….or if Cowen is secretly working for the opposition are Shortall and Rabbitte secretly working for the ULA?
The shenanigans over the past twenty four hours in relation to the Finance Bill, as noted by Harry McGee yesterday on the Irish Times website and quoted here… was indeed as he put it when…
“…both [Labour and Fine Gael] will facilitate the passage of the Bill (which both really really want to see going through) and then both will have the luxury of voting against it. In collusion with the Greens (and relucantly) Fianna Fail.”
And lo, it came to pass.
As neat a piece of political work as one could imagine. But one which shows up the enormous credibility issue for Labour, and much more so than Fine Gael.
For those who were preparing for the LPs stint in government for the inevitable, as they saw it, sell-out, wait no more. They may well be, indeed will or are, pointing to this positioning and say – ‘we told you so!’. And in truth the LPs position, one which has not merely converged on the political centre but crossed it, is far from creditable. If they disliked the Finance Bill so much, well, push the no-confidence motion in the Taoiseach and watch the Government fall, or better still watch Fine Gael attempt to prop it up in order to pass the FB. Or do something, anything, but something better than this shambles where their race to be respectable and ‘provide stable government’ outweighs any other consideration, even the serious attrition of their vote to the left and further left.
And as Mark suggested last night in the comments on the above thread, ‘Saw that too with a sinking feeling. And I thought the 18% tax promise in 2007 was just a blip.’
But it wasn’t and this isn’t. Labour, for whatever reason, has decided that in order to retain its current levels of support (but note that decline) it needs to play to… well, who precisely?
I generally take a sympathetically critical line towards the LP. None of us on the left can ignore how difficult it is in this state to argue a left of left of centre line. Decades from the lives of leftwing activists have been spent on fairly marginal achievements, and that’s true from the LP leftward.
It’s a difficult ask in a society as conservative in some respects as this, at least in terms of pretending that there is no such thing as left/right politics much of the time, to be leftwing, even mildly so.
And there’s a danger in complaining about the rhetoric emanating from the worthies mentioned in the headline to this post that we forget that the further left has never been behind the door in articulating precisely its discontents with the Labour Party. Meetings the length and breadth of the state will echo to the sound of complaints about them. No one here, LP or otherwise, can claim the status of innocent victim.
But that party leaves me exasperated as regards not merely its innate caution, something that seems to me have been intrinsic to it from its foundation, but also its politeness as regards the centre and centre right and a remarkably deaf ear to all others. Because while one has to appeal to a broad variety of voters and people in many different circumstances there’s all too often a sense that the LP has lost sight of who and what it is meant to represent while making that appeal. This may seem unfair to the many many genuine leftists I know within the LP, but from the outside, and from a position that is certainly some way short of say the SP or SWP this is a perception. I can’t say how widely shared it is. But it exists and it frustrates.
And every time a Roisin Shortall or a Rabbitte articulate something along the lines of a ‘rag-tag’ left, something that seems inexplicable given the personal political history of so many people in the LP, you can sense the SF, ULA and Independent vote bump slightly upwards. And remember, it only needs slight increments because – as also noted previously – the targets of all three are actually quite modest. SF will be pleased with 7 TDs, sufficient to form a Technical Group. If the ULA happen to get Higgins, Healy and RBB back into the Dáil that will be a good days work, any more and they’ll be naturally delighted. As for the Independents, each extra one is one more. ‘Nuff said.
Does Shortall or Rabbitte care? Probably not. They’ve got their eyes fixed on a larger percentile of the vote than the ULA, or SF or whoever can dream of. And they’re all too aware that the further left and SF can deny them second seats here and there, but particularly in Dublin. But, there’s a problem, it’s not entirely working. – How else to explain that the FG vote is more or less constant while the SF and Independents/Others vote is increasing while the FF and LP votes are declining? Labour has seemed at best coy for quite some time now, coy and evasive. And the latest deal has something of that tone too.
So no wonder they’re throwing the odd rhetorical comment agin the further left. By their calculation they have little to lose and if they discredit said left even slightly… but the damage to the discourse is difficult to take, even if we put all else aside.
This is, as was also noted last night, oddly reminiscent of the Green Party, who also went through a similar process, albeit one after they arrived in government rather than before, of attempting to project ‘responsibility’ as if were the primary political virtue, and the jettisoning of if not the entirety of older policy positions, at least an effort to put green water between them and the party.
That that strategy wasn’t exactly successful is now all too evident, and there’s more, much more, to be written about the Green Party and what went wrong during the past three years.
Implicit in that though is a warning to the Labour Party, who though they may think that from a 2007 base if they lose say two-thirds of the support they’ve gained across the last two years they’ll be doing well.
Surely, in purely electoral terms. But if they believe that being in government is its own justification then they’re in for the same shock as the Green Party when not dissimilar circumstances leech the political capital from them.
And, unlike the Green Party, they won’t have the excuse that all this was completely new to them.
This post originally appeared on Cedar Lounge Revolution.
