Why Enda needs to go NOW
Forget the past: for all that he’s achieved, the Taoiseach lost the election. To allow a new government, indeed to preserve his own legacy, Mr Kenny must do what’s right
IT WAS a remark made by a French journalist colleague, calling from Paris the day after the election results came in, which still resonates in my head. He was inquiring about our election, and as I explained to him that our Taoiseach Enda Kenny had gone to the country with the largest political majority in the history of the State and had badly lost, he added: ‘So after he resigns, what then?’
As I attempted to explain to my friend that Kenny hadn’t resigned and was showing no sign of it either, the puzzled silence from the other end of the phone was, in ways, articulate beyond words. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘So very strange, your politics. If you lose an election in Ireland you don’t resign, so what’s the point of the election? How do you change your leaders?’
What could I say in response? After four weeks of listening and watching the paint-drying effect of the electioneering of our political class, my morale was on the floor. Its lowest point among many was the continuing ridiculous charade, especially during the television debates, that the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil parties really have any serious political difference between them. Watching Enda Kenny and Micheál Martin arguing that toss was like being trapped in some dreadful absurdist drama.
Of course my French colleague was absolutely correct, but try explaining the behaviour of our political class to anyone in the civilised political world beyond these shores and watch their eyes glaze slowly over. I don’t try anymore. Like, I suspect, the majority of Irish people, there is nothing that our political classes can get up to that surprises me anymore.
Now, post election and trapped in the democratic cul de sac that the results have produced, just watch the behaviour of our leaders as they continue to insist on putting their party ahead of the country. They are required to be innovative and imaginative but, so far, is there any sign of that?
OF course, were we a normal, properly functioning democracy, Enda Kenny would have resigned immediately. And for a multitude of r easons, because he not only lost the election but he had enjoyed the largest political majority that any taoiseach has ever had. From the outset Kenny has never enjoyed any widespread public affection and it was obvious throughout the election that once again the dislike, even disdain, for Kenny was growing.
Secondly, his judgment and behaviour during the campaign was disastrous. Last time out Kenny was delivered a walk-over electoral victory as Fianna Fáil collapsed, and then, throughout his five years in government, he enjoyed enormous good luck with both the collapse of world oil prices and the change in the euro/sterling differential, all of which was hugely beneficial to our export industry.
That was a significant part of the engine behind our economic growth but Kenny continued to claim it was entirely down to his Government’s actions. As a result he led Fine Gael into the election with the disastrous slogan about keeping the recovery going. He was responsible for every aspect of the Fine Gael campaign. And it failed.
The problem was that he forgot about the hundreds of thousands of people across the country for whom t here had been no economic recovery. Imagine too what this significant section of the electorate felt when Kenny dismissed them as ‘ whingers’? They got their revenge, however, as many thousands came out and voted for anybody except the Government.
But thirdly, the most important reason he should have resigned was in order to clear the way for the formation of a new government coalition. And since the only credible and stable government possible, with this set of results, is a first time ever Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil arrangement, his determination to cling to office continues to constitute a significant blockage.
Indeed, such is the continuing public antipathy towards Kenny that I suspect there are few, if any, parties in the new Dáil who are not aware of the longer-term consequences for them should whatever action they take in the coming weeks result in Kenny’s re-election as taoiseach.
Perhaps, however, the seminal lesson of this election is the fact that the electorate has utterly changed the face of Irish politics. The traditional structure that has persisted since the foundation of the State, the domination of the old Civil War parties, is over. So too are the days of overall majorities and voting along lines of familial loyalties.
This time around, for the first time ever, the combined first preference vote for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil did not exceed 50%. The other half of the vote is comprised of people from the new world of Irish politics: Sinn Féin, Social Democrats, left and hard-left parties, Greens, and a vast collection of Independents. What Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary dismissed this week as political ‘liquorice all-sorts’.
In the election’s aftermath our traditional political ruling classes have been caught in the headlights. They are confounded, confused and contrary.
THEIR first response has been to try and somehow dismiss this political earthquake as a temporary blip, their second to try and bend the results back towards a more traditional narrative.
In the light of this and in the context of what has j ust happened, the resignation of Enda Kenny would become the defining moment of the new political era. Kenny stepping down would signal a new dawn.
Curiously, it would also not only be a supreme act of statesmanship, but it would utterly transform his reputation.
He would no longer go down in history as Fine Gale’s least loved leader but rather as the leader who unselfishly and with great dignity recognised the sover-
eignty of the people’s mandate. His resignation would also profoundly clear the way for the real prospect of a FG/FF coalition or a national government, if they prefer that term. And that, for the stability of the country, is a crucial outcome.
But Kenny’s departure would have further significance and positive effect. Kenny belongs to the old Blueshirt Civil War tradition in Fine Gael. Yet all around him now are new and young TDs for whom the Civil War is not a political yardstick.
They care little – if at all – about the bitter historic differences between the two parties. Rather their eyes are on 30 ministries, 15 senior and 15 junior, and, with Fianna Fáil on board, the real prospect of five years of majority stable government.
Nor do these new TDs have to apologise for making the leap and going back on what they said during the campaign. Their explanation, in fact, is disarmingly simple. They can argue that FG/FF coalition was not their idea, it was the voters’ idea, and the voters, after all, are the boss at election time.
Another reason why Kenny should go is that he is now a political dead man walking, surplus to requirements.
He will not lead Fine Gael in another election and essentially, having lost this election, the prospect of his limping on into whatever administration can emerge from the chaos is neither good for the country, nor for Fine Gael. Or, indeed, for Enda Kenny himself for that matter. Nor can Fine Gael lightly enter a minority government scenario with Enda still in charge. Most people would only give it six/12 months and then what? For Enda to lead them into another election? No. That is not how it should be.
On top of all this there are other compelling reasons why the Fine Gael leader has to go. Throughout the campaign itself he was listless, dead meat at press conferences and in the TV debates, and in many ways a political accident waiting to happen. Even, at times, his handlers themselves seemed to become embarrassed at the ways in which they had to endlessly plot to keep him away from Joe and Mary Public.
They knew that Enda on the loose and without his collar on was liable to bite anyone. Their recurring nightmare was that the Army might be back again before they knew it, guarding the ‘holes in the wall’.
Already within Fine Gael the succession stakes are underway, and doubtless every TD these nights is dropping off to sleep counting different scenarios rather than sheep. Famously, Enoch Powell once said that ‘all political careers end in failure’ and I suspect that even Enda himself might be hearing the banshees these dark nights before sleep envelops him.
The voters in 2016 let the genie out of the bottle and so now, Fine Gael needs to give Enda his gold watch and his piece of Waterford glass.
Nor should he resent going now because his political achievement has actually been hugely significant. He held his nerve in the worst of times, he worked hard and assiduously and if he leaves the stage now, in time to come he will have a significant place in the Fine Gael hall of heroes.
But he must also acknowledge that he has been astonishingly lucky in his political career. He became leader because the party had hardly anyone else of any calibre, he ended up with the biggest majority in the history of the State when Fianna Fáil self-destructed and, as he rebuilt the economy, oil prices and the sterling/euro differentials smiled kindly on him. So he can hardly curse his luck.
For the sake of his party, but more importantly, for the sake of the country, Enda Kenny should fold his tent and slip quietly away.