Fine Gael… opposition…

Late again, but worth a thought. Stephen Collins had a curious column last week. Particularly curious, given his thoughts in previous weeks about a new ‘populist’ party… Let’s start with this...

FINE GAEL has done itself no favours by attempting to turn a European Commission proposal on budget co-ordination across the EU into a scare about the erosion of Irish sovereignty. In their scramble to score points against the Government, Enda Kenny and Richard Bruton have only done damage to their own credibility as potential leaders of an alternative government.

One of the guiding principles of Fine Gael for the past 40 years has been an unwavering commitment to the European project. That is what makes such an ill-judged reaction from the party leadership to a modest proposal from the commission to protect the euro zone all the more astonishing.

Really? What again was it that Fine Gael proposed? Withdrawal from the eurozone? Er… no. Withdrawal from the EU? Not quite. An embargo on dealing with the Commission? Definitely not. An embargo of other EU members? Not at all.

Fine Gael mildly pointed out that they thought the idea of ‘budget co-ordination’ was problematic (and then rather pointlessly raised the issue of corporation tax).

It’s hardly the stuff of UKIP, or even the British Conservative party.

Unwavering commitment to the European project surely does not mean uncritical commitment? And the issue of the euro is surely detachable to some degree from the EU. Because it is perfectly reasonable for Fine Gael, or indeed you or me, to be broadly pro-EU (yeah, I know, many on the left aren’t, but that’s a different issue) while simultaneously dissenting on one aspect or another of it, or – particularly appropriate in this context – being critical of proposals.

And while Collins might like to suggest that this is a ‘modest proposal’ (although given how he has hyped the notion of ‘Fine Gael’s dangerous flirtation with populist rhetoric’ you’d wonder at his assessment of such matters) and… that…

Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan also made the point that greater co-ordination of economic policies was envisaged in the Lisbon Treaty. “All 16 euro zone members are deeply intertwined through the common currency. As we have seen over the past few weeks, a speculative attack on one member state affects us all. For that reason, we have a shared interest in enhanced economic co-ordination throughout the zone,” he said.
Any move at EU level that might put a brake on the kind of Fianna Fáil profligacy that led to a deep economic crisis in Ireland, not once but twice in the past 40 years, should surely be welcomed by Fine Gael and other Dáil parties.

The problem is that this isn’t as uncontentious as Lenihan or Collins might like to present it. In the Irish Time this week Arthur Beesley has noted that there is considerable disquiet at this proposal in European capitals and that this does represent a novel and problematic level of intervention from the Commission. As for the EU saving us from ourselves, well, that would seem a little bit more palusible were it not for the fact that many of the policies pursued in this state, low and narrow tax base, light regulation of the financial sector and so forth were very largely part of an approach shared and indeed approved of across the EU and in certain parts dovetailed with policies promoted by the Commission.

For anyone who genuinely supports the EU, the commission proposal represents a logical pooling of sovereignty to try and prevent future speculative attacks on the euro. For those who have campaigned against EU treaties it represents a further diminution of sovereignty, but so has every step along the road to closer co-operation, beginning with our accession in 1973.
The fact that Fine Gael has put itself on the same side of the argument as the anti-EU forces that campaigned for a No vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendums raises questions about whether the party has any idea of what it stands for or where it is going. What is really worrying is that the latest gaffe appears to be part of a pattern.

Actually I’m not so certain that the commission proposal represents a ‘logical pooling of sovereignty’, or at least not in a context of a strong Commission, weak European Parliament. Indeed given that, unlike other areas where pooling has occurred across a range of areas, this seems like a radically different, and let’s use the word ‘innovative’ once more, intrusion into decisions made by national governments.

What seems to really raise Collin’s ire – though – is the latter point that somehow Fine Gael might find themselves on the same ‘side’ – yes, truly the argument reaches some rather silly points when we reach that level of discourse – as the great unwashed in the Socialist Party, or Sinn Féin.

