Labour Party should not panic just yet

There seems to be an outbreak of jitters within the Labour Party in government, but that is nothing new.

The party leadership is being blamed for sitting on a report into the party performance during the last general election.

The report is believed to have been so explosive that it had to be rewritten several times. It is supposedly highly critical of the party’s performance, because it did not do as well as it might have done. Yet it actually did better than it had ever done in its long history.

In the so-called Spring Tide of 20 years ago, the Labour Party won a record 33 seats, but in the Gilmore Gale of last year, the current party leader led the party in winning a new record 37 seats. Since 1992 the Labour Party incorporated the Democratic Left, which won 4 seats that year, so the current figure matches the earlier combined figure of the two parties 20 years ago.

Some members of the Labour Party are obviously uneasy because they believe they should have done better in the last general election. In politics, there are always people who think that any party would have done better under their own leadership.

So nobody should be surprised that some people are critical now.

Although Dick Spring’s call for a “rotating taoiseach” seemed to have been a successful strategy in 1992, there are suggestions that the party’s “Gilmore for Taoiseach” line was a mistake during the general election campaign.

In a desperate effort to prevent Fine Gael gaining an overall majority, the Labour Party pulled back and made a series of promises that have now come back to haunt the party in government.

There are complaints, for instance, that the party had no clear line on some major issues, such as abortion and trade union links, and that it was not until the third week of the campaign that it developed a clear tax policy.

Now there are suggestions of growing discontent on the backbenches over the leadership’s failure to project a distinctive Labour influence on the Fine Gael-dominated, right-wing Government.

The party should certainly project clear priorities. The economy and jobs should be the first priority, not some trendy posturing.

Of course, there is nothing new about discontent on the backbenches of the Labour Party. However, it is simply absurd to suggest that Eamon Gilmore’s position as leader would become untenable if a quarter of the party’s deputies should oppose him. Those people who are suggesting this are clearly out of touch with political reality.

It is democracy itself within the party that will become untenable, and the Labour Party will degenerate into chaos, if it ever allows a rump of even a quarter of its members to dictate policy.