From top: Irish Times’ New Year’s Eve 2018 message; David Runciman’s How Democracy Ends; Derek Mooney

A well-known Irish politician once allegedly opined that: “Irish Times editorials read as if they were written by an auld wan sitting in a bath of lukewarm water”. He may also have suggested, a little more colourfully, that the bathwater reached less than halfway up the tub.

The bath water must have been on the chillier side of lukewarm December 29th’s editorial entitled: “Democracy in Retreat” was being written. It expressed an almost dystopian concern that democracy is now under threat across the globe.

It cited a range of phenomena and political shifts to support its claim, including: Trump, Brexit, the rise of populism of nationalism and of xenophobia and the gains made by the both the far-left and far-right.

Even as I sit down to start writing this piece more evidence, which would seem to support the Irish Times line, is appearing with videos of the vile and nasty abuse Tory MP Anna Soubry endured on Parliament Square yesterday at the hands of a gang of ultra-hard-line brexiteers.

The irony of a group of aggressive and loutish middle-aged men trying to intimidate and bully an elected representative who is doing nothing more than expressing her sincerely held views, while calling her a Nazi and fascist is doubtless lost on them.

More worryingly it also seemed lost on the band of pundits and commentators who took to Twitter to suggest that Soubry was responsible for what was happening.

Though not the worst of them, the Conservative blogger and columnist Tim Montgomerie, who usually makes a virtue of his liberal democratic credentials, wrote:

“The abuse is unacceptable and I condemn it but a parliamentarian who advocates overturning a referendum result she promised to respect should not be surprised at unleashing such ugliness.”

The rough translation into plain English of these weasel words is:

I should be deeply embarrassed by some of my fellow brexiteers and should be finding a way to see how we can unite to tackle the extremists but, instead, I want people to blame Soubry and others for not going along with us and persisting in having views of their own

Are these all threats to very existence and continuance of democracy or are they the challenges that we cyclically face that serve to knock us out of our complacency and remind us that democracy can be fragile is at all times worth protecting and defending.

Is there a really and systemic threat to democracy today, or is what we are seeing with Trump, Brexit, populism etc., a worrying but manageable response to the climate of uncertainty following the 2008 global crash?

Indeed, has there ever been a time in modern history when, in the aftermath of an economic crash, there hasn’t been a group of people sitting in lukewarm baths thinking that the world outside their immediate social circle was going to hell in a handcart?

We should not be surprised that many people question the competence of their democratic and political institutions when the events of the past decade suggest that world of finance and banking has more sway than democracies.

Neither should we be complacent about the future of liberal democracy when the claim can be made that some banks are a bigger source of repression than extremist regimes.

Yes, there are very worrying signs and trends across Europe and the Globe.

Yes, far too many people feel that governments serve the vested interests of others and are not responsive to them, but all is not yet lost.

As the pro market economy academic Johan Norberg has argued:

”Contrary to what most of us believe, our progress over the past few decades has been unprecedented. By almost any index you care to identify, things are markedly better now than they have ever been for almost everyone alive.”

On almost every single metric life is better now than it was in the past. The world is now a safer, better educated and more peaceful place than it was.

It is a trend that continued in 2018.

Global poverty is falling steadily with more people being lifted out of poverty worldwide – at a rate of about 125,000 per day – than fall into it.

While there are still wholescale atrocities being carried out in Syria, Yemen and Sub Saharan Africa (Sth Sudan Mali, Chad etc), according to the Global Terrorism Index 2018 deaths from terrorism declined by 27% last year and are now 44% below their peak. According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) the number of war fatalities is dropping and is now half of what it was four years ago.

At 3.9% the global child mortality rate is still far too high, but it is half what it was in 1998. According to UNESCO there are now 99.7 girls in primary and secondary schools for every hundred boys.

Democracies own numbers are also on the rise. According to any of the four academic ratings systems used to classify political systems in various counties around the globe, the proportion of democracies is at an all-time high. The Polity measure says the percentage that are now democratic is 59% compared to 50% in 2000.

Where there is an issue is the number of those democracies earning the top score. In 2005, 32% scored the top mark, that had fallen 28% by 2016 – though bear in mind that was during the period when the number of democracies significantly increased.

I could go on quoting stats, but you hopefully get the point.

The examples that the Irish Times gave are just as real as the ones I offer. So, where lies the balance?

I am, perhaps, being a bit unfair to Irish Times. I am sure their editorial was intended, on the eve of 2019, as a call to action: a reminder that we all have duty to protect the democracy that ultimately protects all of us.

It’s a call I heartily endorse, but I would strongly suggest that what is now in threat is not democracy itself – and at this point it is worth noting that their editorial was based on the warnings contained in David Runciman’s book: How Democracy Ends – but rather the norms of tolerance and fair play that underpin democratic discourse.

Picking the right target would make be easier to call more people to action – especially if you avoid telling them that the cause you are calling them to is destined to fail. Perhaps the lapping of lukewarm bath water took their mind off this?

Derek Mooney is a communications and public affairs consultant. He previously served as a Ministerial Adviser to the Fianna Fáil-led government 2004 – 2010. His column appears here every Tuesday Follow Derek on Twitter: @dsmooney

From top: Fianna Fáil Leader Micheál Martin (centre) with members of his front bench last week announcing his party’s commitment to extend a confidence and supply arrangement that will keep Fine Gael in power; Derek Mooney

“There is nothing as unreliable as unremunerated advice.”

This is not a bad thing to bear in mind when you read online opinion pieces, particularly where the writer is an interested participant rather than a disinterested observer.

Opinion pieces from interested players offer a more “in the game” analysis that can sometimes be as much about what the author hopes will happen as it is about what they think will happen. The informed analysis is offered as much in the hope that it will help influence or guide an outcome as it in the desire to inform the reader.

This rather rambling introduction is all by way of me trying to explain why I have been saying over the last few weeks that Fianna Fáil would not renew its confidence and supply agreement.

I am not happy with the outcome. This is not because I have a Corriboard fetish and urgently need an election in February, March, April or May to satisfy this desire.

