Government defies doomsayers by proving its political longevity

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

The arrival of autumn will see this Government lasting longer than the Fianna Fáil/Greens coalition of 2007; the Fianna Fáil/Labour partnership of 1992; the Rainbow Alliance of 1994; and three governments of the 1980s. Nobody predicted it would last this long.

So is it a triumph for new politics? For the art of happy compromise? Or are we just witnessing the slowest slow bicycle race in history where the big two parties are just keeping things going because of Brexit and they are too afraid to call an election.

Truth be told, it’s a bit of both – with the looming spectre of Brexit meaning all bets were always off until after the UK leaves the European Union. And that suits the two main parties.

There are also the iron-clad rules of electoral politics that have paralysed both major parties. The first is you don’t want to be the cause of an election, or for pulling you down. Neither party – in their own way – feels confident enough that an election now would be in its best interests. For both the rule of thumb on the best time to call an election is…not right now.

Irish politics has created two strange new hybrids since 2016. The first part of it is the consensus thing. No party is within 28 seats of a majority. Indeed the only coalition that could have been formed was one between the two big parties – an alliance their opponents called for but one that they resisted.

Faced with difficult arithmetic three and a half years ago, the two big parties had no other choice but to start talking to each other.

When the confidence and supply agreement was brokered, I thought this is an ingenious new third way for Irish politics that will allow the two big parties to stay apart, but also cooperate when the national interest (in other words, their own instincts) dictates.

And it has worked out like that. They have come together on Apple tax, on preserving road budgets, on Brexit. But it hasn’t gone down well with their respective memberships. You forget how tribal the foot-soldiers of both parties are. They tolerate it but they just don’t like it.

Of course, back then the incipient threat was Sinn Féin. The blunder of analysis we all made is assuming that its rise was going to continue and was inexorable. And that has not turned out to be the case.

That rise was reversed by electoral difficulties that stemmed from teething problems with new leader, internal rows over bullying, and the absence of a message for the post-austerity political climate.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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