Indeed note the following…

Kenny and Bruton must have squirmed in their padded Dáil seats on Thursday morning when the Sinn Féin leader in the House, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, said he wanted to echo their concerns and politely told them he had forecast just such a development when he campaigned for a No vote in the two referendums on the Lisbon Treaty.
Outside the Dáil another inveterate anti-EU campaigner, Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins, bluntly said that either Enda Kenny did not know what he was talking about during the Lisbon Treaty referendum campaigns, when he asked the Irish people to vote Yes, or he was deceiving them now. Higgins pointed out that the treaty had strengthened the hand of the commission to co-ordinate a common approach by finance ministers across the EU.

Yeah, well. So what? It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that Higgins and Ó Caoláin might be right every once in a while. In any event to argue that Fine Gael lends credibility to their arguments, or vice versa, is a curious one given that this proposal was certainly not aired during the Lisbon campaign and would appear to be something of a creature of the Commission as it stands now. But for Collins to allow for that would be to also allow that the Commission might – perish the thought – be incorrect on this.

But even that isn’t the issue either, for Collins is exercised by a bigger problem, a greater failing of Fine Gael.

Fine Gael has also moved steadily towards a more populist and unsustainable stance on a range of issues from the public finances to the banking crisis. It is no accident that a number of former Fine Gael luminaries such as Garret FitzGerald and Alan Dukes have distanced themselves from the party’s approach. There is a danger that some of its core supporters will soon despair.
While some degree of populism in response to austerity measures was only to be expected, particularly since Fianna Fáil was largely responsible for the creation of the mess in the first place, it has got to a dangerous stage if Fine Gael is capable of abandoning its pro-EU stance at the drop of a hat to try to embarrass the Government for a day.
There is a suspicion that the party is relying on focus groups to assess the public mood and simply churning out views designed to capture it. While that is precisely what Fianna Fáil did during the Ahern years, it is a dangerous game. Our current difficulties stem in large part from the abdication of leadership that occurred over a decade as government tried to give the public want it wanted without concern for the cost.

Again, why one criticism of the proposal from the Commission would be considered anti-EU is puzzling – not least since given the absence of any referendums in the future on the EU, that we know of, it is unlikely that there would be any lever for pro or anti-EU sentiment to exercise itself politically. But note that he asks Fine Gael to essentially support the government while being the opposition.

And this becomes even more confused the more he writes.

That failure of leadership had put Fine Gael in a strong position to become the biggest party in the Dáil for the first time in its history, but its behaviour over the past week indicates that it is quite capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

But how could that come to pass if all FG did was to essentially reiterate the government position? Or to put it slightly differently, isn’t it more likely that defeat would occur if FG merely mirrored those positions?

And then there’s the threat…

The only card left in Fianna Fáil’s hands at this stage is that, whatever its own past sins, the Opposition would be incapable of dealing with the crisis. Fine Gael and Labour as well have done a good job in recent months of giving credence to this claim.
Brian Cowen squandered an opportunity to ram the point home in his lengthy address at DCU on Thursday night. Instead of focusing solely on what his Government is doing to rescue the economy, he persisted in denying responsibility for his role in its downfall. That approach will only antagonise voters who are simply not prepared to forgive him and his colleagues for blithely leading the country to the edge of the cliff.
It looks as if voters at the next election will face the unenviable choice of supporting the party that shares a large amount of responsibility for the crash, but seems to have a coherent plan to deal with it, and parties who are innocent of responsibility but either don’t know or won’t say what has to be done.

Er… well.

Look, I hold no brief for Fine Gael, or the Labour party, but it seems to me that what Collins wants is an opposition that doesn’t diverge an iota from the policy positions of Fianna Fáil, but simultaneously isn’t Fianna Fáil. Or perhaps more optimally would push policies that were Fianna Fáil redux. How Kenny could make that sale credibly to the people is beyond me, although God knows that’s been the traditional USP for Fine Gael for much of its history. That Fine Gael have managed to position themselves slightly to one side of the orthodoxy is actually [very slightly] to their credit.

But if this is what some believe political activity to be…