I do grasp the rationale offered by Micheál Martin and can totally understand why no one would want to have an election here just when Britain is leaving Europe – even with a full Withdrawal Agreement.

I take his point that when it comes to the timing of the next general election, the gap between him and critics is over a few months.

My problem with this particular iteration of a renewed confidence supply agreement is not that there is one, but rather that it is includes a commitment to another budget.

I accept the argument for a period of political certainty and calm here around the Brexit exit, but I do not see what agreeing to another Budget achieves.

Indeed, it is because I believe the Brexit concerns are legitimate and sincere that I question the wisdom of agreeing to another Budget. That timeline appears to be based on the prospect of Brexit proceeding on March 29th next.

But what if it doesn’t?

What happens if no agreement is reached in the House of Commons in January? What happens if the House of Commons rejects Prime Minister May’s Withdrawal Agreement when it votes on January 14/15/16 and the political impasse there continues.

Westminster’s European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, sets January 21st as the final deadline for Parliament agreeing any Withdrawal Agreement.

Why not wait until then to know the outline shape of the Brexit timeline and then decide the duration of any Confidence and Supply extension?

It seems just as likely as not that Westminster will realise by January 21st that the only consensus it can reach is on the need to avoid a No Deal Brexit – and the only way it can do that is to delay the March 29 Article 50 exit date.

For how long might it seek to delay its exit? Three months, six months, a year?

Should the House of Commons decide that is it going to have a second referendum, though I accept that there does not seem to be a Commons majority for this proposal right now, isn’t it likely that this would take some time to organise and arrange?

Surely the one lesson that even British politicians have come to learn from the 2016 disaster is that you do not rush head long into a referendum process?

While the timing of any Irish election should take a whole range of domestic and international matters into consideration, should that date be so predicated on events in Westminster?

Should Fianna Fáil be committing to another Fine Gael budget now, based on what may or may not happen in an increasingly deadlocked and dysfunctional House of Commons?

Why not wait one month more to decide on how to proceed? To wait just one month longer until we have some better idea of what may happen would not have been an unreasonable decision.

I know Mr Varadkar and Mr Coveney were bleating on about their need to have political certainty on the government’s longevity, but certainty is one of the luxuries you lose when you form a government with barely a quarter of the vote.

Besides their desire for certainty was hardly stopping their minions spinning about how Fine Gael was ready and hoping for an early election.

Which brings me to one of key arguments behind the one-year extension: the prospect that the result would be deadlocked leading to three or four months of negotiations on the formation of a new government.

Micheál Martin has repeatedly said that we could not afford a four-month period of governmental inactivity and indecision.

Four months of governmental and ministerial indecision and inactivity. How would we tell the difference?

Political commentators have praised Martin for his decision. I am not going to demure. While I disagree with him on allowing another Fine Gael budget, I can see why he has done it and I accept his sincerity in doing so.

I do however disagree with the pundits when they say that Martin has played a week hand very well. Martin’s tactical handling of Varadkar since September has been skilful and does show that he has a better understanding of how Varadkar ticks than Leo has of him, but I strongly disagree with the idea that Martin was opening with a weak hand. He wasn’t.

I agree with the analysis offered by Marc MacSharry TD. in his email to Martin which Hugh O’Connell published in last weekend’s Sunday Business Post. Deputy MacSharry was correct in his assessment of the situation, particularly on Fianna Fáil being in much a stronger position than maybe it itself recognised.

Though other motives are being attributed to Martin I suspect his primary motivator is as he says : he genuinely believes he is doing this in the national interest.

Regarding any secondary interests he may have, might I suggest that they may not be as base as others think. I do not think he is simply avoiding an election because he fears the outcome, I think his most base motivation is his desire to keep the possibility of his model of “new politics” alive.

By that I mean that Martin hopes to create the conditions where, in the event of Fianna Fáil finishing up with more seats than Fine Gael, Fine Gael feels compelled to offer Fianna Fáil the same “new politics” deal he gave them in 2016. The problem with this thinking is that Varadkar is not Kenny.

But discussion of that prospect is for another day, regrettably one twelve or more months hence – though who knows what still may happen if Brexit does not proceed as planned in March.

In the meantime, have a great Christmas and I will be back here pumping out more analysis in the New Year.

Derek Mooney is a communications and public affairs consultant. He previously served as a Ministerial Adviser to the Fianna Fáil-led government 2004 – 2010. His column appears here every Tuesday Follow Derek on Twitter: @dsmooney

Rollingnews

From top: Former UK Conservative Party minister Ken Clarke in Britain’s House of Commons yesterday; Derek Mooney

British people may, in time look back at yesterday’s political disarray and see it as point when things started to change. The inglorious moment when Britain unintentionally stepped back from the Brexit precipice and Westminster politics began to regain its composure.

In a day full of misinformation, misrepresentation, dithering and indecision, the sensible intervention made by Sir Ken Clarke, one of the few sane and reasonable voices left in British politics, stands out.

In two short paragraphs he summed up the quandary facing Britain, saying:

“On the question of Europe, this House is divided not just into parties; it is divided into factions. It becomes clear that, at the moment, there is no predictable majority for any single course of action going forward. Does my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister agree that no other Governments are going to start negotiations with us on any new arrangement while the British continue to explore what exactly it is they can get a parliamentary majority to agree to?

Furthermore, we are strictly bound, quite rightly, to the Good Friday agreement and the issue of a permanently open border in Ireland. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is particular folly for a large faction in this House to continue with their argument that we should insist to the other Governments that the British will have a unilateral right to declare an end to that open border at a time of their choosing? That is why the backstop remains inevitable.”

It is a sad reflection on the current generation of British politicians that the most calm, considered and constructive comments on Brexit come from Clarke and from long retired political leaders such as Major, Heseltine, Brown and Blair.

As one wag observed on Social Media yesterday if this crop of British political leaders had been handling the 1921 Treaty negotiations we would have ended up with a united and independent Ireland that covered the whole island along with half of Wales and the Isle of Man. A result that would have meant no need for today’s Backstop.

