Varadkar camp will offer Coveney a ‘Blair-Brown’ deal if he quits FG battle

SUPPORTERS of Leo Varadkar’s leadership bid are planning to offer rival Simon Coveney a Blair-Brown-style deal, should Mr Coveney get off the pitch sufficiently early in the leadership campaign.

In an infamous private pact in 1994, the then British Labour leadership contenders agreed that Gordon Brown would be Tony Blair’s designated successor if he stepped aside from what was perceived to be a close leadership race.

Now elements of Mr Varadkar’s support are suggesting a similar precedent might be followed here. Mr Varadkar’s supporters have been energised by a RTÉ poll showing the Social Protection Minister to be 23-13 ahead amongst those Fine Gael TDs and Senators who have declared their hand.

Senior supporters of Mr Varadkar said: ‘Coveney has been rocked back by the reality of an election. He can plan all he wants but, at some stage, he has to go meet the voters, he’s a year behind in that process,’ one said. One senior supporter of Mr Varadkar said ‘our plan is to blow Simon out of the field early, then offer a deal’.

Mr Coveney, they said, ‘is the perfect number two, but, he is not an alpha male, he is not designed to lead, he would be better in some place like Finance’. But Fine Gael sources said, ‘this may be a more difficult task for Leo than he thinks’. They warned the increasingly powerful Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe ‘may have words to say about that, he is at best a reluctant Leo supporter’. One source said: ‘The price of Paschal’s support is simple; more power and not seeing Simon Coveney walking into Finance.’

One senior figure from Mr Coveney’s camp said: ‘It looks terribly arrogant for Leo to be deciding the Cabinet before he is even elected. This may come back to bite him.’

Leo, they added, ‘is ahead because he has the support of the desperate and the ambitious, people like [Noel] Rock and [Alan] Farrell are getting in early because they have nowhere else to go’.

‘We will secure the votes of the silent centre... the silent majority who are not impressed by the cult of Leo.’