Labour pains mustn’t stop it pushing back populism that threatens disaster

The party has to seize the opening created by the clear and present danger of a Sinn Fein/Fianna Fail government, writes Ed Brophy

WE thought it couldn’t get any worse. Last February, the bloodied survivors of Labour’s electoral annihilation emerged blinking from the darkness of defeat to a political world turned upside down. A year later, the aftermath of the party’s participation in the last government is a nightmare from which it has yet to awaken. Whether it can remains an open question. The wounds run deep.

Last week brought further bad news with the Ipsos/MRBI poll showing support down to 4pc. Of greater concern is the fact that the support that remains is skewed towards older voters; the young, traditionally Labour’s mainstay, appear to be abandoning the party.

Of course, polls like this are notoriously unreliable for the smaller party that Labour is right now. On a good day, with strong vote management and good transfer patterns, this level of support could still deliver a few seats scattered around the country. But you wouldn’t want to bet on it.

Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred.

How has it come to this for the oldest party in the State, one that only seven years ago was riding so high in the polls that it had serious prospects of leading the next government? And what is to be done?

For the party, the received wis dom about the past seven years is a travesty. Yes, there were too many promises in 2011, but the broken promises’ charge was not borne out by independent evidence. Yes, going into government would always be risky, but staying out was never a serious option for a country that desperately needed stability. And of course mistakes were made in government, but the party’s singular achievement of fixing the economy while maintaining social expenditure cushioned the impact of austerity on large sections of the population in a way that just did not happen in other bailout countries.

People bristle when it is suggested that we should apologise for our time in office as if there were something shameful to atone for. They reject any correlation with Fianna Fail, who crashed the economy, destroying the lives and living standards of a whole generation, as if our sins were somehow equivalent. And yet, it is clear that in many ways the party’s position is most akin to Fianna Fail’s after 2011. That is both hope and warning.

For better or for worse, the electorate has delivered a negative verdict on our time in office. Cruel indeed. But equally, there is no point in quibbling. It is the reality.

On the other hand, the elector-ate likes to move on.

Fianna Fail’s great achievement was to rebrand itself as the party of fairness with very few of what marketers like to call the necessary ‘proof points’ to back this up. Indeed, analysis by economist Jim O’ Leary after the election showed Fine Gael’s manifesto to be considerably fairer. Yet so successful was Micheal Martin’s Jedi mind trick that otherwise sceptical political commentators dutifully parroted the line that Fianna Fail’s new currency was fairness.

Martin’s sleight of hand was not so much to offer a fairness agenda himself, but instead to brand the last government as fundamentally unfair and responsible for unnecessary suffering. And it stuck. In the process, he made his party relevant again and clawed it back into contention.

But it took a while. It was more than two years after its nadir in 2011 that Fianna Fail started to rise again as its toxicity faded. So time is still on Labour’s side.

However, the Fianna Fail analogy only goes so far. Despite everything, throughout the last Government Fianna Fail led the Opposition and was therefore in the public eye holding the Government to account. That is how it stayed alive until it saw its opening and went all in.

Labour right now isn’t in that position — nor will it be. As the toxicity around its time in government ebbs away, it has yet to find relevance in the new political firmament. Like Britain, it has lost an empire but has yet to find a role.

Inside politics, people are unanimous that minority government is a sham. However, voters have yet to connect minority government with any tangible negative impact on their lives. That could change quickly, but until it does, any new political settlement will remain stillborn.

When this new political settlement does emerge, Labour must be at the centre of it.

That is where the party’s opening lies.

Absent a Labour recovery, the next government will either be another do-nothing minority, with all the problems that entails, or else a historic rapprochement between Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein. I have consistently stated that the latter is the most likely outcome as both the numbers and mood music clearly point in that direction. Last week’s antics on water charges copper-fasten that hunch.

However, a series of weak, ineffectual governments or a populist majority is the last thing the country needs as it faces what could be the most perilous decade since independence.

What is the story of this country right now? I would hazard it’s one of increasing support for a liberal society and sensible economics, fairness to those most in need and a determination to fix health, housing and education. And un- derpinning this, the opportunity to create a new social and economic model post-Brexit.

This is Labour’s agenda. It needs to show that this optimistic vision can be achieved only if it is at the table. It needs to be the party of the future, not the past.

How to make this great leap forward?

First, reach out to those who identify with Labour, but became disenchanted during the last government, to come home and rebuild a movement of substance. As a practical matter, this means concrete steps — including voting pacts — towards the progressive alliance with the Green Party and the Social Democrats that Joan Burton tried to build after the last election.

Second, the party needs to pick its fights. Though it’s tempting to expose the magical thinking of the far left, it does nothing for Labour politically. Instead, it just alienates left voters — some of whom may be open to at least transferring to Labour in the future. Far better to concentrate fire on bigger targets.

Finally, every word that is heard from Labour should leave the electorate in no doubt that only it is the bulwark against the populists who will inevitably bring us to the brink of disaster yet again.

Once the initial impact of Trump and Brexit starts to bite, the electorate will shake off its present complacency and see the risk. It will look for an alternative.

That is when Labour must be ready to go all in.

‘Labour’s position is most akin to Fianna Fail’s after 2011. That is both hope and warning’