From top: Labour’s Ivana Bacik and Alan Kelly outside Leinster House last month; Anthony Sheridan
Writing in the Irish Times recently about the continuing decline of the Labour Party, historian Diarmaid Ferriter asks:
Is there really much difference between the Labour Party and the Social Democrats and would it not make sense for them to coalesce?
The same question has been asked many times by journalists and politicians since the people effectively rejected the party in the 2016 election. The question is always advanced as a possible strategy for rescuing Labour from extinction.
That mainstream journalists and politicians would scramble around looking for strategies to save the party is not surprising but it is disappointing to witness a prominent historian engaging in the same hopeless delusion when he really should know the answer.
So, for Mr. Ferriter’s benefit and other’s hoping that, by some miracle, the Labour Party can be saved – here’s the unvarnished truth.
The Labour Party is heading for extinction because it is, first and foremost, a loyal member of the ruling political class. A large and increasing number of voters have come to realise that the party does not represent their interests and vote accordingly. Election results do not lie, the brutal political reality is out there for everybody to see.
Also, in recent years, particularly since the economic catastrophe of 2008, more and more voters have come to realise that the political establishment itself is rotten to the core.
The people have delivered the same message in every recent election – a demand for radical political change. Labour, instead of answering that call, has doggedly remained loyal to the corrupt political regime that the electorate is rejecting in their droves.
And this is where the difference between the Labour Party and the Social Democrats crystalises, this is what Mr. Ferriter should know.
The Social Democrats are anti-establishment, they were created as a direct result of political corruption within the establishment. The party’s raison d’être is to rid the state of the disease of political corruption that has infected the body politic for decades.
If the Social Democrats was to merge with Labour they would almost certainly suffer the same fate as the Progressive Democrats. They too came into existence in protest against political corruption, principally under the corrupt politician Haughey. But over the years and particularly under the leadership of Mary Harney, the party returned to its rotten Fianna Fáil roots. That betrayal of hope and trust signed the party’s death warrant.
In the run-up to the 1992 election Labour Party leader, Dick Spring convinced many, including myself, that the party was determined to represent the people rather than powerful interests.
I was particularly impressed when Spring, most unusually, revealed the truth about a fellow ruling elite party when he accurately described Haughey and Fianna Fáil’s influence on politics as ‘a cancer in the body politic’.
Shortly afterwards, Spring cravingly led Labour into coalition with the ‘cancerous’ Fianna Fáil exposing the naked truth that his true loyalties lay with the power and privileges of the ruling political class and not with the people.
Mr. Ferriter, in common with all mainstream commentators is unaware of or refuses to acknowledge the truth behind the rapidly changing political landscape. Instead of facing reality, he clutches at straws of hope for the doomed party.
Perhaps, he suggests, Labour may regain momentum if Sinn Féin suffers as a consequence of making hard decisions in government.
That a negative performance by one party might help save Labour is as ridiculous as the idea that a positive performance of another [Social Democrats] might do the same.
The choice facing Labour is simple – remain loyal to the current dying political regime or respond to the demands of the people for radical political change by becoming a genuinely radical left wing party.
No prizes for guessing which road Ivana Bacik will take.
Anthony Sheridan is a freelance journalist and blogs at Back Garden Philosophy
Ivana Bacik needs a translator when talking to anyone who earns less that a hundred thousand.
People have a short memory
I just wonder how many on pensions that worked all their lives feel when they found auntie €50 a week
And then told all my 8years of full Uk contributions were not valid by the pensions
I only once voted labour in my life and that was for dick spring
Never again ? if there is a United Ireland those retiring in the north will be in for a massive shock
Have been reading Anthony for years now. Always entertaining but the problem he has is that everything and everyone is corrupt. Except himself.
Speaking truth to power is not very high on the corruption index.
True except ranting online isn’t speaking truth to power. It’s just, well, ranting online.
So, redzer, while being understanding of your cynicism, what other method of speaking truth to power would you recommend? Or are you just ranting, online? Like it or not, in criticising the critic, you’re defending the criticised.
Getting a column in a mainstream publication would be one way, as those in power might actually see it.
And yes I am ranting on line – the thing is – I know that’s what it is, not “speaking truth to power”.
Labour and the SocDems have essentially identical ideological positions now that Labour have all but abandoned their working class base. Thats why people talk about them merging.