The Backstop exists and must exist because of the political reality of the division across this island that established the six northern eastern counties of Ireland as Northern Ireland, a division considerably eased by 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Any attack on the Backstop is de facto an attack on the Good Friday Agreement. It is as simple as that. The Backstop is the default/fallback setting within any Brexit deal that ensures that the border across this island is kept as open and frictionless as possible.

The only way for Westminster to be entirely rid of the Backstop, is to stop Brexit. There can be no Brexit without the Backstop, as that would mean entirely dismantling the Good Friday Agreement – an international agreement between Britain and Ireland.

While there are some in the DUP, Tory and (sadly) the British Labour party who would happily sunder the Good Friday Agreement, they are a tiny minority in Westminster – though there have been moments over the past few weeks when one has wondered whether Corbyn fully grasps this fact.

No amount of misrepresentation and dishonest positioning on the Border and the Good Friday Agreement from the DUP can obliterate the fact that in Northern Ireland voted to Remain in the EU in 2016.

A recent survey from the NI polling firm LucidTalk shows that the majority in the Northern Ireland for remaining in the EU has increased in the intervening two and a half years – from 56% in favour in 2016 to 64% in favour today.

Yet the DUP continues to speak and continues to be heard as if it spoke for the whole of the people of Northern Ireland. It does not. Where once a generation of DUP leaders were content to disregard the views of a sizeable minority, their successors are gleeful in disregarding those of the clear majority.

In such a scenario, how can anyone argue that the views of Westminster must prevail?

A few weeks back I argued here that a second Brexit Referendum, the so-called #PeoplesVote, would be more in Ireland’s national and strategic interests than the Withdrawal Agreement.

That was a time when the Withdrawal Agreement was in the intensive care ward but was at least able to sit up and eat a boiled egg. Today the Withdrawal Agreement has all but flat-lined.

Its only slim hope for survival lies in a heart transplant on the Rond-Point Schuman, but one that can only be executed without breaking the skin or making the slightest incision.

Barring a massive volte-face by the British Labour Party, Westminster looks certain to reject the post-op Withdrawal Agreement, complete with codicils and clarifications, when the “meaningful vote” is eventually called.

That then leaves just two viable options: a No-Deal Brexit, with Britain leaving the EU on WTO terms or, a Second Referendum, where the choices are Remain or the No-deal Brexit.

A No-Deal Brexit represents the worst of all possible worlds for us. It means no transition period, a hardening border, increasing cots for imports and exports. It means political and economic turmoil across this island.

Thankfully, most speakers in the House of Commons yesterday ruled out a No Deal Brexit and this is why I believe yesterday was pivotal.

It was the day on which the Second Referendum became a realistic prospect, not because people became convinced of its merits, but rather because it is the one remaining pathway out of the current impasse.

While there is a third option, a general election, nominally Corbyn’s preferred one, as Ken Clarke says, given the division Brexit has caused within parties, given the range of factions within and across the two main parties, how could an election between resolve Brexit?

Let’s be clear, however. A second referendum will not resolve the Brexit question.

Hard line brexitism is a sizeable movement across British politics, it covers the spectrum from the Tory Right, Rees-Moggian days of Empire brexitism to the Bennite brexitism of Corbyn and the London labour left that sees the EU as the tool of corporate capitalism.

Brexiteers of all these hues will be not be quietened by a second vote that resulted in a Remain majority.

The most (and best) that a second referendum can do is to hit the reset button. It allows both sides to bring the debate back to some pre-2016 point, with both leavers and Remainers keeping their ambitions and hopefully gives time to allow a longer, deeper and better informed Brexit debate, one informed by the emerging mayhem of the past two years.

A second British referendum that backed Britain remaining in the EU for the foreseeable future is every bit as in Ireland’s national interest as it is in the interests of Northern Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales. We should not be so constrained in saying so.

Heaven knows it operated the other way around for long enough.

Derek Mooney is a communications and public affairs consultant. He previously served as a Ministerial Adviser to the Fianna Fáil-led government 2004 – 2010. His column appears here every Tuesday Follow Derek on Twitter: @dsmooney

Rollingnews

From top: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar receives his Seal of Office from President Higgins in June, 2017; Derek Mooney

Enjoy it while you can. It has been over a week or so since the political commentaries have been filled with pointless stories of how Leo demands a commitment on Confidence and Supply from Micheál now or, how Micheál is not willing to let Fine Gael bounce him into agreeing something on Leo’s timeline.

While concerns over Brexit and the final negotiation of the UK/EU Withdrawal Agreement have pushed the sham Confidence and Supply battle down the agenda, the “meaningful vote” on May’s deal is not due in the House of Commons for exactly two weeks (Dec 11th). Cue a return to empty political chatter on Confidence and Supply.

A few weeks back I suggested here that Fianna Fáil would do its utmost to frustrate the timeline which Leo suggested, and thus far it appears to be working. Though this presumes that the timeline being touted by Fine Gael was genuine.

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t – but either way, it now redundant and, no matter how much FG spins to the media, it is unlikely there will be a Confidence and Supply arrangement in place this side of Christmas which, in effect, means not this side of the first week in January.

Indeed, I strongly doubt it will be in place then or any time after it.

As Fianna Fáil’s internal-irritant-in-chief, Deputy John McGuinness, said last week, there is no appetite either within the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party or the wider membership for another Confidence and Supply Agreement. The arguments made in 2016 for the first deal will not hold water in early 2019. The confused and unclear mandate the voters gave in 2016 has been honoured to the furthest reasonable extent possible.

We now see that the Dáil can operate the “new politics” scenario of the government not having complete control of the parliamentary agenda.

Having an election in early 2019 will not be viewed as a failure of politics, but rather an acknowledgement that the time has come for a government with a clear mandate, a refreshed platform and – hopefully – the will to actually govern rather than merely spinning about governing.

The notion that the voters will punish the party that precipitates an election is a nonsense. That “rule”, in so much as it is a rule at all, applies to unnecessary ones – elections triggered purely to gain party political advantage.

The voters do not fear an election about real issues: housing, generation rent and health. Political rows about who caused the election will be dead within two or three days of the campaign starting.

