FF leadership rules could elect Liz Truss, but are more likely to stop a heave

Irreverent. Irrepressible. In the corridors of power

AS THE tragi-comedy of British politics plays out on endlessly breathless rolling news announcements, it might be easier to forget that something similar happened here just over a decade ago. once all-powerful party electoral machine, capable of being all things to all sections of society, brought down by irresponsible and reckless economic policy. When Brian Cowen took over from Bertie Ahern as Taoiseach, the Fianna Fáil-dominated coalition continued with the same free-market, freespending, cheap-credit driven policies that they had since they reassumed power in 1997. But it was under Mr Cowen’s watch that the world economy suffered an earthquake.

The tremors were strongest here. Our economy collapsed, the State stepped in to save the banks to the tune of billions, and the hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost. Mr Cowen himself eventually lost his job and the Fianna Fáil association with electoral brilliance and prudent fiscal management was ended forever.

In Britain, over the last few weeks we have seen economic and fiscal misadventure lead to the evisceration of first their chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng followed by the inevitable resignation of Liz Truss. Now the Tories will hold off on a general election as long as they can. Because facing the public with the new leader will undoubtedly only delay a similar electoral catastrophe as suffered by a Micheál Martin-led Fianna Fáil in 2011.

What the collapse of these two oncesuccessful political institutions shows is that toxic economic ideology and political ineptitude are inextricably linked.

The Tories are asking themselves an obvious question this week: how did we end up with such a hopeless prime minister, pathetically unsuited to national leadership? The answer is also obvious: their reformed leadership election process.

THERE were five rounds of votes by Tory MPs for a leader to replace Boris Johnson. Liz Truss failed to win any of them. Rishi Sunak won all of them. Mr Sunak won the fifth and last round of voting by MPs by 137 votes to 113 votes. However, there has been a change from the past, from when Margaret Thatcher or John Major became leaders of the Tory party and hence prime minister, for they were directly elected by MPs. Nowadays the two leading candidates go into a run-off election by the party’s rank and file membership. Truss won the election by up to 155,000 participating members by 57% to 43%.

Now, I’m not saying the entire Tory party membership is bonkers, but there is ample evidence that 57% may well be when one witnesses the performance of the latest winner.

That is also why the men in grey suits are desperately trying to do anything to subvert the rules and stop the vote going to the membership again. For, incredibly, the membership would probably reelect the most unsuitable charlatan of all, Boris Johnson.

They did it only three years ago.

The dangers of this process was explained most eloquently by former Tory minister Rory Stewart. MPs work closely with a putative leader/prime minister day after day, they observe their character pros and also their cons, their shortcomings and flaws. They can see if a man or woman has mettle of leadership rather than shallow and fickle populist charisma. And MPs are an identifiable group of elected representatives themselves. Memberships have none of these traits. Most of these insights apply to TDs and some party members in Ireland.

The ever-more autocratic officer class of the once all-conquering Soldiers of Destiny (Fianna Fáil) closely guard the details of their leadership election rules. Yet I have been able to obtain them exclusively for readers of this column. Fianna Fáil’s Corú (Constitution) says in the Election of Party Leader section: ‘In the event of the death, resignation or incapacity of a party leader, an election will be held.’ We can assume that an election will also be held if a leader is ousted. Where things get interesting is under the heading that reads, ‘Voting shall be broken down into three electoral colleges’.

These colleges are: a) Voting members of the Fianna Fáil party (45%); b) Teachtaí Dála (TDs) holding the Fianna Fáil whip (40%); c) Fianna Fáil senators, MEPs, city and county councillors and members of the Ard Comhairle (15%).

As such, TDs retain only 40% of the vote and the other public representatives will see their vote diluted by the ruling Ard Comhairle, which usually numbers around 100.

So, the vast (by modern Irish standards) Fianna Fáil membership of, they tell us, 20,000, will have the greatest say in who becomes the next leader of Fianna Fáil.

Selective power is still retained by the TDs. Right now, with Seán Ó Feargháil elevated to Dáil Ceann Comhairle, and Sligo-Leitrim TD Marc MacSharry still locked out

there is a small group of 36 TDs.

UNDER current rules, only these TDs can vote in a motion of confidence in the leader. This contextualises the much-contested efforts by the Fianna Fáil leadership to keep Mr MacSharry out of the parliamentary party: numbers are that tight. Then, were there to be a leadership election, the nominee has to be a TD. And the TD must receive the nomination of five fellow TDs.

This is a more significant barrier to get over than it first appears – as there are so few TDs.

Still, any efforts to get a unity candidate, as evidenced by the jockeying in London this weekend, are likely doomed to failure. What is to stop an Irish Truss or Johnson going before the Fianna Fáil membership?

It would be unfair for me to posit some of the crazier candidates that could emerge, let your imagination do the work.

Perhaps also unfairly, the Fianna Fáil membership would be stereotyped as overwhelmingly of an older and rural demographic, prone to nostalgic De Valera-laden flights of fancy.

In Britain, the parliamentary democracy which we most resemble and have largely aped in the establishment of our political institutions, such extraordinary power invested in a largely untested and definitely undemocratically selected party membership has led to extraordinary volatility and worse.

Mr Martin was elected under the old rules. In 2011 he was elected by Fianna Fáil TDs only. Yet he emerged, blinking into the harsh reality of an election annihilation so bad that only 20 TDs remained, one of whom, Brian Lenihan, was to tragically die soon after.

There were deep fears among Mr Martin and his advisers at this, their nadir, that Fianna Fáil members would flee the ranks in a panic similar to Russian conscripts from a troop train toilet stop in Siberia. As a sop, after years of review, great power was given to the membership.

This cumbersome, unpredictable leadership selection process should not concern most of us, for now.

There are less than eight weeks to the handover of the Taoiseach’s office from Micheál Martin to Leo Varadkar. So there is little chance of Fianna Fáil members selecting a new, wholly inept or improper Taoiseach of a Truss-ilk.

HOWEVER, the process does clarify the inaction of Fianna Fáil TDs, who consistently issue hollow warnings of impending leadership replacement. A conspiring TD finally admitted what more prescient plotters told me a long time ago: there will be no move on Mr Martin until one of the putative challengers actually challenges. That means publicly doing what Mr Martin did in 2011, stand against the incumbent.

Mr Martin, after a sober, steady and dignified two and half year tenure as Taoiseach, retains solemn respect among the mass of Fianna Fáil membership.

A challenger may get support of the parliamentary party but what of the membership?

In the near future any Micheál Martin successor would have to savagely depose a popular and decent man, who has led the party and country through the most trying of decades.

It would be a more complex variation on the ‘he who plunges the knife never succeeds’ theory.

Fianna Fáil could be left with a choice of a traitor or a nutter. Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss is a variation of this choice.

The membership would not choose a traitor.