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.