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January 25, 2011 1:04 pm
The Finance Bill stroke is the latest, but greatest, in a line of indications that Labour in government will be on the good ship Austerity.
Until fairly recently I would have councelled my friends on the left against rejecting calls for an all-left alliance out of hand and, instead, for saying to Labour and Sinn Féin, ‘reject coalition and austerity and we can all ally’. The clarity of Labour’s intentions makes this position redundant. More, the Labour leadership has now gone on the offensive against the ULA and Sinn Féin, against the rest of an all-left allaince. (http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/).
Now the question has turned on those in and associated with the Labour Party who have long sought an alternative to the FF/Green direction of the crisis, and who have long hoped that the unions begin to fight back. Can you continue to support this? Is it not now time to make the break? You do not have to come right into the ULA. A looser umbrella might be erected for the time being.
After the Finance Bill stroke the question must be directed a little wider: to the leadership of SIPTU, Unite and the TEEU. SIPTU, for instance, made and continues to make, harsh and accurate criticisms of the effects of the Budget on workers. Can they tolerate this blatant manouvre to ALLOW IN that same Budget? Can they continue to call for workers to vote Labour, or Labour and left?
Further, can those who have researched and written so brilliantly against the FF/Green government making workers and the vulnerable pay for the crisis and the banks, and who have produced viable alternatives, Fintan O’Toole, TASC, some associated with Claiming Our Future and the 5th February Gresham Conference, etc., continue to support Labour when Labour, in alliance with Fine Gael, have let in the Budget and will clearly continue the thrust of the present government policies?
Is it not time, just as the far left have made the jump into a broad alliance and a real alternative, for those Labour supporters and activists anguished by Labour’s trajectory, to make their own break and express their dissatisfaction through some new public formation, association, political organisation independent of the Labour leadership and putting out a different message? There would be immediate synergy, solidarity and opportunities for co-operation with the rest of the left and, in time, for closer organisational links with it.
January 25, 2011 3:37 pm
This is just a carwreck.
January 25, 2011 3:49 pm
I really want to be fair to Labour. I know that there is so much evidence to the contrary, but I believe that there are those within that party – even at leadership level – who came into politics to make some real progressive difference.
People are bending over backwards to try and work out a progressive alliance and use this unique opportunity to shift the political paradigm. Irish Thatcherism is on the ropes, chin out, expecting a knockout punch. Labour is ringing the bell and letting the opponent back into the blue corner to get its dose of smelling salts ready to come out swinging again.
The opponent, by the way, has Enda Kenny wiping their brow.
January 25, 2011 6:50 pm
the spead at which things are moving at the moment how long is it possible to live in the now.
labour have had there worst two days in i can’t remember how long. that has to trigger something internal. maybe they’ll get in to government and it will be iam all right jack or maybe it won’t. the centre ground is shifting. expect reconvergence to follow.
January 25, 2011 6:58 pm
I live in Meath East and frankly I expect to have to spoil my ballot such is the appalling paucity of choice I anticipate at the ballot box.
January 26, 2011 12:22 pm
Joan Burton was nasty, bullying and intellectually vapid on VB. I think we can all take it as a preview of things to come and evidence of a certain love of power for its own sake; although the Labour Party, blinded as were the Greens by a sense of purity of purpose, won’t see it as such.
A kind of alas-poor-Yorick moment I suppose.
January 26, 2011 5:01 pm
I spoke to Sean Sherlock last year about the chance of Irish politics to finally realign itself in some meaningful way. He told me there was a real possibility of a left-right divide emerging in the political system, but when I suggested that for this to happen Labour needed to rule out coalition with both FF and FG, he remained silent.
I asked him whether he would be crossing the picket to go into the Dáil during the one day public sector strike and he answered by saying that he had to represent private sector workers in his constituency who had lost their jobs due to the recession. His Labour colleague in Cork, Ciaran Lynch, clarified the issue by saying there’s no point in courting union votes when most of their members voted FF.
Labour have gone from 33% in the opinion polls to 21% as they appear ever more eager to gain office at all costs. The little scam they pulled off this week to usher the sell out Finance Bill through the Dail while voting against it will see them drop further. Joan Burton’s meltdown on Vincent Browne has been the crowning glory.
It is a truly depressing spectacle.
January 26, 2011 8:06 pm
It’s depressing. All Labour need to do is keep their mouths shut.
By the way, Pearse Doherty’s pro-life credentials – does anybody know what tyhe official (sorry) Sinn Fein line is on abortion:
http://www.prolifecampaign.ie/pages.php?id=154
January 26, 2011 8:32 pm
Ah, William
if we all engaged in ad hominem attacks we might mention your own payment by the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco. So how’s the anti-tax haven stance working out for ya?
Or maybe we should just recognise there are divisions regarding abortion running through most Irish political parties. And stick to the issue – whether this economy’s political leadership is willing to hand over the country bound hand and foot to the EU/IMF and its assets with it?
