Labour Party has lost its core values

The resignation of Róisín Shorthall from her junior ministerial position at the Department of Health has shed light on a number of areas that bear examination. Firstly, it has revealed an ideological nosedive to the right of the political spectrum on the part of the Labour Party and, secondly, the power imbalance that exists between the coalition parties.

Since her resignation, Deputy Shorthall has been extremely forthcoming on the subject of Eamon Gilmore’s failure to support her against the machinations of the senior minister, James Reilly.

 

There have been dark rumblings of old grudges being behind this failure but personally I am more inclined to believe these would have been unlikely to prevent Gilmore from supporting the policies Shorthall was pushing for if he genuinely believed in them. The policies themselves, around primary care centres and other issues, are what might have been thought of as traditional Labour values. What is clear in the aftermath of this incident is that Eamon Gilmore does not support such initiatives and is behind Fine Gael and their talisman James Reilly, in preferring what Shorthall referred to as “an American-style” health service.
This is extremely bad news, not just for traditional Labour voters but also for the population at large. If such a thing is achieved, there are life and death implications for many people in the coming years.

The irony of this situation will not be lost on many people. When James Reilly burst onto the scene a few years back, he was evangelical about his approach to health. He campaigned on his medical credentials and played up his deep understanding of the health service from an insider’s perspective. He railed against Mary Harney and her campaign of privatisation.

Now that he has got the reigns of power firmly in his grasp, he has adjusted his creed and has adopted the aims and objectives of the same Mary Harney and made them his own. Róisín Shorthall, it would seem, attempted to stand in the way of his wrecking ball and, instead of being protected by her party and its leader, has been hounded and persecuted to the point where she felt she had to leave the job.

More cynical readers will no doubt suggest that Deputy Shorthall resigned in order to distance herself from the potentially toxic brand of being in government come the next election.

Certainly, her decision to walk away grants her considerable separation from those in power and the actions they take but giving up power is never an easy thing for a politician. This is true even in the case of Deputy Shorthall where, she gives the impression, she had about as much power as a prisoner in shackles in the darkest corner of solitary confinement.

In Britain, the junior coalition partners are the Liberal Democrats. As well as being the second party of government, the party is a national joke. Rather than being seen as pushing any kind of agenda or diluting the Conservative agenda, they are seen as patsies and fall guys, used, chewed and spat out by the Tories for their amusement.

The likeness to the Irish Labour Party is far from coincidental. I started this article by mentioning a power imbalance but I am open to altering my view as to the extent this influences the day-to-day politics in Ireland. I say this because, as the Shorthall resignation has revealed, Labour are lurching so far towards Fine Gael in policy terms that it is unclear as to how much Fine Gael need to lean on them to bring them in line. In a nutshell, it is very difficult to say whether Eamon Gilmore hung his minister out to dry because he rejected her adherence to core Labour Party principles in favour of Fine Gael’s neo-liberal agenda or because his boss Enda Kenny called him to heel on the issue.

What is clear is that Eamon Gilmore is enjoying the perks of his own position as Minister for Foreign Affairs. When he was interviewed by RTÉ about the resignation of his minister, he was at the United Nations where a meeting was taking place about Syria. The interviewer indulged the Táiniste by beginning the interview with a softball question about his activities there. Mr Gilmore told the nation that he had met privately with the Russians to express his displeasure about their support of the Assad regime and blocking of Security Council action.

We were left to imagine the Russians trembling in the aftermath of their dressing down and can expect the situation to be resolved any day now thanks to the actions of the mighty Gilmore, who strides the world bringing peace and justice to all. Only after his self-aggrandising did he turn his attention to the small issue of a minister in his Government, from his own party, resigning her position because of his failure to support her in fighting for social justice in Government policy.

Whether through coercion or by consent, what we can safely say is that Eamon Gilmore and his Labour Party will continue to support Fine Gael in their neo-liberal quest for the remainder of this coalition. When election time rolls around, both will seek the votes of the same people. Not only will the ordinary working people be ignored to a large extent, no party can realistically claim to represent them or their interests in any way. The fact that Fianna Fáil have, successfully, been landing punches against the Labour Party since Ms Shorthall’s resignation should be a clear wake-up call to them that they are on borrowed time. The Labour Party will be steamrolled at the polls by the Fine Gael machine, just as they have been in Government and deservedly so.

This leaves the problem for the people of Ireland of a total lack of political choice. The United Left Alliance has already pretty much imploded into the squabbling and faction fighting that tends to mar so many efforts of their ilk to form workable unions, leaving no option for those voters who want something approaching social justice in the way they are governed.

The time has come for a clean sweep of leadership and a return to old values on the part of the Labour Party. It will be interesting to see if there are still enough members in the ranks who remember what the old values are to achieve this outcome.