The Cedar Lounge Revolution

I’ll write up some thoughts on the Democratic debate tomorrow, but in the meantime what a fascinating proposal raised in Limerick at the latest PD meeting on Tuesday night. Those watching the death throes of the Progressive Democrats closely will have observed that although the head of the corpse appears to have given up the limbs continue to thrash about – if not wildly, at least with sufficient vigour to give an imitation of political life.

For reading the Irish Times today one will see that although:

THE PROGRESSIVE Democrats’ four Oireachtas members will formally propose that the party should wind up at next month’s special delegates meeting [and] The terms of the motion will go before a meeting of the party’s national executive tonight, while the meeting will also select a venue for the gathering on November 8th.

Something unpredicted, but entirely predictable, is happening.

The decision to put the motion in the name of the four, including former leader Mary Harney, is a high-risk strategy given the mounting opposition to their plan.

Let’s think this through. For the Oireachtas members a continued political life is a given, other than for Mary Harney who long since indicated her decision to retire from political life at the next election. Noel Grealish is a man whose appetite to join Fianna Fáil is matched only by his inability to keep it secret from those around him, or his political colleagues, or opponents, or indeed the media. Ciaran Cannon and Fiona O’Malley are in a slightly different situation. Their political lives were the gift of the then Taoiseach, and they remain due to that. I can’t see their Senatorial seats being removed from them, but who knows what sort of pressures are being applied behind the scenes? And realistically for them, what sort of future do they have without some sort of party structure around them.

By which they – presumably – mean a large party of government, or a potential party of government.

But beyond that are the foot-soldiers, the ones who didn’t manage to make it into the Oireachtas or didn’t try, but who are – quite reasonably – asking what the hell was all the effort about over the past two decades, and in particular over the past five years only to see those who have scaled the ladder (or been given more than a hand up) kick it away beneath them as they sail onto pastures new.

And let’s remember, there are more than enough PD Councillors to fill, well, a minibus or two. In other words a lot of people, some who are increasingly discontented by the ‘high’ politics being played above their heads.

Grassroots members in Limerick, Clare and Tipperary strongly opposed a wind-up when they met in a Limerick hotel on Tuesday night.

And also…

The well-attended Limerick meeting in the South Court Hotel, which is said to have had up to 200 present, according to some sources, voted by a show of hands to oppose disbandment.

And why not? They look around and see enthusiasm and energy. There are political formations we know that would kill to get 200 people from across the nation into a small room, let alone 200.

Speaking after the meeting, former national executive member Tadhg Kearney said the decision to wind up the PDs may have been “a bit premature”.

That 200 must have brought back bitter sweet memories of their halcyon days when they could pack out hotels with ordinary people in the late 1980s.

Furthermore, and here it gets really interesting, finally the penny has dropped with the ‘grassroots’.

Mr Cannon and Senator Fiona O’Malley were strongly criticised by some in attendance at the Limerick meeting, with a number of calls on them to give up their Seanad seats.

Hmmm… Seems logical to me. As noted above, the representatives have nothing, literally nothing, to lose by the disappearance of the PDs. Their political self-identity is safe, if somewhat battered. But not so for the base. And if said ‘representatives’ aren’t doing the job, well, why not boot out the bums. Grealish is a lost cause, Harney clearly just going through the motions. But if Cannon and O’Malley aren’t willing to fight, and this at a meeting in the spiritual birthplace of the party, why shouldn’t those unelected Seanad positions be handed to those who will. I think we’ll hear a lot more of this over the next few weeks, and it may well be stronger than musing about the winding up being ‘a bit premature’.

The future? Well, a South Dublin Councillor has just jumped ship to Fine Gael, but that’s Dublin. I could see a situation where the PDs become a minor regional party mainly of the west. Perhaps getting the odd Dáil seat, perhaps not. But holding on.

In the short term, though, it’s going to get messy. Still, I can’t help but give at least two and a half cheers for those party members who – wrong and all as the politics they represent is from my perspective – are willing to deliver a poke in the eye to the bien-pensant political and media consensus on the supposedly ‘inevitable’ fate of their party.