Though An Taoiseach publicly declares his wish, nay his desire, to see the current arrangement continue with a second Confidence and Supply arrangement with Fianna Fáil until the summer of 2020, no one thinks this is his real ambition.

They think the offer of a Summer 2020 election is a ruse, a bluff. Then why doesn’t Fianna Fáil call this bluff? To an extent they did. They counter offered a non-aggression pact until after March 2019, when the UK Brexits. It was rejected out of hand by Varadkar. But then, why play the game by Leo’s rules at all?

Varadkar wants an election as soon as possible as he is even more frustrated by the current set-up than the bulk of Fianna Fáil TDs. Whatever difficulties the Fianna Fáilers might endure, they are at least spared the presence of Shane Ross in their midst.

What if the next election sees Leo do well, but not well enough? What happens if Fine Gael get a dozen or so extra seats, but they at the expense of old or potential new allies? What if their only viable partner after an election is Sinn Féin?

Have no doubt, Leo will merrily lead Fine Gael into Cabinet along with Mary Lou and Sinn Féin. Fine Gael TDs may rightly assume that they will run as many rings around the Shinners down here as the DUP did in Stormont pre-January 2017, but will the traditional Fine Gael core vote, especially the rural one, be quite as a phlegmatic?

Leo will be content to let his successor worry about that problem, or should I say the fallout from that problem, in a few years’ time. His task is to get back in government and to continue in office.

Leo is a political risk taker, not in terms of policy, but in terms of political power play. He is willing to take chances and to play the political odds. It is how he has come so far, so fast. And it is how he plans to go further.

Being Taoiseach and Leader of Fine Gael is not his endgame. For Leo the next election is just another calculated rung on his climb to higher things on an international stage. But to get there, he must first win the next election.

This should make Leo the precise opposite of Micheál Martin, but that may be where the commentariat are about to misjudge the Corkman.

While cautiousness and predictability have been his watchwords for most of his career, Martin knows that the next election is make or break, even if others do not have high expectations for him.

Being Taoiseach is Martin’s endgame and this is as close as he has ever been or will ever be again to that goal. Though he may talk about staying around as party leader after another defeat, he knows that is not a realistic proposal.

This is not a negative. This is the impetus that will enable Martin to go for broke. To leave it all out on the field of play. There is no point in him holding something back for the next game. If he doesn’t win this one, there won’t be another one.

The traditional read of Martin suggests that it is this very dynamic which will tempt Martin to hold back, to take Varadkar’s 2020 election offer at face value, to do another Confidence and Supply deal and to live and fight another day.

I think this is the wrong read at this particular time.

When they had their close call over Frances Fitzgerald last year Martin and Varadkar got to see each other up-close, but it appears that it was Martin who took away the better insight into his rival. Martin realised that despite Leo’s advantages, despite all the spin and bluster of his strategic communications, he is beatable.

As with Leo, there is nothing substantial for Martin to gain from another Confidence and Supply deal. Both men are happy to take their case to the country and both are all but ready for that.

What we are seeing now is not a quarrel over doing or not doing a deal, it is two leaderships deciding separately whether it suits them better to have polling day in February, March, April or May 2019. I still back February.

Derek Mooney is a communications and public affairs consultant. He previously served as a Ministerial Adviser to the Fianna Fáil-led government 2004 – 2010. His column appears here every Tuesday Follow Derek on Twitter: @dsmooney

Rollingnews

From top: UK prime Minister Theresa May At Dublin Castle last year during a EU summit; Derek Mooney

Indefatigability. I like the word. Though more prosaic than poetic, I even like how it sounds. But it is the quality which it describes that attracts me most: dogged persistence, the cussed determination to keep on keeping on.

It is a word which fell into disrepute after it was deployed in 1994 by far-left British Labour MP George Galloway, in cringing televised audience with Saddam Hussein.

Galloway concluded his unperforated imitation of a wad of three-ply Andrex (other brands are available) with the peroration:

“Sir, I salute your courage, your strength your indefatigability. And I want you to know that we are with you until victory, until victory, until Jerusalem.”

While the taint of Galloway undoubtedly did the word harm, it is time to reclaim and rehabilitate it, not least as it is the best available word to describe Theresa May’s relentless commitment over the past year.

When future historians come to rank the British Prime Ministers of the past 100 years, May will appear well ahead of her immediate predecessor, David Cameron, on the list. What she lacks in style and charisma she makes up for in fortitude and resolve.

It is difficult not to admire her ability to withstand the fiercest and most vituperative criticisms and to manage to conclude negotiations on a Withdrawal Agreement, even a flawed one.

She has gone a long way to square what seemed to be an unyielding circle and secured a deal that delivers on Brexit by taking the UK out of the EU institutions.

She has done this by constructing a clumsy, if not grudging, relationship with the EU Customs Union and Single Market that will not excessively damage UK business or impose border infrastructures either on or around this island.

She has also managed, though most of the credit should go to Michel Barnier and his team, to design a situation that could allow Northern Ireland to become an EU/UK hub or gateway, putting it in an economically beneficial situation for the first time since its creation almost a century ago.

It is an achievement that has not been lost on the Scottish government. Indeed, the possibility of Northern Ireland having an economic advantage over Scotland is the reason why the SNP at Westminster will oppose the Agreement.

How ironic that Northern Ireland’s economic viability could be secured in a deal which the DUP will fiercely oppose and on which Sinn Féin will abstain. Further evidence of how broken politics in Northern Ireland has become.

But while Theresa May is deserving of admiration for what she has managed to achieve, we on this island – North and South – should not allow this to turn us into cheerleaders for the Withdrawal Agreement.

Yes, the deal is far preferable to a disorderly no-deal-Brexit, but there is still another and far better option available: a second referendum. A #PeoplesVote where the choices are (1) this deal or (2) No Brexit. It is the option now favoured by many across the political divide.

It is the option which Tony Blair backed strongly last week in a well-argued opinion piece for the Daily Telegraph and his Institute for Global Change website.

Though I have argued here in the past that holding a second referendum on Brexit could cause as many problems as it solves, particularly given the big turnout in the first one, British politics is now so divided and bust that I too have come to the conclusion that there is now no other way to resolve the folly of Brexit than by going back to the people.

