‘AK-47’ will need nerves of steel in the long fight to make Labour count again

Alan Kelly, whose combative manner led to him being likened to an assault rifle, has a battle to turn around his party’s fortunes, writes Shane Coleman

THE Labour Party’s paltry 3pc opinion poll rating last week couldn’t but bring to mind the immortal line uttered 40 years ago by then leader Frank Cluskey.

“Trust Michael D. Faced with a choice between saving the world or saving the Labour Party, he takes the easy option,” Cluskey quipped, only half in jest, on being told at a crisis party meeting that Mr Higgins was on an emergency mission in the Middle East.

If anything, the challenge now looks even more daunting for Alan Kelly, the latest man charged with ‘saving’ Labour.

This weekend 10 years ago, Kelly had been newly elected to the Dáil, one of 37 Labour TDs savouring the party’s best ever election result.

But unbeknown to them, the seeds of their party’s near destruction were already being sown.

Once in government, Labour did, despite what those on the hard left and on Twitter would have you believe, what had to be done to sort out the public finances.

However, an association with austerity is toxic for any left-wing party, and Labour paid a massive price for saving the country before saving the party. It continues to do so.

At least in Cluskey’s time, Labour could count on being the third-biggest party. Today it is battling it out with the Social Democrats for sixth place — and this time it really is no exaggeration to talk about an existential crisis.

Last week’s poll result must have been particularly demoralising because it had seemed Kelly and Labour had been making progress.

Kelly has an extraordinary work ethic and a real nose for news. He had also been seriously getting under Sinn Féin’s skin, building a media profile on subjects such as Covid, CervicalCheck, direct provision and student nursing.

The Dáil dressing-down Dublin Fingal TD Duncan Smith gave to the Healy-Rae brothers was eulogised by journalists and lifted spirits in the party, but it seems the public weren’t paying a blind bit of notice.

There’s no question the Tipp man has been dealt a bad hand.

With just six TDs, the party lacks the critical mass — and hence speaking time — to really make its mark in the Dáil. It has to deal with not only the Social Democrats, but the Greens, the hard-left parties, Independents and, most particularly, Sinn Féin eating its lunch.

Even the irrepressible Cluskey might have wavered at that prospect.

Kelly has never been one to walk away from a challenge. He is not blessed with the natural ‘hail fellow, well met’ persona suited to Irish politics, but through sheer hard work and a willingness to listen to advice and learn, he won a seat — against the odds — in the Seanad, the European Parliament and the Dáil.

He also became party leader despite the clear misgivings of many Labour grandees. He will be up for the fight.

But inevitably questions will be asked as to whether he is the right man to revive Ireland’s oldest political party.

Assuming the party’s traditional working-class vote is largely lost to Sinn Féin — at least until SF goes into government and has to take difficult decisions — then left-leaning, liberal middle-class voters offer the best potential for growth.

This could see seats in former heartlands Dublin Bay South, Dún Laog haire and Cork South Central come back into play.

However, there are those who question whether Kelly’s aggressive, salt-of-the-earth, ‘man of the country’ persona will appeal to those urban voters who used to give their No.1 preferences to Ruairí Quinn in Sandymount, D4.

Do they like what they see in ‘AK-47’, even if he has softened that persona of late?

He has overseen his party making the running on direct provision, a citizenship referendum and period poverty: liberal issues that would appeal to those voters (and wouldn’t be naturally associated with Kelly).

But those same voters might have been less impressed with his highlighting of 2,000 people from Brazil arriving in the past month — a comment called out by the Taoiseach as “populist and wrong”.

While the charge of “Sinn Féinlite”, levelled privately by some in Government, might be unfair, the adoption of a Zero Covid strategy is puzzling given that at least two of Labour’s TDs depend on votes from Dublin airport workers.

The tactic was likely heavily influenced by a fear of being outflanked by Róisín Shortall and the Soc-Dems.

A merger with that party would go a long way towards addressing Labour’s lack of critical mass.

It will inevitably happen some day. But not, it seems, while Shortall and her co-leader Catherine Murphy are in place. They won’t countenance it. The truth is there is no magic bullet for Kelly and Labour.

The word is that, characteristically, Kelly is doing the spadework across the constituencies. He is reportedly on Zoom calls across the country every night of the week.

With the brand struggling to gain traction, Kelly is effectively going to have to get 10 to 12 Independents elected for the party — the likes of senators Mark Wall in Kildare South, Rebecca Moynihan in Dublin South Central and Ivana Bacik in Dublin Bay South.

That won’t be easy, even if Labour did enjoy a good local elections in 2019. Nor is it guaranteed to hold its current six seats. Only Kelly, Seán Sherlock and the Wexford seat held for decades by Brendan Howlin are bankers.

A lot depends on Kelly. Can he be bigger than the Labour Party, à la Dick Spring 30 years ago? Does he have enough experienced people around him (always a Labour strength in the past)?

And, given progress will be in inches rather than yards, will he have the patience to play the long game, to slowly and incrementally rebuild the party rather than risking a big-bang approach?

Patience is a trait not readily associated with Kelly, to put it mildly. But at 3pc in the polls, he is going to need that and steady nerves for the long game ahead.