Political World
Is era of blind loyalty to the party finally giving way to more sophisticated voting?
The World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
The then-political editor of The Irish Times Dick Walsh had a gem of an anecdote in his book on Fianna Fáil, ‘The Party’ written in 1986.
It concerned an old man who was a neighbour of the Walshes in County Clare. He fell into conversation with Walsh’s father who asked him how long his family had supported Fianna Fáil.
“Ever since the Rising,” he said.
The 1916 Rising? asked Walsh’s father.
No, replied the old man, the 1798 rising.
We are all familiar with the notion of people having a blind fealty to one or other of the two main parties in Ireland. It is also true that that loyalty is probably not as pervasive or as ‘sticky’ as it once was, but like the old fellow in Walsh’s anecdote there are lots of people out there who are Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael because of family tradition and because it’s built into their double helix.
Loyalty to the organisation becomes an all-consuming thing, even when it involves flip-flops, or u-turns or betrayals of principle. The notion of organisation at all costs irrespective of values was brought home to me when Maire Geoghegan-Quinn (as a leading figure of the so-called country and western set) challenged Charles J Haughey’s leadership of Fianna Fáil in the early 1990s.
She spoke about the organisation as being paramount, of loyalty to it being more important than anything else. ‘What about values?’ I thought to myself. Do they even get a look in? As I listened to her, I felt like she was talking about a cult.
Conformity is a strong factor in the Irish political party tradition. The whip is rarely defied and when it is, the consequences can be devastating. Sinn Fein, a party which hasn’t fully cast off the psychology of its paramilitary past, is a good example.
The party has adopted a position on abortion legislation that is somewhat at odds with its position pre the 2011 election. The party does not encourage any divergence at all in its public utterances and positions. Of all parties, diversity of opinion is never an option.
Peadar Tóibín’s defiance of the whip over the abortion issue will result in strong disciplinary measures, though nothing as radical as de-selection.
Sinn Fein is not alone in its disciplinarian approach. All the main parties have a zero tolerance attitude to disobedience. If a TD or Senator votes against the party, it means automatic expulsion from the parliamentary party and a suspension, that can sometimes be permanent.
The gravity of defiance is illustrated by Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s warning that any Fine Gael TD voting against the abortion legislation will be deselected and will not be allowed be a Fine Gael candidate in the next election. It’s a sobering choice.
At the time of writing this, it is uncertain which way Lucinda Creighton will vote. But I would be astonished if she supported the legislation, given the all-out battle she has waged with the party leadership over this issue.
When Minister for Health James Reilly claimed on the radio that Fine Gael’s intentions on the matter were made clear in the 2011 election, she responded with a haycutter of a tweet.
“Sorry Dr Reilly. Please do not mislead people. Our manifesto and programme for govt DID NOT commit FG TDs to this. Read it. Don’t make it up.”
And that, as they say, was that. For her and for others it boils down to sacrificing their principles to show unquestioning loyalty to the organisation.
How will Creighton and the other abortion rebels fare if Kenny remains true to his word and refuses to allow those TDs stand in the next election?
With two 2011 candidates in Galway West in the dissident camp, Brian Walsh and Fidelma Healy-Eames, the obvious person to stand in the ‘bearna bhaol’ is Hildegarde Naughton, a candidate herself two years ago.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune
The fine art of good timing when it comes to elections
World of Politics with Harry McGee
Academically, politics is described as a science. But in the real world, it’s more of an art – and one of the big decisions a Government has to make is to decide when to call an election.
Will they see out the full term, or will they go early – either to mitigate the damage they will ship, or to secure a victory before things go awry, or the economy takes a dip, or some kind of controversy erupts?
Timing is everything.
And there’s a bit of art to that – not to mention a lot of luck. If you call it early and win big, you’re a genius. If you call it early and lose, you are the political version of the village fool.
Charlie Haughey was a poor judge of the public mood. Twice he called snap elections and on both occasions they backfired. Haughey succeeded Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in late 1979 and did not – technically – have his own mandate. He tried to remedy that by calling an election in 1981. But it recoiled. Ray MacSharry warned him not to hold it during the H Block hunger strikes when republican prisoners were dying each day. He did not listen to the advice and found himself out of office.
After his return to power in 1987, Haughey tired of presiding over a minority government that kept on losing votes in the Oireachtas (the opposition won nine private members motions).
So he called a snap general election and it backfired. Fianna Fáil lost seats and had to broker a coalition deal with the Progressive Democrats and his long-standing political adversary Dessie O’Malley.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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Connacht Tribune
Inch protest arguments are more subtle than Oughterard
World of Politics with Harry McGee
I was cycling down Mount Street in Dublin on Tuesday. It’s a wide esplanade that links the Grand Canal with Merrion Square. The street is a mixture of fine Georgian buildings and modern office blocks.
About half-way down is the office of the International Protection Office, which deals with asylum seekers who have arrived in the country.
Needless to say, the office has been overwhelmed in the past year. Besides an estimated 80,000 refugees who have arrived from Ukraine, there have been about 20,000 people from other parts of the world who have arrived into Dublin (mostly) claiming asylum.
The numbers peaked around Christmas, but they have been falling a little. In January, more than 1,300 people arrived seeking asylum but the numbers fell back to 831 and 858, in February and March respectively.
They are still huge numbers in a historical context.
So back to my cycle on Tuesday. I knew that some asylum seekers were camping outside the International Protection Office, but I was taken aback by how many. There were six tents lined up on the pavement directly outside. Then on the ramp that led down to the basement carpark on the side of the building, there were about another 20 tents.
It looked like what it was, a refugee camp in the middle of Dublin’s business district. If you pan out from Mount Street, you will find tents here and there in nearby streets and alleys. There were a good few tents in an alleyway off Sandwith Street about 500 metres away.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Connacht Tribune
Sinn Féin hunt for seats in ‘locals’ across Galway
World of Politics with Harry McGee
God that was a dramatic and historic weekend in England, wasn’t it? So much excitement, so much change, so much hype, so much out with the old and in with the new, and what looks like the coronation of a new leader. Yes, the local elections in Britain were something else weren’t they!
Apologies for not going on about King Charles III but the contract I signed when I became a lifelong republican forbids me to discuss the topic!
I know the British local elections sound a bit boring by comparison, but the results were stunning.
The Conservatives lost nearly 1,000 seats, the British Labour Party gained almost 500 and both the Lib Dems (with 350 gains) and the Greens (gaining over 200) also had amazing days at the polls.
It was Labour’s best day since 2002 but its victory was only partial. The Greens and the Lib Dems actually made gains at the expense of Labour in more affluent areas, and in parts of Britain where there were high numbers of graduates.
It was in the Red Wall constituencies in the North of England where the Labour recovery was strongest. These are working class constituencies with pockets of deprivation where people voted for the Labour Party forever. But all of those constituencies voted for Brexit and then voted for the Tories in the next general election. Labour is now winning back some of those votes.
Local elections are classified as second-tier elections which essentially means – from a national perspective – they are not life-or-death affairs, and not everything turns on them. Of course, it’s really important to have good local representation. But they are not an amazing weather vane for who rules the country.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.