The harsh reality of the House of Commons arithmetic is that it is impossible for Theresa May to construct a simple majority for the Withdrawal Agreement.

The DUP are again hellbent on saying No while the SNP looks almost certain to oppose the Withdrawal Agreement as do the Liberal Democrats

May will not get the support of all her own Tory MPs. On one side there is a tranche of 40-50 hard-line Brexiteer Tory MPs determined to oppose her Withdrawal Agreement on the erroneous basis that it concedes too much to Brussels.

On the other side there is the smaller counter group of pro-European Remainers, such as Dominic Grieve, Jo Johnson and Anna Soubry who will likely oppose the deal because it takes the U.K. out of the Customs Union and the Single Market.

This leaves the future of the deal in the hands of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party.

But Corbyn says he opposes the Withdrawal Agreement and that he could quickly negotiate a better deal with the EU, though that would presumably require an election.

Unless there a sizeable group of labour MPs are prepared to defy the whip, cross the floor to back May and risk the possibility of deselection at the hands of Corbyn’s “momentum” faction – then the Withdrawal Agreement is as good as dead.

This is dangerous situation as the likely default position in that event is a no-deal Brexit.

In this scenario – and right now it is the likeliest one – a second referendum as the only viable route out of the impasse. As Tony Blair argues:

“We need unity after the Brexit division. It can only come through clarity. And the only route to clarity is through the people. It may seem improbable; but everything else is now impossible.”

Though the clock is ticking fast and the window for holding a second referendum is closing, it is easier to construct a Commons majority for a second vote, especially among Labour MPs, than for May’s deal.

But there is another, more selfish reason, why we in Ireland should be using our influence to urge a second referendum and a complete rejection of Brexit.

Stopping Brexit entirely and keeping the U.K. in the EU institutions, in the Commission, the Parliament and, most importantly, the Council is in our interest as it is the only way we can keep our closest political ally in the EU by our side.

Ireland and the U.K. have each been the others most important ally since we joined the EEC in 1973. Though not always ad idem, we have shared a common outlook and approach to most economic, tax and trade issues and our interests have aligned better with those of the U.K. than any single other big player.

We need the U.K. at the Council table over the years ahead as issues such as the consolidated tax base and common defence and security are discussed.

While Varadkar and Coveney may feel that they have personal and party political capital invested in seeing the Withdrawal Agreement succeed, our long-term national interests will be far better served by stopping Brexit and a second Brexit referendum is the now the only way to do that.

Derek Mooney is a communications and public affairs consultant. He previously served as a Ministerial Adviser to the Fianna Fáil-led government 2004 – 2010. His column appears here every Tuesday Follow Derek on Twitter: @dsmooney

Rollingnews

Derek Mooney (above) overhears Trump and anti-Trump voices in Washington DC this week (top pic by Derek)

I write this week’s column while sitting in my hotel room, very late on Monday night/Tuesday morning. I am about 800m from the Pentagon, just outside Washington DC.

I am mainly here on business, though I should make it clear that my proximity to the Pentagon is completely unrelated to my work. I am at Pentagon City because hotels here cost a lot less than those downtown.

It is a trip that I usually make around this time of this year, though this time I decided to take a few ‘personal days’ beforehand rather than afterwards.

I only mention this as a way of explaining that this is my first time being in the US for Veterans Day. Veterans’ Day in the U.S. corresponds with WWI Armistice day – the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Though it was officially on Sunday, yesterday (Monday) is the public holiday in lieu.

It is why this hotel, indeed most of the local bars and restaurants, have been thronged for the past few days with military veterans of all ages, along with their families, coming to visit the nearby Arlington military cemetery.

Strolling to a local mall on Sunday, I was struck by the number of times I heard young locals say “thank you for your service” to ex-servicemen and women they passed on the street.

While this is perhaps not so unexpected in an area so filled with people who either work in the Pentagon or are associated somehow with the military, it is still unusual to hear it and – notwithstanding the legitimate concerns about US military actions in various parts of the world – even a bit moving.

If only our government held the service of those currently serving in Óglaigh na hÉireann, the Irish Defence Forces in such a high regard, but that is an article for another day.

Given the number of out of town veterans about, I tried to channel my inner Maeve Binchy and began earwigging conversations in bars and restaurants to hear what, if anything, they were saying about President Trump.

It was mixed result.

It ranged from the 32-year-old barman, in a great neighbourhood bar about an hour’s drive south of Arlington, who talked about how he can only find bar work despite having a degree in economics, to the local baristas who have recently come to live in the US and build their futures here. These were not Trump voters.

I did overhear a few possible Trump voters, some even in the bright red “Make America Great Again” Maga baseball caps, but not that many. My heart started to lift on Sunday morning as I listened eagerly to a married couple, in their 60s, at a neighbouring table at breakfast, speak disapprovingly of Trump’s behaviour in Paris.

While both were genuinely irritated and even embarrassed by Trump’s failure to attend some events due to rain, it was still not a deal breaker to them. “At least he gets things done”, said the wife, as they discussed Trump’s counter balancing merits. Her husband agreed, citing the number of new jobs and record stock market highs since Trump took the White House.

Remember this is a conversation between them. I was just an eavesdropper. That said, I nearly had to be restrained from intervening, shouting: “So what? Mussolini made the trains to run on time… was that worth the brutal fascism?”.

Fortunately, I didn’t. Partially because this old Mussolini trope is false – Fake News so to speak – but mainly because they were just a nice couple having a private chat as they watched the news reports from the Paris Armistice day commemorations.

They were not festooned with Trump hats or National Rifle Association t-shirts. They were a courteous, well-spoken, decent, middle-of-the-road couple in Washington for Veterans’ Day.

They did not match the mental image we have of Trump supporters, but could it possibly be that our mental picture of Trump voters is warped and that they represent most Trump voters?

Yes, they were both white. Yes, they were both in their sixties. But they were also something else – (a) they were not from a big city – from what I could glean in their chat with the waitress, they came from rural Carolina and (b) neither were college-educated – though this is more a hunch than a statement of unimpeachable fact.

