Power-hungry Labour pay the price

The political story of the week was undoubtedly the collapse of the Labour vote in Meath East. While nobody expected Labour to do well in this mainly rural constituency, the extent of the drubbing that the party got at the polls came as a major shock to Labour supporters everywhere. The fact is that support for the party fell from around 22% at the general election over two years ago to 4.5% now. In other words, support for Labour collapsed in a constituency where the

 

Labour candidate topped the poll last time out. Labour were hoping their candidate would come in third this time. Instead, he came in fifth.

If that result were to be repeated all over Ireland in another election, Labour would be wiped out. Of course, by-elections are different to general elections and this result is unlikely to be replicated at the next national election. But if I were a Labour TD in any constituency you care to name, I would be extremely worried about my future in politics.

Some say the tactics adopted by Labour in the Meath East by-election campaign were largely to blame for the collapse.

The party concentrated on social issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion rather than on the economy. However, in my view, Labour did not want to talk about the economy in Meath East because the party had little to contribute to that debate. Better to deflect attention away from Labour’s failure to exercise any influence on Fine Gael’s mishandling of the economy and talk about safer issues like abortion or the power of the Catholic Church in education in Ireland.
Is there anything Labour can do now at this late stage to win back the supporters who have left the party in droves since 2011? The party cannot continue doing nothing, hoping the problem will go away and that things will be all right come the next election. Well, it does not look as if the problem is going to go away and actually it looks as if it is getting worse. So something has got to be done to halt the sharp decline in support.

Blaming the people for not understanding the problems, as Pat Rabbitte is inclined to do, will butter no parsnips. Labour Party backbenchers, local councillors and loyal members throughout the country will demand action to avoid meltdown at the next local elections in little over a year’s time.

The first thing they must do is hold an emergency conference as soon as possible and certainly before the summer and allow ordinary members have a say in what went wrong and place the blame where it belongs.
Whether a change of leadership would improve the situation is doubtful. The real reason for Labour’s collapse last week lies in the abandonment of so many promises made during the general election campaign in 2011. Everybody knows that, apart from the Labour leadership. People voted for Labour then because they believed the promises made by Eamon Gilmore, Rabbitte and others that they would stand up for the interests of ordinary people and that if there had to be cut-backs in public spending and increases in taxes and levies, the brunt of these would be carried by the wealthiest and not by the most vulnerable.

Those promises have turned out to be as empty as our pockets after several harsh budgets. Pat Rabbitte himself let the cat out of the bag when he admitted that promises were merely something politicians and parties indulged in during election time. People will remember that and are unlikely to listen to Labour Party promises for a long time to come.
Perhaps there should be a renegotiation with Fine Gael of the Programme for Government. Perhaps a reshuffle of Labour ministers in Government to bring in some younger members. Perhaps a pull-out from Government altogether. I believe the last option is the least likely one.

If Labour were to pull out of the coalition in the short-term, Fine Gael would go to the country and Labour would almost certainly be annihilated at the subsequent general election. Labour should not have gone into government with Fine Gael after the last election.

They should have gone into Opposition and forced Fine Gael either to call on Fianna Fáil to form a government with them or to form a minority government with the help of a number of Independent TDs. Or Labour could have gone into government with Fine Gael only on condition of protecting the most vulnerable from the ravages of the recession. Instead, Labour went into government for the most selfish of reasons – power for power sake – and abandoned its natural support base. For that, it is now paying the price and deservedly so.

There are a lot of decent and honest Labour TDs in the Dáil who are extremely frustrated at the turn of events. They include Scariff deputy Michael McNamara, who has spoken out on numerous occasions against the severity of cutbacks and tax increases on the most vulnerable.

I cannot see him remaining too long in the Labour Parliamentary Party unless there are major changes from the top. His seat at the next general election will be extremely vulnerable. If we take note of the Meath East by-election result, along with all recent opinion polls, then we would have to suggest that he will be among the ‘also-rans’ in the race for the four seats in Clare at the next general election. Going on those patterns, the result in Clare will be Fine Gael, two; Fianna Fáil, two, with the strong possibility of an Independent candidate taking one of those four seats. Could that Independent candidate possibly be Michael McNamara?
I think he would have a better chance of holding his seat as an Independent rather than as a Labour candidate.

But it is early days yet and a lot of things could change before the general election in possibly three years’ time. I wouldn’t be counting any chickens till they are hatched.