Centre won’t hold if Fianna Fail and Fine Gael keep moving left

We used to be ideologically illiterate but now need to be careful not to leave a gap for a Trump-style hard right, writes Kevin Doyle

‘The left is well represented by politicians with fantasy policies’

MICK Barry’s parting shot across the Dail chamber went pretty much unnoticed. “The centre will not hold,” he declared in a triumphalist tone that would probably have sparked a heckle if there was more than one government TD present.

In any event, his boast was quickly overshadowed as the Leas-Ceann Comhairle asked Mick Wallace if he would be sharing his speaking time with any other deputies.

“I might be, with this quare one,” he replied, nodding towards Clare Daly before tearing into what he described as a “neoliberal” Budget.

“I am not aware of any government analysis of what the effects of the Budget will be on society and on the wider world,” he said.

But what Mr Wallace failed to acknowledge was the Budget did take a step on the Irish political march in his direction.

It’s a march that has been gathering pace for some time and began to accelerate when the voters of Dublin SouthWest selected Paul Murphy in a by-election exactly two years ago.

What followed was the effective end of water charges and the emergence of a society where a minister said in recent days that he wouldn’t bother trying to introduce any new charges because they won’t get through the Dail.

Of course the public doesn’t want an increase in the TV licence or any other domestic bill — but is that the way to run a country? The Government is afraid to act on issues, even if it is the right thing to do.

Traditionally, Fine Gael has sat to the centre-right and Fianna Fail has flirted with the centre-left — but, in truth, most of us in Ireland are ideologically illiterate.

There are debates over whether your family was pro-treaty or anti-treaty but not many people define their outlook on the world as being left-wing or right-wing.

However, the fact both Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe and Fianna Fail’s Michael McGrath started a debate this week about the need for the centre to hold, shows things are changing.

Left-wing politics has never been so strong. For years, Joe Higgins was the standard bearer, taking on Bertie Ahern like a one-man socialist sniper.

Now the growth of the Anti-Austerity Alliance/People Before Profit, Independents 4 Change and others has made the Establishment not just sit up and take notice but also react.

We saw that so clearly last week in a Budget where Fine Gael tried to gain political capital over Fianna Fail by giving €5 to people on the dole.

“That’s never been Fine Gael policy. We’ve changed,” one Cabinet member admitted privately afterwards.

If Enda Kenny and Micheal Martin had properly joined forces after the election, we would now have the most conservative government in the history of the State. It may well have created a proper left-versus-right dialogue in Irish politics for the first time.

Instead, Fianna Fail decided to move further to the left in an effort to mark Sinn Fein, and, as a consequence, dragged Fine Gael and the whole system with them.

The rise of the left started with social issues as the power of the Catholic Church dwindled throughout the 1990s and 2000s, first with divorce and more recently with gay marriage. Next up there will be abortion, and, in time, euthanasia.

Last Tuesday, the economic shift started, just three days after Micheal Martin told a gala dinner attended by 1,100 Fianna Fail supporters that “the regressive and rightwing ideology of Fine Gael has been curbed”.

His claim was that Fianna Fail should take credit for “a rebalancing forced on Fine Gael due to the confidence and supply agreement”.

What he failed to note was that his own party has been shunted left by Sinn Fein which had previously frogmarched its own troops towards the left after Murphy’s victory.

Fine Gael still believes, for the most part, in allowing market forces do their work, which is why Michael Noonan has done little to intervene when banks are fleecing customers with variable mortgage rates and insurance companies are hiking premiums 30pc a year.

And, as reported on the front page of last week’s Sunday Independent, it does still enjoy a good rant from anti-union types like Michael O’Leary who wants the wholesale privatisation of the health sector and to sack gardai if they strike.

Yet the Budget showed that its economic thinking has been realigned to focus on those on social welfare over the so-called squeezed middle.

The left is now well represented, albeit by a lot of politicians with fantasy policies that could never be introduced overnight.

AAA-PBP’s Budget proposal suggested raising an extra €24bn. The total tax yield for 2016 will be just under €54bn.

If Fianna Fail and Fine Gael continue to play a game of ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ then a vast gap is going to open on the right.

In many countries, including America at the moment, the right-wing relies on nationalism. That’s not such as issue in Ireland because the main political parties here were born out of different definitions of nationalism.

And our own history of emigrations tends to ensure that we are not xenophobic towards other nationalities.

However, if a narrative evolves where Fine Gael and Fianna Fail no longer represent the hardworking middle, who feel they pay for everything and get little in return, then a Trump-esque candidate could emerge.

Renua didn’t sell its message well but the truth is we need a little bit of right-wing politics in order to avoid the growth of a hard right as it evidenced in the US, France and the UK. Otherwise Mick Barry is right and the centre won’t be able to hold.