislatively is a massive relief to the party.
The most likely date, post a sticking-plaster Brexit, for the next election is provisionally October 25. The Cabinet has pencilled in this date for the holding of two referenda. It would be after the budget day pronouncements, giving Martin the fig-leaf of saying he honoured the agreement to support one more budget.
It would suit Leo perfectly to have the election platform of another populist budget. But it would also allow Martin to berate Fine Gael’s shortcomings in relation to the inadequacies of health and housing.
Timing doesn’t resolve FF’s substantive deeper problem – what is the difference between FF and FG? Having had a broad consensus between both parties on the big issues of budgetary policy, Northern Ireland, Brexit, constitutional reform and across most departments, how will they somersault as polar opposites?
Many younger voters blame FF for the crash and for them the party remains irredeemable.
But FF must hope that for other voters, time has ameliorated that toxic memory, and the key challenge is to come up with the ‘Big Idea’.
Merely tinkering at the edges of policy papers, almost indistinguishable from the incumbent Government, won’t generate the campaign switch of 6-7pc. Martin will have to gamble on a show-stopping centrepiece. And his innate caution (indecision) makes rolling the dice unlikely.
If FF was to pledge an overriding top-line guarantee, with detailed implementation plans, to build 150,000 public and private new homes within three years, it could be a gamechanger. This would require investment, planning reform and an empathy towards the construction industry.
FG’s complacent failure to lift house construction beyond 20,000 per year is causing endemic economic and social devastation. A credible housing supply boom provides the best ticket for Martin to be Taoiseach.
The key challenge for Fianna Fáil is to come up with the ‘Big Idea’