You will either sink or swim when you jump political ships

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

In the world of politics, jumping ship is a precarious enough undertaking. Most of the time the end result is more or less the same as walking the plank.

Leaving one party to join another, or going from Independent to party member – or vice versa – is seldom a problem-free exercise, even if it is done on a matter of principle.

The latest is Stephen Donnelly, who has jumped from his little one-man kayak onto the Fianna Fáil vessel. As usual, he has moved with the confidence of a man who will only not be thrown overboard, but might one day become the guy wearing the Captain Birdseye hat in the Fianna Fáil operation.

The history of defections is a potted one, pockmarked with more failures than successes. On a rule of thumb, an elected TD joining Fianna Fáil seems to be the most precarious undertakings.

Look at Colm Keaveney. He was chairman of the Labour Party after the 2011 election. He had made an amazing breakthrough in Galway East in winning the party its first seat in the constituency. But if you looked at the election numbers, everybody knew he was vulnerable from the moment he got the seat.

He had the lowest percentage number of first preferences of any elected TD in the country. Sure, his first count tally might have been suppressed by the fact he had a running mate, Lorraine Higgins. There were also two strong Independents in the field, Sean Canney and Tim Broderick. Keaveney got elected because he managed to keep his nose in front of both through the subsequent counts.

Anyway, he quickly fell out with fellow Galway man, party leader Eamon Gilmore, and from within a year of the election it was obvious that Keaveney was on the way out of Labour. Within a year he shocked everybody by joining Fianna Fáil, bringing its numbers to 20. It certainly discomfited the sitting TD Micheál Kitt who – gentleman that he is –  never resorted to the bitter word in public about it.

I’ve often wondered why Micheál Martin so readily accepted Keaveney. He had been the chief member of the awkward squad in Labour and had berated the party for not staying true to its principles. Sure, Fianna Fáil was pivoting (sorry, I’ve succumbed to that fashionable word) to the Left, but not any more to the left than Labour in government.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.