What they were was an illustration of the reality that the big political divide in the U.S. today is between those who live in the large urban sprawls and those who live in rural, small town America. It is also between those with a third level education and those without one.

The divide is about a large part of America that feels passed over.

This is the America that has not felt the economic benefits of the success of the tech giants or globalisation. It is also a big chunk of America, especially in the old industrial heartlands of small-town Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Michigan that once solidly voted Democrat.

Like it or not, there is a sizeable section of this non-urban, non-college population who perceive Trump as delivering on the things he promised. It is not a majority view – indeed the results of the midterms point to Trump having a major battle on his hands for re-election in 2020 – but it is still a sizeable and consistent minority.

Back in 2016, Trump won the Presidency with 46% of the national vote. Last week he secured a 45% approval rating. True, it was lower a few months back, but while some supporters may abandon him briefly, he still has a solid wall of support that will not desert just because the “big city” newspapers and national TV pundits don’t like him.

If anything, this “urban” disapproval may be one of his biggest plusses – though the biggest factor in his 2016 win still remains the fact that he was running against the second least liked major-party nominee of all time: Hilary Clinton. By the way, Trump was the first.

Where the Democrats won last week, their margins of victory (in the House of Representatives contests it was about +7%) were roughly in line with Trump’s net margin of disapproval (over approval) which has lately been around -9%. The health warning which accompanies this is, of course, the fact that Hilary Clinton (even with her historically high disapproval rating) won the popular vote in 2016 and got 2.9 million more votes than Trump.

What seems to have changed since 2016 is not that the Democrats have gotten their act together, but rather than the increasing number of self-identifying independent voters, especial ly those in suburban America, are backing Democrats.

The strong showing of Beto O’Rourke in once solidly Republican Texas may be a pointer to where the Democrats need to go. In 2016 Trump beat Clinton by a margin of around 800k votes (4.7million to 3.9 million). Last week O’Rourke slashed it back to just 200k votes.

To be fair, I know I am reading far too much into a few overheard conversations from a three-day stay in an area whose local voters, most of whom are on the Federal Government payroll, overwhelmingly voted Democrat, but hey, if you can’t trust the opinion of the guy serving you a few pints of Yeungling, who the hell can you trust?

Not the President of the USA if it is raining, it seems.

Derek Mooney is a communications and public affairs consultant. He previously served as a Ministerial Adviser to the Fianna Fáil-led government 2004 – 2010. His column appears here every Tuesday Follow Derek on Twitter: @dsmooney

From top: . Sinn Fein Presidential candidate Liadh Ni Riadh (right) with Party President Mary Lou McDonald (centre) , Michelle O Neill and Pearse Doherty speaking to the media at the Presidential election centre at Dublin Castle last month; Derek Mooney

Some of you may have noticed that, apart from one piece back in mid-July, I had avoided writing anything here about the Presidential election.

This was not due to any lack of interest or me not having any views on it. I had many views on it but, as I had worked with one of the candidates in the council nomination phase, I felt it would be unfair to comment until the election was over and the results were in.

The strange thing however, is now that it is over I don’t really feel the need to opine on the election or any of the individual campaigns, as such.

I understand much of the online and media hoopla over Peter Casey’s second place showing, especially as it seemed, for much of the campaign that he was going to struggle to even finish last. But, it is far too big a stretch to ascribe his second place showing to his nasty dog whistles alone.

Yes, the comments were appalling and appealed to a small cohort of voters, but is that cohort equal to 23% of all voters or even just those who voted? I think not.

On the eve of polling I thought Casey would come second, but I also thought he would just be a little ahead of both Gallagher and Ní Ríada. I had not imagined that he would pull so far ahead.

It was evident over the last few days of the campaign, especially in the final debates, that Casey’s plan was to attack Gallagher in a bid to peel away his voters. It worked. What I hadn’t realised though was the degree to which Casey would manage to do the same to the Shinners.

I thought their core vote would stick with the candidate that Mary Lou had picked. So, it seems, did Mary Lou. Indeed, it was hard at times not to think that Liadh Ní Ríada was running on a joint ticket with Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill.

Mary Lou’s strategy backfired dramatically. The media focus on Casey since has helped Mary Lou to tend her wounds in the shadows, but she emerges from the campaign sustaining more lasting political damage even than the other Aras18 candidates.

Returning to make-up of the Casey 23%, it is more complex that some commentary would have us believe. It comprised a cross section of voters who saw Casey as a handy way to express their anger and rage on range of issues.

If you disliked the whole #aras18 campaign, you possibly voted Casey.

If you were fed up of Gallagher and Higgins, you likely voted Casey.

If you hated political correctness, you possibly voted Casey.

If you really disliked Varadkar telling you what to do, you probably voted Casey

And, as I was advised on Twitter, there was another motivation: if you hated the Irish Times and RTÉ, you almost certainly voted Casey.

Like it or not, there were many reasons why people voted Casey. Reasons that do not make those voters racist, deplorable or Alt-Right.

Recognising this simple truth also debunks the idea that Casey is some cynical political genius who possesses a deep understanding of the political psyche of a newly emerged Irish “flyover” class of voters. He isn’t.

He is a smart marketing guy. His ‘genius’ was to manage to get all that publicity and not have it cost him a cent. Having reached the support threshold (a quarter of a quota) he qualifies for a state refund of his election expenditure, up to €200k. On Oct 24^th he announced that he was spending just under €80k – which he will now recoup.

It is this point which brings me to what is, in my view, the real political lesson from Aras2018. It does not, bizarrely, have anything to do with presidential races, but rather concerns my pet peeve, the promised 2024 Dublin mayoral election.

If you think the Aras18 race was awful, then prepare yourself for the horror show that will be a Dublin mayoral race. It will look, sound, feel and grate the nerves like Aras18 – only worse.

The Aras18 contest was what you get when you have a knockdown, drag-out, ego fuelled electoral contest with a multiplicity of candidates for an office with no power or policy role, especially where the two main parties refuse to tog out.

