Special report: Labour fails to reap the rewards of hard graft since election 2020

The party is polling at 3% despite Kelly bringing new energy as leader, says deputy political editor Elaine Loughlin

Labour's Alan Kelly with his son Senan, daughter Aoibhe and wife Regina at Tipperary Count Centre celebrating his election. Picture:  Eamonn McGee

The party is polling at 3% despite Alan Kelly bringing new energy as leader, says deputy political editor Elaine Loughlin.

THE Labour Party has put in serious toil in the past year but has failed to produce a harvest.

Producing multiple bills, submitting countless parliamentary questions, and raising issues on the floor of the Dáil, Labour members are among the hardest workers in Leinster House and yet the party remains stagnant in the polls.

Alan Kelly’s promotion to leader following last year’s general election should have provided the party with a boost in support, however, the latest Sunday Business Post/Red C poll, published last week, puts it on 3%.

The party’s main political rivals, the Social Democrats, gained one point in the same poll, jumping to 5%.

Also in this special report:

• Sinn Féin was the big winner and surge can continue
• 10 TDs making a name for themselves in the current Dáil
• It ain't easy being Green at a time of internal strife

Mr Kelly, as leader, has certainly brought a new energy to the party.

He is also one of the strongest performers in the Dáil and has an ability to niggle away and get at issues that the Government would rather not address.

He has doggedly campaigned for those impacted by the CervicalCheck scandal; has been particularly vocal on the Government’s vaccination plan; and has pressed the coalition on the impact Covid-19 has had on cancer services and other areas of the health system.

However, Labour is now jostling for attention among a myriad independents, political groupings, and smaller parties.

Somewhat lost in the crowd, the party has failed to regain the ground lost in the 2016 general election.

Workers’ rights, once Labour’s bread and butter, is now often seen as a Solidarity-PBP issue and this was clear to see when the likes of Mick Barry and Richard Boyd Barrett became the political faces of the Debenhams workers’ protest.

The likes of Mick Barry and Richard Boyd Barrett were the political faces of the Debenhams workers' protest, rather than Labour. Picture: Larry Cummins

The pandemic has impacted every section of society and political parties have undeniably been stymied by social distancing and travel restrictions.

In a December interview with the Irish Examiner, Mr Kelly said Labour has struggled in a Covid world where grassroots meetings and canvassing are no longer possible.

“I think our issue in relation to polls will change once Covid lifts and we can get around because we are a campaigning party. We’re a party that works very hard. I think we have to work harder than most other parties. We’re also a national party, quite distinguishable from Social Democrats — we have a foothold in most constituencies.”

But as Labour waits for restrictions to ease, to get back to pressing the flesh and knocking on doors, other parties and groupings have taken advantage of their online constituency and have mobilised on Twitter and other social media platforms.

Alan Kelly has nearly 9,000 fewer Twitter followers than Social Democrat TD Holly Cairns. Picture: Denis Minihane.

Mr Kelly, for example, has 18.5k Twitter followers. This is 8.7k less than Social Democrats backbencher Holly Cairns and significantly behind the 148.6kfollowers that Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald has amassed.

If Mr Kelly’s strategy pays off, the party should see a significant boost when the country opens back up, but many Labour members admit that the party has failed to take ownership of its achievements in the past.

In the first six weeks of this year it has already published two bills — one to provide free period products and the other to improve information and tracing access for adopted people.

In December, Coco’s law, which makes online harassment and image-based sexual abuse a criminal office, was passed after a three-year-long campaign.

The bill had first been put forward by Brendan Howlin in 2017 on foot of a campaign by Jackie Fox following the tragic death of her daughter Nicole because of a persistent campaign of online harassment.

That month the party also produced a bill to pay student midwives and a separate consumer protection bill.

“The Labour party has gone through cycles in the past. We’ve had very bad elections in the past but we’ve come through them and have come way back up again. This is going to be a cycle and that’s why I’ve committed that I want to stay as leader for multiple elections to bring the party back,” Mr Kelly said in December.

The party will be hoping the pandemic ends long before any election if it is to make gains next time around.