The greatest danger for Micheál Martin is that his pitiful determination to avoid an election will be overtaken by events
FIANNA FÁIL are in a terrible stranglehold. And, because they’re the authors of their own misfortune, it’s hard to feel sorry for them. They are now so lacking in ambition, so shamed by past humiliations and so discouraged about the future that they have simply abandoned the natural instinct to fight and control the environment around them.
They now stand, like that ancient Chinese Terracotta Army – chipped, damaged and frozen in time. Despite obvious hints of former power and grandeur, it’s clear that their conquering days are over. At least for as long as they remain paralysed by fear under the leadership of Micheál Martin.
His pleading letter to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on Friday – begging for them to agree not to bring down the Government until at least the end of Brexit negotiations is the ultimate in political capitulation.
Leo Varadkar is lucky to have such a meek lion in opposition as he clings to power despite manifest failings in the two areas of public policy that matter most, health and housing.
Fact is, the notion that a general election would damage Ireland’s interests during the Brexit negotiations is nothing but a shameless political con, a cynical, self-serving scam on the Irish people who deserve the opportunity to mark the cards of a Government riddled with failures.
It’s also a scam on Micheál Martin’s own Fianna Fáil. Opinion polls have been showing Fianna Fáil in the doldrums at around 23% suppport, with Fine Gael up to 10% ahead. (Although a Red C Poll this week had FF at 27% and FG at 32%). This is what has so frightened Fianna Fáil into grovelling submission, despite the fact that it’s more or less what they got in the 2016 general election.
That 2016 result was an extraordinary endorsement for Micheál Martin’s leadership, who during the campaign displayed a calm resolve and positive outlook that persuaded nearly 520,000 voters to support him. That was just 25,000 less than Fine Gael. There is every reason to believe that Martin would play another blinder if an election were held now. Experience makes clear that Fianna Fáil would rise above their current position in the polls and that Fine Gael are at their high-water mark.
After the 2016 election, Martin agreed a confidence and supply arrangement with Fine Gael. But, it can hardly be argued that this halfpregnant, half-coalition arrangement has been to the country’s undiluted advantage.
Martin committed his party to supporting the Government for three budgets and, despite provocations and multiple reasons to withdraw, he has stuck by the deal. Now, he’s begging to extend this arrangement to next summer at least when the European Parliament agrees the Brexit deal, if there is one. At least he’s showing some resistance to demands from Varadkar for a pass designed to carry his Government through to 2020.
THE greatest danger confronting Martin now is that his pitiful determination to avoid an election will be overtaken by events. If he doesn’t bring Varadkar’s Government to an end, then somebody else might do it for him – deliberately or by accident.
The resignation of Denis Naughten on Thursday as Minister for Communications was the result of political idiocy on a grand scale. What in the name of goodness did he think he was at and did he never meet Michael Lowry as he prowled the halls of power in Leinster House? Does the name Michael Moriarty ring a bell?
At any rate, Naughten’s excursion into kamakazi politics further weakened a Government that has been holding onto office by a thread.
As Leo Varadkar faces an even trickier Dáil arithmetic with Naughten’s support now coming only on a case-by-case basis, the chances of an earlier than expected election have increased.
Right now, Micheál Martin and Fianna Fáil continue to look aimless and uncertain, not really sure what to do.
An election without them causing it would be a disaster for Fianna Fáil. It would highlight their complete irrelevancy, their bystander status, their politics without gumption – their giving up the ghost.