No wonder you want Labour to keep its mouth shut. It would certainly be an improvement.
January 26, 2011 8:50 pm
Hi Krupskaya. I was writer in residence in the library in Monaco for 4 weeks. It’s on my website so I’m not ashamed of it. It’s no insult to mention it to me. I worked in the library there five days a week. They give the gig to a different writer every year. It hardly qualifies me as living in a tax haven (I live in Cork actually). A lot of other Irish writers have done the same gig before me, including left wing writers. If you’d like my views on Monaco, both as a tax haven and otherwise, I’d be happy to give them to you.
I’m puzzled by your reference to ‘ad hominem attacks’. Ad hominem means attacking the person rather than the party or the politics. I was wondering what Sinn Fein’s policy on abortion is. As a matter of fact, I’ll give SF a vote (if they run in my constituency) because of their economic policies. But I’m a bit pissed off that there might be a pro-life policy lurking in there.
Are you a member of SF? If you are you could enlighten me rather than, as you put it, indulging in ad hominem attacks.
Someone else drew my attention to the link. I assume the link is stating Pearse Doherty’s true views. I actually admire Pearse Doherty and have been telling people how impressive he is. But I hate pro-lifers. Am I entitled to that? I’m 55 years of age, I lived through the pro-life amendments, maybe you did too.
As regards Labour keeping their mouth shut, I admit I should have expanded it. It looks a bit bald sitting there, now that I look at it again. What I had in mind was that they shouldn’t attack the rest of the left. If they confined their attacks to the right there’d be a chance for a real left wing expansion.
I’d appreciate your comments on this response.
January 27, 2011 1:40 pm
Hi krupskaya, I don’t think William’s comment about Doherty was even close to an ad hominem attack. Its information that’s in the public domain, and its a reasonable question to ask. We could still be facing a referendum on abortion after the European Court of Human Rights ruling, and there had been talk before Christmas of that coinciding with an election. Pearse Doherty’s profile has raised considerably recently and has enhanced SF’s reputation on economic issues, rightly so.
You’re retort about Williams work in Princess Grace Irish Library was a pretty cheap shot, in my view.
January 27, 2011 4:17 pm
Well, Krupskaya, it seems you were content with your ad hominem attack after all.
January 28, 2011 9:06 am
Apologies for the sharpness of my retort.
SF has no formal position on abortion. Inside the Party, those campaigning for a pro-Women’s Choice position have not yet won the day.
Some prominent individuals clearly have a different view, and my point is that personal view does not represent the vew of the Party as a whole.
This election overwhelmingly turns on whether the parties who want to extend the austerity drive are allowed to do so. SF is the largest political force opposed to that and will suffer a firestorm of invective and abuse, often on unrelated (abortion) or trivial matters (the arcane practises of the British Parliament). There will be more to come, as can be imagined.
Labour, which is most compromised by its support for austerity, is leading the charge, closely followed by FF.
The right to choose is a fundamental right.
No significant party in Ireland has a Pro-Choice policy. The components of the ULA do http://www.choiceireland.org/node/60 . But at this election they are not a significant threat to the austerity drive.
SF is. Attacking them on issues that aren’t central to this election (and won’t be progressed by it) for views the party doesn’t hold inadvertently serves the purpose of undermining the one electoral force which can break the cuts consensus, and whose strong showing could help break Labour from the Bueshirts.
But again, apologies for my own playing the man, not the ball.
January 28, 2011 9:17 am
Thanks Krupskaya. I appreciate the clarification of the SF position as well as your other remarks.
I do, in fact, understand that the abortion issue is an emotive one. My objection to ‘pro-lifers’ is not against people who hold anti-abortion convictions on a personal level. I can understand them and respect them. But as Donagh (above) points out we could well be facing another referendum. I’ve seen political parties use their ‘pro-life credentials’ to good effect to whip up political support and, as a by-product, a poisonous pseudo-debate. I would simply not vote for a party that declared itself pro-life.
As I said in my response I’ll certainly give SF a vote. It’s in there in the mix at the moment with the ULA. I’ll also vote for Labour because I retain the pious (and probably baseless) hope that a unified left might come to power.
I hope SF and the ULA do well.
January 28, 2011 5:46 pm
Going by this – and its by f%^&*£g Henry McDonald, so the usual health warning applies – FF are in attack mode against SF.
Bring it, I say
January 28, 2011 6:44 pm
And is this an overture for a right-wing coalition – FG + FF
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0128/breaking30.html
January 28, 2011 6:51 pm
The tactic is to come at Adams and be relentless about it. Henry McDonald is happy to oblige.
SF spokepeople have to kill this now. It already has legs and there will be plenty of references back to the 2007 election and Adam’s poor showing then.
I think that Enda Kenny’s prime motivation in calling for a five way debate is to be able to divert attention away from himself and towards Adams. SF need to be clear and loud about their costed proposals, keep reminding people that this mess is the mess of FF and of its ideological approach, which is shared by FG and shift the debate back on track.
Its a classic distraction.