Labour, Sinn Féin and the…er… “Workers’ Party”… September 13, 2012
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.trackback
I buy the Phoenix probably more than is good for me. But buy it I do. Didn’t think the most recent issue was much cop and the cover was puerile. There are political analyses to be had, but that wasn’t part and parcel of it.
More interesting was an article about Ruairi Quinn. I’ve always been interested in Quinn, not merely for his longevity, but also because he’s always seemed such an unlikely figure in the context of the LP – or perhaps all too likely, some might say. His brand of socialism, or even social democracy, appears to be near unidentifiable to me. And indeed the programme on RTÉ referenced on the site last week seemed to underscore that. But, as is the way with these profiles, information about Quinn was scant enough in favour of a – frankly – more useful appraisal of the Labour Party. And there was much to agree with. Not least the contention that the LP is shifting to social issues instead of economic ones.
And even more usefully the Phoenix reported that:
A series of LP commissioned poll analyses by RedC has identified both the target market and, perhaps more significantly, the non-target market for current Labour growth amongst the electorate.
Guess who the non-target market is… why ’the hardcore working class which is considered to have largely defected to SF and which is unlikely to return to the LP at the next election’.
And the target market?
‘… many of those who voted for FG and Independent TDs last year and who are regarded as potential LP voters. Thus the LP has switched political emphasis from economic issues as they affect its traditional base in the TU movement to social issues in an appeal to the middle class and professional women voters’.
Now consider if you will for a moment that in doing so the LP would appear to be defying the political approach of innumerable parties of left and centre and right where ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ is the essential mantra. Moreover if this is indeed LP policy then it is based upon the supposition that somehow for those ‘middle class and professional women voters’ the economy has somehow, in the midst of the worst crisis of living memory, taken a backseat to other ‘social’ issues.
It’s hard not to think that this is indeed the line the LP is taking, albeit given it’s wobbling on abortion they’re not exactly pushing the envelope of the political feasible, or being terribly courageous. Nor is it clear that the introduction of same-sex marriage, something that is from the perspective of many of us a good in and of itself and not a policy to be substituted for something else, will resonate in quite the way the article propose. The Phoenix, in fairness, casts the net wider pointing to Quinn’s role as enabling the removal of the Church(es) from education, though frankly how that works given the structural embedding of denominational education escapes me. And it’s not difficult to see a backlash building against it too – the Phoenix makes that point that ‘if south Dublin secular liberals believe that Holy Catholic Ireland is dead and with Squire Hockey in the grave they could be in for a shock’. I’d put it slightly differently, they may be shocked by the residual but quite real inertia that will face any such move.
But this approach raises other questions. Why does the LP believe it would provide a more congenial home for FG voters than… well, FG? Granted the latter party has been playing hard its more conservative inclinations on social issues, but in a context where movement forward on these issues is essentially stymied what does the LP bring to the feast that FG doesn’t? And if their votes were based in the main on FG economic policies why would they change them now? The same can be said, albeit to a lesser degree, in relation to Independent votes. This has been a cruel year for the Technical Group and assorted Independents, but as of yet – and we await a poll – their numbers remained consistently high. Perhaps the LP could prise some of those away, but again the question has to be asked – particularly given the left of Labour complexion of many of those TDs – why would they head back to the LP, an LP which has in economic policy terms shifted even further rightwards since that election?
And then there’s Sinn Féin. We’re told that the working class, or at least a considerable portion of same, has turned to SF. I’ve no reason to doubt that – the polling data appears to support that contention. But given that SF’s social policy approach is not enormously different to that of the LP why won’t that party be making in roads with precisely the same ‘target’ group?
As interesting in relation to the supposed Red C poll is the following:
Another of Gilmore’s electoral calculations flowing from [the] finding is that urban party TDs are less likely to lose their seats than their rural counterparts. The leadership believes that the last line of defence in a possible electoral onslaught on the LP vote is the urban middle class and that it may be pointless to emphasis traditional party policies – as well as failing to stand up to the Church – that still appeal to rural LP. With the latter more reliant on a support base of small farmers and rural workers, many of them still practising Catholics and trade unionists, Quinn stands at the opposite social pole.
