Everything is in place for a poisonous electoral brawl
ANOTHER fake image of ourselves that’s about to bite the dust is that we do politics within the bounds of decency. The coarsening of public debate that has occurred in the United States because of Donald Trump and in Britain, as a consequence of Brexit, Nigel Farage and, of course, that notorious liar, cheat and now unassailable prime minister Boris Johnson, is about to happen here.
Two essential elements required to ensure next year’s general election will be a dirty, drag ’em out and pull ’em down war of attrition are now in place.
Firstly, there is ample evidence that brawling, baiting and unprincipled abuse works.
Secondly, there’s a huge prize – power – at stake.
Political hectoring, accusations without truth and personalised assaults on opponents have reaped huge dividends for Trump and Johnson.
They’ve proven to the point of certainty that delinquency and contempt for old-fashioned good manners delivers.
EVIDENCE of the efficacy of broad-brush, mud-slinging without any concern at all for the dangers such behaviour entails came during last year’s Presidential election, courtesy of Peter Casey. His attack on Travellers (‘basically people camping on someone else’s land’ etc) propelled this incoherent non-entity of a candidate from nowhere to 23.3% of the vote.
Earlier this month in Wexford, Fine Gael’s now deselected Verona Murphy’s inane and ugly commentary on asylum seekers (she linked them to Isis and suggested they need to be deprogrammed) ended up with her pulling in 23.8% first-preference support – interestingly almost the same as Casey.
Clearly, one quarter of voters are charmed by Trumpian nastiness.
Then there’s the huge political jackpot that’s up for grabs in the general election.
The difference between winning and losing an election can only be understood by those who have spent long, soul-crushing periods on the opposition backbenches.
Older and wiser Fine Gael TDs know all about that and in recent weeks they’ve been reminding the likes of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Eoghan Murphy and Simon Harris that sunny-side-of-the-street politics in government is – for the Blueshirts – a modern-day experience that could come to a shuddering end.
Fine Gael’s posh boy, young-blood leadership has no memory of dreary and miserable, energysapping days in opposition. They’re now being told to stiffen their resolve and get their ‘story’ right if they really, really want to keep Micheál Martin out of Government Buildings.
And, like Boris Johnson’s simple mantra, ‘Get Brexit Done’, the advice to Leo Varadkar is to release his inner Dominic Cummings with an equally accessible mantra that captures the notion of how Fianna Fáil destroyed Ireland and must never be forgiven for doing so.
FINE Gael have been in power for almost nine years and are fully aware that public anger against Fianna Fáil has diminished beyond recognition, from 2011 when they crashed to just over 17% support, rising to 24.3% in 2016, and then to an astonishing 27% in this year’s local elections – nearly 2% more than Fine Gael.
This is a moment of truth for Leo Varadkar and Fine Gael. How much do they really want to stay in power?
And what are they prepared to do, how low are they ready to go to deprive Micheál Martin of the only thing that keeps him going – his all-consuming determination not to go down in history as the only leader of Fianna Fáil never to become Taoiseach.
Fine Gael has a ready arsenal of tailor-made insults available if they decide to target Fianna Fáil in general and Martin in particular for their role in wrecking Ireland’s economy and forcing the country into serfdom.
That means a sustained, targeted and personalised campaign against Micheál Martin, Willie O’Dea and the other old-stagers in Fianna Fáil whose fingerprints are still clearly visible in the economic wreckage that resulted in disaster and loss of sovereignty in 2010.
Two questions – do we really want those people back in charge?
And has Fine Gael got the bottle to drive that question home in a manner that makes the difference?