Though Aras18 had, at least, the saving grace of a politically astute and shrew incumbent who always seemed set to hold on. If and when we have a Dublin mayoral election it will have all the negatives of Aras 18 and none of the positives.

It too will be for a powerless, largely symbolic office whose role only a handful of people will grasp. Only this one will be newly created, without the record, example or gravitas of previous incumbents to guide any of the debate. Recall how often candidates at Aras18 attempted, regardless of gender, to channel the legacies of Presidents Robinson and McAleese.

Dublin Mayor is an office for which many maverick and non-traditional candidates will consider running. They will take their inspiration from Casey, not (hopefully) in their messaging, but in the fact that he has shown how relatively easy it is to run a low budget, low content campaign that talks about things that have nothing to do with office you are seeking and get a damn big bang for your buck.

They will be lured by the prospect of all the media coverage at a relatively low cost. Remember, Casey budgeted €80k for his national campaign. A pro-rata one (based on population alone) means a Dublin mayoral candidate, following Casey’s path, would just need around €32k for a campaign that could see them possibly come in second and maybe even land a slot on the Late Late?

And, if the antics at the Sept 13^th Dublin City Council meeting that consider possible Presidential nominations are anything to go by, then we will have some delightful minor fringe candidatures awaiting us.

Whoever makes the podiums for candidates’ debates will have to start working overtime now to fill the demand.

Meanwhile the ballot paper will look be like a dilated Lidl till receipt with all of the above plus the two big political parties and Sinn Féin, whatever remains of Labour party, the Greens, the alphabet socialists/PBP, and Social Democrats all likely fielding candidates.

But even the presence of all the established parties is no guarantee of ensuring that they will dominate, especially when you will also have candidates from the Worker’s Party, Renua, Éirigí, Direct Democracy, the National Party etc.

You also need to factor in the likelihood that the candidate[s] of whichever of the main parties are in government at the time are going to find themselves polling badly as the take the mid-term political backlash for national policies unrelated to the powerless and empty office for which they are running.

#Aras2018 was a horrible and unseemly contest for a fine office. #DubMayor2014 will be a mass car crash race for a futile one.

Can we now please face up to the reality that having a directly elected mayor for Dublin is a bad idea and focus instead on finding a scaled system of city government that has authority, responsibility and can actually work.

Derek Mooney is a communications and public affairs consultant. He previously served as a Ministerial Adviser to the Fianna Fáil-led government 2004 – 2010. His column appears here every Tuesday Follow Derek on Twitter: @dsmooney

From top: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar announcing Denis Naughten’s resignation as Minister for Communications in the Dáil last week; Derek Mooney

This time last week things were not looking bad for the Taoiseach.

He was getting ready to see his Finance Minister deliver this government’s third budget. He could look forward to it keeping his TDs and support base fairly happy.

He knew it was not a great budget, some would say boring. He also knew that it was not what he would have delivered if he hadn’t to depend on those pesky Fianna Fáil-ers but, even so, he probably felt that he could look forward to good coverage in the media – and we all know how important a positive body-politic image is to the Fine Gael leader.

The Budget was just the start. There was a lot more for Leo to look forward to in what should have been a strong week for him and his party.

It was a week that should have taken the Taoiseach from passing Budget2019, through to increasing pressure on Fianna Fáil to deliver a Summer 2020 extension to Confidence and Supply and then to basking in the pleasure of seeing Mr Justice Peter Charleton’s tribunal of inquiry report clear his former Tánaiste of knowing of any attempt to discredit Sgt Maurice McCabe at the O’Higgins Commission.

That’s how the week should have gone, but it didn’t.

Welcome to politics and to the power of Harold Macmillan’s “events” (When asked what brings down a government, British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan is supposed to have replied, ‘Events, dear boy, events’, though the story is probably apocryphal).

So, fast forward to today and instead entering the Dáil as the true master of the House after a weekend of positive headlines telling of his political prowess, Varadkar will have to slink in and hope to dispel the notion that his government is weakening and in decline.

It’s a task not made any easier by having to both defend Fine Gael junior minister, Pat Breen, and then ask the Dáil to (re)appoint of independent TD, Seán Canny, as minister of state, to secure his vote for the coming weeks and months.

It cannot be how the Taoiseach thought he would be starting this political week.

Over the past two weeks Varadkar has lost the guaranteed backing of one Fine Gael TD, Peter Fitzpatrick and now two independent TDs, Clare’s Dr Michael Harty, who voted against the budget, and former Communications Minister Denis Naughten.

Hardly achievement for a government elected almost three years with an overwhelming minority.

Two weeks ago, in the wake of the Fitzpatrick defection, I asked, albeit rhetorically,

“If long(ish) serving members of the Leo Varadkar’s own parliamentary party are having public misgivings about this government’s future, then why would Varadkar seriously expect the main opposition party to rush to commit to extend its Confidence and Supply (C&S) agreement for another year, once the Budget speech is done?”

Two more TDs down and the question is even more relevant.

The Taoiseach has known from the moment he took the leadership of his party that he needed to be ready for what would happen once the third budget of Fine Gael’s three-budget deal with Fianna Fáil was passed.

Indeed, he needed to be more than just ready for it, he needed to be the one to shape and determine it. Most of his parliamentary colleagues presumed that he had worked all this out before he went for the leadership.

It is entirely possible, if not likely, that he had – but what he appears to have neglected is the reality that no battleplan survives the first engagement.

Having the ability to adapt and correct a plan mid-skirmish is a more important political skill than being able to dream one up in the first place. His handling of the relatively minor events of the second half of last week suggests, once again, that this is not a skill that the Taoiseach possesses.

Even before the mini-drama of Denis Naughten’s resignation and the news that Minister Pat Breen had similar questions to answer, Micheál Martin managed to throw Varadkar’s short term timeline off course.

He did this by taking the initiative and eschewing the passive role that Fine Gael assumed he would adopt.

But Martin did more than throw the timeline off, he did something else which Varadkar did not expect. Martin opted to discard the political leverage that the current situation gives him and offered Fine Gael a non-conditional arrangement up to early 2019.