This must send a shiver down the spine of many an LP TD – at least those outside urban centres. And they might reflect too on the almost miraculous appearance of SF TDs in 2011 in parts where they’d never been seen before, particularly in rural areas. That should provide a warning for the future. Though interesting that the RedC poll data doesn’t share with us who those seats might be lost to.
But… there are problems. If as noted above the working class is now more or less in the pocket of SF then surely the room for growth for urban party TDs is actually very limited? And for the LP to place its trust in (parts) of the urban middle class is in effect a counsel of despair. They may come over, but they may – and the Green Party discovered this in 2011 – not.
Personally I think any party that thinks it can shift its electoral base around in the manner described above is a party deeply in denial about the nature and process of politics and already in deep deep trouble.
But on a different tangent entirely, what of the following in the same article which was mentioned by Gearóid in comments here.
Quinn fought the Workers Party tooth and nail in Dublin, on the City Council in particular, bout following his elevation to the leadership in 1997 – this more or less fell into his lap after the ebbing of the Spring tide in that year’s general election – he moved in for the kill when the WP sued for peace, leading to a merger proposal that was consummated in 1999. Unfortunately, the sue of both parties did not exceed their separate parts and the parties went from 21 Dáil seats in 1997 (Labour 17, WP 4) to 21 again as a merged party in 2002.
Now perhaps this is merely being smart, a dig at the WP, or at those who were in the WP who went onto the Labour Party. But it’s a pretty pointless dig where it can equally well be interpreted as carelessness, or worse ignorance, by others. Thing is who is the dig aimed at? An LP leadership that couldn’t care less about its roots now that Ministerial office has been achieved (again, sort of)? An LP that is hardly divided from top to bottom over the same issue given that Quinn himself is the last LP leader who spent all his political days in that party and there have been two leaders subsequently from a DL background?
I’ll be the first to admit to significant problematical issues with the WP over the years, but it seems both glib and futile to pretend or assert that the formation which merged with the Labour Party in 1999 was the WP rather than Democratic Left – a party which I know from first hand experience of both was a distinctly different organisation structurally, in terms of membership and in terms of political position.
And the problem here then is that if it is a mistake then it would make one wonder about the credibility of all the genuinely interesting stuff about supposed RedC polling data etc. And if it’s not…
I wouldn’t pass much heed on the Phoenix on this one given that during the presidential election it predicted that the continued strength of Holy Catholic Ireland meant that Dana would do much better than South Dublin secular liberals expected. Anyway, ‘Holy Catholic Ireland.’? ‘Squire Hockey?’ What is this shit? Have we been time warped back to 1987.
And their political analysis often seems to be more SF wishful thinking than anything else, predicting the imminent demise of the LP or the ULA or whoever is currently standing in their way
I think it was you who intimated before that the Phoenix are SF messengers or whatever. Do you have any evidence whatsoever for this? Prendergast is certainly left-leaning and nationalist, but that isn’t indicator of being a SF supporter.
It wasn’t me EWI, it was Mark P. I think the idea that the Phoenix is probably more sympathetic to SF than to any other party is hardly controversial.But I wouldn’t describe the magazine as SF messengers.
The editor isn’t Prendergast by the way, it’s Prendeville.
I mean, I’ve read enough there to gain the impression that the editorial line is fairly critical of SF from a left and radical perspective – and is Republican in sympathies, which sounds to me like someone like myself in search of a political home (and I would never vote SF).
Thanks for the correct name! He certainly seems to keep a low profile, which seems a loss (particularly seeing the line-ups and hearing the safe middle-class opinions on RTÉ radio this morning).
He does keep a low profile. I think the only reason I remember his name is that his brother was a buddy of my late father’s. I’ve voted SF in the last couple of elections, general and European, but I do think the magazine is a bit partial towards them.
It’s not that they are entirely 100% uncritical of Sinn Fein. They do have a pop at them occasionally. But (a) they give SF more positive coverage than they give anyone or anything else. And (b) they consistently cover other forces from the point of view of a rather arrogant and rather stupid SF supporter. This is true of their coverage of Labour, the socialist left and dissident republicanism in particular.