Theres not enough support in the Irish political system for two almost identical urban, middle class, champagne socialist parties (or three, if you include the Greens).
The only reason the SocDems/Labour aren’t all in one party is due to egos (on both ends) not wanting to compromise.
Not true. It’s not about egos. The Soc Dems are made of people who defied the Labour whip when Labour went to the neoliberal extreme.
The SocDems have one TD, whos soon to retire, who resigned from Labour over their participation in the austerity years government. The rest of the party have no such claim.
Do go ahead and point out some large policy differences between the two parties if you think they have a substantially different platforms.
The SocDems have one TD who is as you say. They have another TD who left Labour when she was a Labour Councillor and got shafted over a Seanad nomination. Then there’s a third TD who used to be a Labour councillor and a staff member. A fourth TD dabbled with Labour in earlier times then took a break from politics. The other two were never involved.
Most of their executive are ex Labour and there are at least as many ex Labour activists as not, probably more.
Mostly it’s ego. The whip breaking stuff has little to do with it.
There is a small amount of difference between the two – about a cigarette paper width of difference.
As for neoliberal extremes, I didn’t see any mass sell offs of state assets during Labour’s last stint in government, so I don’t think that stacks up.
Accepting the IMF bailout conditions was accepting neoliberal extremes. Basically the Soc Dems now are what the Labour Party were in the 1970s. The Ivana Labour Party are essentially UK Liberal Democrats. There’s a world’s difference between Bacik and Catherine Murphy. Murphy’s old school Labour, Bacik’s a D6 Nick Clegg.
@Sara
If you think the SocDems have policies anything like the 1970s era Labour party you’ve obviously never read their policy platform.
I note you’ve also completely failed to list a single policy difference between the parties when asked, which would seem to also suggest you haven’t an idea of what either party actually stands for.
Policy differences: Soc Dems want a wealth tax. Labour don’t. Soc Dems want an increase in corporation tax. Labour don’t. Soc Dems oppose water charges. Labour don’t. Soc Dems are committed to repealing the Labour Relations Act, the Labour Party aren’t. Etc. I’ve no time for the Soc Dems, don’t get me wrong, but they’re better than Labour, they’re Keynesian, Labour haven’t been that in years. Also, Murphy’s work on Denis O’Brien and the Gardai has been very good. Could you imagine Bacik taking on Denis O’Brien? She’d more likely find herself his dinner guest, seated next to Zappone.
Well, redzer, was there anything left to sell off in 2011?
Since Shortall quit Labour but held her seat, what’s in it for her? Labour will shrivel away, Batpoo will hasten the shrivelling. If the Greens were a bit more like some of their European sister parties, that would be a pairing I could detest, heartily.
Anyone for Green Labour? Anyone?
Suit yourselves, then.
A friend recently told me he had been diagnosed with benign cancer. I advised him to act before it did serious damage. I don’t have cancer myself, thank goodness but that didn’t prevent me from offering an opinion.
SC McDowell, not M Harney, killed the PDs. The only chance L have now is as a junior party to SF in the next coalition. Not sure how Batik will feel about that..
Bacik has to get re-elected though.
They might go into coalition with SF, they’ll do it with anyone, after all but they won’t come out again. That would be their end.
I think they’d sell themselves as the ‘reasonable left’ after a SF coalition.. then again, it could be a case of dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t.
The people now have that alternate radical voice – Sinn Fein.
Thanks, Ruille, I needed a laugh.
“Murphy’s old school Labour”
Shows how little you know of politics. Murphy was not old school Labour at all – she was an Official IRA supporting member of the Workers Party. She was only in Labour for a couple of years.
Aye, here’s where she jumped:
https://kildare.ie/knn/murphyspeech.htm
I know she was WP/SF. I’m saying that her politics at the moment would approximate to those of Corish. She’s a radical Keynesian now (i.e. the ‘old Labour’ tradition). In the 70s Murphy was a committed Marxist; she isn’t anymore. Social democracy is her god now.
“heading for”?
What did I just read?
Its like Mondays is a join the wordles to create a column day
+ mandatory insertion of “Main Stream Media” slag
c’mon lads
Start with the last line here
“No prizes for guessing which road Ivana Bacik will take”
And work back
Like figuring out if Ivana Bacik will retain that DBS seat
And I’m not convinced she will, sadly.