This would enable the government to focus on Brexit between now and December/January. It would also allow the Dáil to pass the Finance and Social Welfare Bills that enact the Budget and progress the abortion legislation consequent on the referendum.

In one move Martin may have managed to put national interests ahead of party partisan interests and still get some kudos for himself and his party into the bargain.

I have been saying here for months that there is no good reason whatsoever to continue the Confidence and Supply arrangement. This government has run its course.

While both main parties can take some pride in fact that the arrangement has brought stability and delivered three budgets, as promised, the reality is that this weakening administration is still failing to address the twin crises in housing and health.

Whatever Ministers Murphy and Harris may think, or hope, the market is not going to sort out either – especially when that market may be faced with the calamity of a no-deal Brexit from the end of March 2019 onwards.

As bad as we know a hard deal Brexit would be, with customs and regulatory checks it would at least have the benefit of a legal and logistical framework. A no deal Brexit where the UK crashes out with no agreement and no transition period would devastating.

The last few bits of service that this government can do the country over the coming 3 – 4 months is to continue to defend Irish interests at the Brexit discussions, in the hope that there can be a withdrawal agreement with the backstop (or better) and a two-year (minimum) transition.

Once that is done, the government’s final act should be an orderly and calm progress to a February election.

Derek Mooney is a communications and public affairs consultant. He previously served as a Ministerial Adviser to the Fianna Fáil-led government 2004 – 2010. His column appears here every Tuesday Follow Derek on Twitter: @dsmooney

From top: Minister for Finance Pascahl Donohue this morning; Derek Mooney

If you really, really want to know what is in today’s Budget and don’t want to wait until Paschal Donohue’s lunchtime statement, then I have great news for you.

You don’t have to wait.

About 70% of what the Finance Minister will say appeared on Martina Fitzgerald’s RTÉ #Budget2019 blog just before 10pm last night. This was updated just after 8.40am today, bringing the figure closer to 80%.

Between what appears on the RTE site and the various daily and Sunday newspapers most punters could predict with a fair degree of certainty about 90% of what Minister Donohue will announce today.

We already know that the hotel and restaurant sector have lost their fight to retain the special 9% VAT rate and will see it go up to 13.5%, indeed this new higher rate will also applied to hairdressers – if only I had not postponed my barber’s haircut until tomorrow.

We also know that Willie O’Dea’s campaign to get a €5 a week increase for pensioners, carers and other welfare recipients will have paid off and that the bands for the 2% rate of USC will be widened by €500 and the threshold at which you pay the higher rate of income tax will be increased by €750 and that cigarettes will go up by 50c a packet.

I could go on, but you get the picture.

For most of us today’s statement will contain nothing new, but thanks to almost a week of “informed” and “well sourced” speculation we are already familiar with what the government plans to do and how we each will benefit from it.

The closest thing to a budget drinking game we could devise today is to take a swig of the beverage of your choice any time you hear the Minister announce something that hasn’t appeared in at least two newspapers and one TV news report since last Friday.

The things we know are not due to “leaks”. Leaks are, by definition, the unauthorised revelation of confidential information and the reason they are unauthorised is because they are invariably negative by their nature.

Leaks involve the things that ministers prefer that you not know, or at least not yet know until they have had the time to either prepare you for the news or take some action that lessens the impact.

The things that get “leaked” are the real number of housing starts or the real numbers on hospital waiting lists, if those figures were ever to turn positive they would not be leaked, they would be briefed.

The difference is authorisation and approval.

Governments toady do not “leak” good news, they brief it. As the private secretary character, Bernard Woolley, explains in “Yes Minister”:

“That’s one of those irregular verbs, isn’t it? I give confidential briefings. You leak. He has been charged under section 2a of the Official Secrets Act.”

How very different from the situation back in 1995 when the then Junior Finance Minister, Phil Hogan, had to resign as a minister for revealing budget information.

Or is it?

The opposition was enraged and complained at the revelation of key elements of the budget to the media in the days leading up to the 1995 budget.

For context, recall that this was the first budget of the newly formed Fine Gael, Labour, Democratic Left administration – a government that came to office after the November 1994 collapse of Albert Reynolds short lived Fianna Fáil/Labour government.

Hogan’s boss as Finance Minister was Labour’s Ruairí Quinn. This was going to be Quinn’s first budget and Labour was determined that the credit for the goodies they were about to give away would be theirs alone, not Fine Gael’s. (Spoiler alert, it didn’t work out that way in 1997, but hey ho)

Shortly after the Budget was announced it emerged that one of the staff in Hogan’s office had faxed some of the details concerning planned changes to stamp duty to the media about four hours before Quinn went in to the Dáil.

The opposition went into a frenzy, with both Mary Harney and Bertie Ahern, who had been Finance minister up to few months before the ’95 budget and was himself responsible for some of what it contained, demanding satisfaction.

But the real pressure came from within the government where Labour ministers were furious that Fine Gael was trying to steal their thunder.

For days before hand the two parties are been outdoing each other with their briefings of not just what was to be announced, but how their party was solely responsible for it.

Hogan was just the one to get nabbed – sending it by fax with a cover sheet showing the time and the sender was not a good move.

The Taoiseach attempted to standby Hogan and sought to diffuse the situation with a profuse apology to the Dáil, but that was not enough. A few hours later Hogan decided that his position was untenable and resigned.

While the information that Hogan’s office had revealed was market sensitive and its early disclosure might commercially benefit people who learned of the change before it was officially announced, the reality is that it was the politics of the situation that necessitated his resignation.

Hogan’s office was revealing something to the media that it clearly did not have the authority to reveal.

It is not a situation we should expect to see repeated today. Times have changed considerably since then. While we retain the all the theatre and drama of the day, the performance itself is nowhere near as impactful as it once was.

Some theatrical productions simply run their course. Even record-breaking ones close.

The way budgetary decisions are made and the external factors against which they play out have all changed enormously, so is it not time that the way in which they are announced change too?

Derek Mooney is a communications and public affairs consultant. He previously served as a Ministerial Adviser to the Fianna Fáil-led government 2004 – 2010. His column appears here every Tuesday Follow Derek on Twitter: @dsmooney

Top pic via Paschal Donohue