The way in which they covered, in detail, the electoral tussles between Richard Boyd Barrett and Eoin O’Broin out in Dun Laoghaire was an almost perfect encapsulation of the sort of thing I’m talking about. It was filled with wishful thinking about how SF were burying the SWP in the working class parts of the constituency because of course SF are the real working class party etc etc.
WBS. I am a bit confused about the last sentence and ” mistakes” . Perhaps you could elucidate. But apart from that your questioning the polling data is shared by me. The recent ones showing labour at 26% in Dublin and 22 in Leinster make me nervous. They may be inaccurate in the long term. Supposedly the reason is that the fall before was the result of the FCT. But why did we fall then? I would very much like to be wrong of course!
greengoddess2, sorry, I should have been clearer in the last sentence, I mean the mistake (if it was one) that the Phoenix made in the article about the WP (when it should have been DL). I feel that it throws the rest of the article into question.
Dear Lord, WBS. This is an analysis based on second hand information contained in an article in the Phoenix, of all places. Look, there are indeed some in the LP who would move the party away from its TU roots but they are in a tiny minority and although some of them may be in positions of influence behind the scenes they have had their wings severely clipped of late. Likewise, the idea that the LP has stopped talking about or focussing on the economy flies in the face of what you can hear our Ministers and TDs saying every day of the week. I know that the CLR takes a knee-jerk anti-Labour line, but at least show some consideration for the facts.
Mainstream Left parties across Europe have to have a broad appeal that extends beyond the organised working class, unlike fringe or oppositionalist parties of the Left who have little interest in competing for governmental power. This is one of the characteristics of the mainstream Left that marks it out from the fringe. That appeal typically reaches far into the professional classes based on social as well as economic issues. The support base for mainstream European Left parties is typically a coalition of the organised working class, social liberals and uncommitted voters who look to such things as economic competence and fairness when deciding who to vote for. The policy platforms of these parties reflect this coaltion of interests .. and (within the constraints of the Troika programme) Labour’s policy platform observes this general position.
The cricitical political issue for the LP in Ireland now is how to further assert Labour’s worldview in the context of a coaltion with a Christian Democratic party and the obligations and realities of the Troika agreement and the crisis in the State’s finances. I’m afraid, the Phoenix article and your analysis of it add little to the general understanding of this dynamic.
“The cricitical political issue for the LP in Ireland now is how to further assert Labour’s worldview in the context of a coaltion with a Christian Democratic party and the obligations and realities of the Troika agreement and the crisis in the State’s finances.”
Desmond, where do you see the main differences between the LP and FG in respect of this worldview, both in terms of aspirations and in terms of outcomes?
Were there an election tomorrow, Desmond, would Labour really focus on the economy and State finances given the cuts to home helps and other services and the release of a statement by the Fiscal Council looking for a further €1.9bn in cuts by 2015?
Would Labour TDs feel particularly secure going in to an election on that basis?
And are they telling themselves, as the Greens did before them, that the public will reward them for their ‘courage’ ‘realism,’ and ‘responsibility’ in supporting cuts which disproportionately affect the worst off while doing nothing to make the richest elements in society pay more?
Desmond, a couple of thoughts.
Firstly, the whole point of the above post is to note that while the Phoenix may have some interesting information salted away in it the mistake/jibe about the WP doesn’t inspire confidence. The thinking on the LP and SF and whoever though is based on that supposed information, but it does come with a caveat.
Secondly, there isn’t a knee-jerk anti-LP attitude amongst contributors to the site (whatever about some who comment here). Running through the list of contributors I’d be hard pushed to think of any who would even politically be entirely antagonistic to the party. And I think that’s reflected in our actual approach to these issues, not least in the respectful hearing given to social democracy as a part of the left (and the reasonable critique one might have when its tenet’s are not upheld sufficiently well). I’d also point out that this site has been consistent in engaging positively with those who critique austerity and the orthodoxy both outside the LP and as importantly within it. If you expect us to stop critiquing both of those then you’re asking the impossible.
All that said it seems to me that the idea that the LP is focussed on the economy in the way you propose is simply incorrect. The economic shape of this government is one which is strongly dictated by Fine Gael policy approaches. And the fact remains the the LP does not hold Finance. Those are the two most significant determining factors about this whole mess.
