Time for us in Labour to say sorry - changing Brendan won't make a difference

Time for us in Labour to say sorry - changing Brendan won't make a difference

The recent opinion polls suggest that the Labour Party is only enjoying the support of 1 in every 20 voters. The polls have led to calls from some of our Councillors for a change of Leadership. I don't think that's what we need. I think the issue is with the party, not the Leader.

We all remember how the 2016 Irish general election was a bleak one for the Irish Labour Party. Of its thirty three outgoing TDs, only seven were re-elected to the new Dail. The scale of the result was seismic with long-standing TDs such as Joe Costello and Emmet Stagg removed from what were considered safe Labour seats. Newer TDs, such as myself, were badly beaten, sometimes by candidates with no track record of any political involvement or philosophy whatsoever.

The reason for the drastic change in the fortunes of the party will be debated for years. I’ll give my own thoughts, for what they’re worth.

At the time of the February 2011 election the Irish electorate were deep in the worst economic crisis ever to hit the country. We had just been bailed out by a troika consisting of the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank. The ruling government of Fianna Fail and the Greens had lost the confidence of all but the most loyal of their supporters. The rest of the electorate wanted change.

Throughout the election campaign it became apparent that the only options for government would be a single party Fine Gael government (possibility with the help of a few independents) or a Fine Gael coalition with Labour. During the campaign Labour sought to sell this latter option, claiming that Fine Gael would introduce draconian right-wing policies if put into government on their own. Labour offered fewer spending cuts and a longer time to reach the required budget deficit target.

Labour’s rhetoric during the campaign became quite heightened, with calls and adverts for “Gilmore for Taoiseach” and a commitment to do things “Labour’s Way, not Frankfurt’s Way”. Four days out from the election the party spin doctors were of the view that things were beginning to slip away from us. They panicked, worried that Fine Gael would win an outright majority and that we would not be needed for government. So, a number of commitments, or promises were made. Firstly, our commitment on student fees, despite the fact that the vast majority of students in the country were already going to vote for us.

Secondly, our party advisors produced the famous “Tesco Ad”.

Most people will be familiar with the Tesco stores advert that “Every Little Helps”. The ad then shows a graphic of some of their produce, highlighting the potential saving you can make if you purchase it. The Labour ad mimicked this, but changed the catch phrase to “Every Little Hurts”. It portrayed graphics of Fine Gael proposals for increases in car tax, wine tax, savings tax and VAT rate, as well as a new water tax and a cut in child benefits. The implication was that Labour would stop these proposals if we were part of the government. The advert was published in all of the major national newspapers on the Monday before the election.

Whether the promises had the desired effect will always be difficult to know. But what one can say with some certainty is that on election day those with a centre / right viewpoint went for Fine Gael and those with a left of centre ethos flocked to the Labour Party. Labour achieved a vote of 21% of the electorate and won 37 seats in the Dail.

The only show in town after the election was a coalition of Labour and Fine Gael. Labour’s negotiation team commenced discussion on a Programme for Government with Fine Gael.

The Programme was agreed within four days. The Programme was a blueprint for all of the legislation that would be brought in throughout the five year term of the coalition government. It contained all of the commitments in relation to economic policy, social policy and political reform. It was distributed to TDs and members on the way in to a gathering of the party in UCD on the Sunday after the election, and was passed by a huge majority. Labour would enter government with Fine Gael based on this agreed Programme for Government.

On that day in UCD we signed up to an agenda that would cost us the 2016 election. We consigned the vast majority of our TDs to the electoral dustbin at the next election. Why? Because by failing to deliberate for longer on the negotiations (think of the weeks and months following the 2016 election) we failed to ensure that our commitments, our promises, were written in ink in that document. It was the first major mistake that was made.

The second major mistake was our inability to have sufficient control over news management. We did augment the team with additional staff after entering government, but we failed to appoint people with sufficient clout to push our case and defend our record. When Tony Blair became leader in the UK he hired Alastair Campbell for exactly this role. He knew that someone of that calibre would be needed. As a result, the Blair government always controlled the news, and what was being said.

We didn’t control the news. And as we started to introduce cuts and adjustments the line started to go around that “Labour are breaking their promises”. It was being repeated across all of the papers and across all media outlets. Some of us knew that unless it was addressed that it would change from being just an opinion to becoming received wisdom, a fact by default. However, our media people did not have the ability to counter the charge. Within two years it had become a given across the Irish electorate: Labour have broken their promises.

The result was that despite all of the positives that we achieved, socially on the X Case, the Magdalene Laundries, Marriage Equality, Workers Rights and economically on reduced unemployment, elimination of the budget deficit and a huge reduction in the debt / GDP ratio, we got no credit.

The third major mistake was that we completely messed up politically over Irish Water. Despite many backbenchers repeatedly asking for a change of course on the issue, we were told by the senior Ministers, the party elders who had been around for a long time, that there was no other option. They told us to remain calm, that things would turn around, that we shouldn’t panic, that they had seen this all before. Like lambs to the slaughter we believed them. It was stupid of us backbenchers not to question more, and that was nobody's failure apart from our own. Future events, at the beginning of the current government’s tenure, suggest that it would have been possible, and more politically expedient, to adopt a different policy and kick the issue down the road. Unfortunately, we were always keen to be the best boy in the class.  We would pay for this mistaken trust and naivety.

And the final mistake was that after realising those three mistakes we failed to change course. We didn’t admit our errors on issues such as Irish Water, and then move on when we had the opportunity to do so.

I know this because I got a first warning at the time of the 2013 Meath by-election when we polled only 4% of the vote. I had polled over 20% two years earlier. The party hierarchy told us then that the party would learn the lesson and would change. It didn’t.

We got our second warning at the 2014 local elections. Throughout the country we lost long-serving Labour councillors. In Meath we entered the election with nine Councillors. We came out at the other end with none.

Despite changing our leader it made no difference.

After that, it was just a matter of time. The ensuing general election of 2016 was a ramshackle affair. Despite having a progressive manifesto, no-one was listening. Our childcare policy, extremely well constructed, should have been a vote-winner. It wasn’t. Because it had the Labour banner on it the electorate didn’t believe a word of it. We underperformed throughout the campaign, particularly during the leadership debates. The results from the count centres were of no great surprise, given the mistakes that were made.

Two and a half years later there has been no change in the party’s fortunes. We are still polling around the 5% mark. I don’t blame the current Leadership. I think Brendan has performed well, given the prevailing situation. I say this to our Councillors who are facing into the local elections next year and who are concerned about losing their seats. I know what it feels like to try and march up a hill against the wind. Of course you look around for something that may change the political weather. Of course changing the leader is at least doing something. But as I learned in 2014, that’s all it is. It’s a temporary respite. Replacing Eamon Gilmore in 2014 didn’t improve our fortunes. Changing Brendan in 2018 won't make a difference either.

We as a party are still not getting the backing of our previous supporters. They still feel we let them down. We will continue to languish in the polls until we win back their support. As a party we need to face up to this, admit that we made mistakes, and ask them to trust us again. As a party we need to do that now. It's time to say sorry.