Definitely not a hope if Kate O’Connell gets the blueshirt call up
plus
The Shinners won’t be letting their one go, so will outspend everyone
and maybe add a face to ensure transfers,
OR, which is my gut feeling btw so feel free to cog lads,
is they’ll do an election pact with Big Jim, who’s a Fianna Fail outlier anyway
Get a grip on what DBS is going to look like after a General
before deciding who is going to be the next leader of the party FFS
And from what I’m seeing the Social Democrats are going to be going through their own shake up
They’re the party of back office shake ups really when you think about their lifespan from start to now, there’s always something brewing stewing and spoiling there behind the scenes
I don’t expect them to retain their six TDs, which is a shame
problem is their organisation not their leading players. And that’s already there for any political commentator to see for themselves,
only 20 (out of 949) Councillors – 2% representation at grass root local level, like, cheezuz t’night this is where they should be spreading like jam
6 TDs = 3.75%
now if that doesn’t scream dysfunction and a top heavy organisation, a party that is not securing its political foundations by building its base, or has any interest in developing outside the power houses of their current TDs, or even the pair from the top
then, well
suppose I have to say, great column Anto.
Meantime it’s worth comparing both parties against each other
Labour’s *7 TDs equates to 4.4ish % Dáil rep
Their 4 senators – 6.7ish%
and 54 local Cllrs, 7%
Labour Party are going nowhere
and neither are the Greens (7.5% Dáil, 6.7% Seanad, 5% local plus a few NIs, and 15% of the Irish EU spots)
Next General might not be pretty, but they have the root networks, the management and funding frameworks, and the schedule of re-elections, National, North South, Local, and EU, to keep them relevant and topical
plus some very senior Party appointments around the Country and in Europe
the Soc Dems will be gone long before any of them
and for what its worth, calling them anti establishment is only going to help them on their way. There is zero room for them on that section of the leftie political spectrum
btw, its clear Tipp will stand up for their lad who got shafted by the Dublin crowd, just like they do for Lowry, So throw a tenner on AK returning with an even bigger % preference.
The county councilor stats are very interesting. It provides a decent bit of evidence to back up the widespread claims that the SocDems tend to be too idealistic/unrealistic and unable to focus on compromise or smaller, local unglamorous issues. Which is all well and good for high profile candidates like Roisin Shorthall & Catherine Murphy but not so good for building a long term country-wide support base.
Labour having almost 300% their local representation still, despite Labour’s massive problems and precipitous decline in support over the last decade, is hugely telling.
When Murphy & Shorthall retire in the near future (they’re both in their late 60s and talking of it) the SocDems are going to be in a lot of trouble.
its also worth noting that a fair few of Independent Local Cllrs, the more established local reps, are old Labour btw
Especially in Limerick Tipp Clare, parts of Cork and Kerry
Which might explain Labour’s reasonable success in the Seanad elections
You got there in the end but I can’t see how the SD’s problems are anything to do with being idealistic or unrealistic, that’s the main job of any opposition old-leftie party in a very right-wing country.
Roisin is a competent TD but not a party-builder, especially when attempting both simultaneously, how many TDs are there who could hack that? SF will possibly field three next time, in her constituency, with Ellis taking 44% of first preferences last time out as sole candidate (what a disaster!) so she has to pay attention there, too.
Well said V.
DSE is interesting.
If Kate makes a comeback (and I don’t see how FG cannot enable that if that want the seat), then Ivana is out. But the three seats in the Seanad have sitting right-on senators. Unless Norris retires there will be some ructions in Dublin 6 over who to vote for…
Unless Mary Lou, as the new Taoiseach, nominates her.
Truth be known, Ivana will join SF.
If she does
It will be Dublin South Central
Definitely 2 Shinner seats to be got there
Snoddit based in the Ballyier Bluebell Drimnagh Inchicore belt
Herself in the D8, SCR, Harold’s Cross, Sundrive Kimmage Crumlin Village Kimmage ring.
That could work.. Ivana will find it very hard to keep a L seat in DBS.
Lol “cravingly”, really Sheridan? The word is cravenly, from craven, a coward/cowardly. You think it’s a synonym for greedily!
:)
Oooops…you’re right…well spotted…..