Thirdly, I think there is an element of substitionism on economic issues creeping in given the rhetoric emanating from Gilmore and the government. And in that respect it’s not just the Phoenix which argues the LP is shifting onto social policy terrain and backing away from economic policy. The SBP has argued much the same.
No one I suspect would disagree with social and economic policy progression, or indeed appealing to constituencies beyond the working class, and I’d add to EamonnCorks well made criticism about urban / rural that there’s also the issue that within the working class there are people who feel deeply and strongly about social issues as well as economic. But it has to be social and economic, and in the midst of a crisis like this arguably the latter should have an edge.
Labour have allowed themselves to be captured by the ‘austerity’ trap. That they are now incapable (and I absolutely guarantee you, look to the party handlers and consultants for the push behind this) of conceiving any alternative means that it’s a stick that their enemies use to beat them with, week in week out.
And the run to social issues is a craven final surrendering of the field – and they’ll see that their opponents have followed them there as well, and are gleefully concern-trolling on the airwaves and in the papers.
I think that the Phoenix (rather charachteristically) overplays its hand here. However there is a point there around social issues. I have long felt that in many ways, the Labour party occupies the space which would be occupied by ‘Liberal’ parties elsewhere in Europe. Thats not to say that they have no working class base, and that the membership is not interested in economic issues, but I think that a portion of the Labour Party’s hell or high water vote is middle class liberal types for whom equality is about Marraige Equality, anti-racism, gender quotas etc, but wouldnt really be keen on that crowd in Pearse House.
I wonder if that’s a hell or high water vote or if it’s the vote which flocked to them in 1992 and subsequently deserted them, went for the Greens and then left them and is currently without a home.
The Phoenix hasn’t had a radical edge since the 80s so it still lives in them. The editor hates the left so much that he imagines the plain people of Ireland are still basically catholic fianna failers who’ll never vote for British trot parties ( like the ones he used to be a member of) while despite all the sucking up, sf don’t rate him too highly
I think the basic problem – and this is true as much for the Phoenix and the sleek liberals of Sandymount, and for the radical left – is that Dublin regards the rest of the country as a “faraway land of which we know little”, and prefers to keep it that way.
And there is nothing more irritating than actually living down the country and seeing it completely misrepresented in the media by people who purport to be ‘understanding Rural Ireland.’ See any number of Irish Times articles where they venture forth with the wide eyed wonder of a correspondent despatching articles from The Congo.
+ 1
Dublin regards the rest of the country as a “faraway land of which we know little”,
Tá an ceart agutsa, a bhuachaill !
The idea that there would be a rural backlash against the dimunition of the church’s role in education is particularly bizarre. People put up with it because it’s the status quo but I’ve never met anyone who’s passionate about it being a good thing.
No, not passionate, but there is a bit of a thing where parents like their kids to get their confirmation and communion, and all the stuff that goes with it. In a middling sized town, where there may be a denomintational school and a non/multi- denominational school, there is the possibility that some families will want to stick with the traditional way, purely because of things like that.
Thats fairly dismal, sure, but nonetheless, im fairly sure it will be a factor.
Also if multi/non-denominational schools are to be really take off, there is a bit of work thats needs to be done on their image. Far far too many people hear ‘Educate Together’ and roll their eyes -v middle class sense to it.
They might want to stick with the traditional way but I don’t see anyone taking to the streets to protect the church’s stranglehold over education. There’s a demand for Educate Together schools which isn’t being met because of the Department’s reluctance to sanction them. The Gaelscoileanna are actually taking up the slack in some instances, the school my own daughter goes to is the only one locally without a clergyman on the board and that’s been a deciding factor for many people. The Gaelscoileanna aren’t exactly encouraged by the Department either.
West Cork is perhaps not typical of “the country” though Eamonn. I don’t know about passionate but for sure there are parents of my kids’ peers who I wouldn’t be expecting to be enthusiastic about redesignating our local village RC national school as as non-denominational EducateTogether. There’s a strong RC ethos and an emphasis on that which is given far more than passive acceptence by the local community.
