Upbeat Labour pay no heed to the prophets of doom

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

It would probably take as something as dramatic as a drunken leader doing a moonie on stage to take the mood levels down a notch at party political conferences.

Long gone are the days when factions came in and sparked off each other in smoke-filled rooms, on policy issues or because of clashes of personality.

Conferences these days are for the members; to give them a sense of belonging; to reinforce in their minds that they joined the right tribe and are doing the right thing.

And when a party has taken a hiding and is licking its wounds, for sure the atmosphere is going to be a mite subdued.

But that’s not the case with any of the big parties going into the election. They are all gung-ho. And none more than Labour, hosts of the last of the political party conferences before the general election, in Mullingar last Saturday.

The real ‘metric’ these days is turnout. And while it can’t match Fine Gael or Fianna Fáíl for numbers, the Labour Party conference still attracted a big crowd of supporters.

Was this an act of solidarity as the party pulls off what it’s never done before, a relatively successful election after coming out of government? Or was it just a particularly large bunch of lemmings marching slowly to the edge of the cliff?

Well, the party thinks the latter and recent polls suggest that it might just be creeping back into contention. There will be no Spring Tide or Gilmore Gael in 2016 but a comparative win for the party would be to take 15 seats or more. That would allow it to go back into government for a second term.

The party is a junior coalition partner so the message is necessarily complicated. It has to show it has achieved in government, for one.

That means elbowing in and taking credit for whole-of-Government successes and not just leaving it to Fine Gael. It has to show that its presence in government has made singular differences.

That is shown by its emphasis on the same sex marriage referendum, on welfare and benefit levels, and on public sector jobs and pays.

They all hone in on the party’s base which tends to be liberal and working in the public sector.

Generally, the party will argue that the only alternative is a chaotic unstable coalition made up of two parties that might fillet most of its votes, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin. Returning the coalition is the only “stable” alternative.

So, it’s essentially fighting an election with Fine Gael and fighting an election against Fine Gael. It has to show it is different and can make a difference. But without causing the potential for an unbridgeable gap between both parties.

It’s a tricky one.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.