West Cork is far more typical than you’d think or than it gets painted. The landscape painter/cheese making German/yachties cliche doesn’t really reflect the reality of the place. Cork SW votes almost exactly like a typical rural constituency in referenda and elections. I wish it was a bit more like the cliche sometimes to be honest but I don’t find it very different from living in Sligo or Longford.
for reasons beyond my ken, Educate Together schools designate themselves as Multi Denominational, rather than Non Denominational. Never understood that, and would far prefer the latter.
LATC, I think you’re probably correct. I think of the NS where my daughter is which is in an inner city area and I suspect if there was a push to remove the religious aspects – even though perhaps a majority of those there don’t actually practise outside the big ticket days – there’d be a push back. That was the inertia I was referring to above in the OP.
The ‘social’ cannot be separated from the economic. As the Labour Party implements the utopian neoliberal economic policy of the IMF/EU it is inevitable that social problems will be aggravated.
And to pretend they can be separated is to agree with the argument put forward by Lucinda Creighton the other day that all this gay and abortion stuff can’t be dealt with because the goverment are busy fixing the economy. That was the line FF used to peddle during the eighties when they weren’t actually fixing the economy anyway. Its most succinct expression came in the religious right’s ‘jobs not condoms’ slogan of the time.
It was ‘Jobs for Youth-Not Condoms’
http://irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/christian-principles-party-jobs-for-youth-not-condoms/
The lack of success of the religious right here in General Elections illustrates the blind alley that focusing on Social issues is.
If you’re unemployed or struggling along with a big mortgage and the like, is Labour’s stance on Gay Marriage or the role of the church in the education system really going to make much of a difference to you?
Perhaps it appeals to Labour precisely because of that very lack of success of the religious right. What feels better politically than picking a fight you know you’re going to win? Though this stirring belief in the necessity of social change was conspicuous by its absence when Clare Daly brought her abortion bill into the Dail.
Agree, but there’s little or no votes in it though.
The Religious right has done well in European elections where people aren’t really voting on economic issues.
Dana and Kathy Sinnott were both elected in the past yet both failed in General Elections.
I don’t know if Kathy Sinnott counted as a Religious Right candidate when she was elected. I think she appealed to people initially as a courageous mother who’d fought bravely for the rights of handicapped childen. Her more outre beliefs surfaced subsquently IIRC.
Certainly that was the case in her 2002 General Election Campaign where she was more associated with rights for Autistic children.
Although still known for that she was very focused on family values/ being pro life in her 2004 European Campaign.
Brilliant, I always thought the ‘Jobs not condoms’ slogan was only used by Arthur Matthews for his made-up ‘Concerned Christian Citizens’ Party’ along with ‘marriage, not sodomy’
Magill once showed a picture of someone
(Alice Glenn?) carrying a “Jobs, not Divorce”
placard.
A lot of this stuff about Dublin Four liberals is cribbed from American rhetoric about East Coast liberals which actually used to be right wing shorthand for ‘Jews.’ And a lot of the guff from our neo-cons about ‘welfare recipients’ is also imported from the US where it’s code for ‘blacks.’
The stuff about a right wing backlash is also an attempt to map American political realities on to an Irish one. There is no Catholic constituency, apart from a few Alive readers, which feels alienated from the political process in the way that Evangelical Protestants did before the likes of Jerry Falwell and Ralph Reed started organising them as a political force.
Now that Paul Ryan has declared himself to be a ‘deer-hunting Catholic’ perhaps that harmless herd in the Phoenix Park is in some danger.
With a bit of luck he might take up Russian Roulette.
Most likely, he’ll do a Cheney and shoot some unfortunate soul in the face.
The assumption that SF has the ‘traditional’ working man’s vote sewn up ignores the fact that most such voters over fifty will never vote SF because they remember the Provos in action. That constituency has to be the least-catered for in Ireland. Certainly Labour offers them little.
I voted Labour myself in the eighties because there was a sizeable social agenda that needed to be furthered. Gilmore’s much- ridiculed comment about gay marriage being the social issue of a generation is an attempt to recapture that support. We have no proper equivalents for many of the interest groups and power blocs in American society, which always makes the self- appointed ‘policy wonks’ analyses of Irish politics seem shallow unfocused.