Labour struggling to find purpose

Labour has to define its role in government quickly, writes Gerard Howlin

THE Irish people, for all their fascination with Downton Abbey and Britain’s royal family, have never been very good at knowing their place. This is particularly so of a working class who seemingly did not understand their status. Whether Ireland is classless or simply gormless is a matter for debate. It has, however, the distinction of having one of the weakest socialist or social democratic political traditions in Europe.

The catch-all appeal of nationalism, mastered by one of Europe’s most successful political parties, Fianna Fáil, left the Irish left with a perennially peripheral role. Even the darkest hour of that once great machine in the general election of 2011 did not presage a new dawn either for the left in general or for Labour in particular.

And yet, by any measure, 2011 was a remarkably successful year for Labour. The general election gave it an unprecedented mandate of 19% of the vote and 37 TDs, four more than the Spring Tide of 1992. The apparent success of the general election was followed by the unqualified success of Michael D Higgins in the presidential election. Yet Labour now is, if not besieged, then at least beset by challenges.

Three of its TDs have defected. Tommy Broughan is a perennial protestor. Patrick Nulty left after weeks in the parliamentary party and Willie Penrose left the Cabinet over a constituency issue insignificant in terms of the national crisis the Government faces. Labour is the focus of protest on several issues, including funding for disadvantaged schools. Sinn Féin clearly singled out the party’s TDs on that issue in the Dáil.

This is part of Labour’s perennial problem in government. Its mandate is never sufficient to give it a leading role or allow it determine events. As a junior partner, it is doomed to disappoint. This was evident even before the votes were counted in the election.

In 2010, opinion polls briefly put Labour in the unique position of being the most popular party in the state, and Labour had a good war in opposition. “Gilmore for Taoiseach” fell flat. Defined by what it was against and unrealistic about what it could achieve, it failed to persuade people it would be Labour’s way and not Frankfurt’s way. Now in a government with few popular options, Labour is bearing the brunt of discontent.

If there are uniquely difficult problems for Labour in government now, there are also inherent and historic ones. The left in Ireland has never mustered the mandate needed to reshape our politics or economy. Unlike many European countries, it never marshalled class politics or anti-clericalism on a national basis. Now, the basis of both has faded.

New Labour in Britain was one manifestation that the highest ambition remaining for the left is to manage a capitalist economy. The mutation of Sinn Féin the Workers Party into the Workers Party, into Democratic Left, and on again into Labour was another. As the left shoe-horn ideology into ambition, the capitalism crisis shows no signs of reversing a loss of authority for socialism. Every turn of the fiscal screw hollows out the state’s capacity to deliver the services that define social democracy.

If Labour has a fundamental value, it is a belief in the state as an agent for change, especially in the lives of the less well off. Through the provision of services, the inequalities of the marketplace are redressed and a measure of equality provided. Labour is ambitious about what government can do and the reach it should have. Unlike the electorate generally, most Labour voters at the last election favoured raising taxes rather than reducing spending.

Labour in government is forced against its own inclination to swim against an economic tide. It is implementing austerity budgets that will disappoint its voters and its own ambitions. The state it will leave behind may, if all goes well, be fitter for purpose in the future. However, public services will be much reduced in the short term. The cuts planned in public spending outstrip Thatcherite fantasy.

As it copes with a reality in government so different from its rhetoric in opposition, Labour is beset by another perennial problem of the Irish left: Factionalism. Last year saw the largest return of Independent TDs in 60 years and many were positioned to the left of Labour. Including Sinn Féin, United Left Alliance, left-leaning Independents and its own defectors there are more than two dozen TDs bearing down on Labour in government. In addition, six Dublin constituencies elected two Labour TDs. There is now intense pressure on Labour TDs for electoral survival from within and without the party.

Labour enters an era where, having successfully marshalled protest in opposition, like the left across Europe, it struggles to define its purpose in government. It is beset by fundamentals born not only from the current economic crisis but from patterns of globalisation and development. Technological change, including new forms of communication, is more likely to empower political scepticism than public solidarity. Sharing information is not leading to any impulse to share resources.

Labour has an honourable tradition of afflicting the comfortable. The immediate challenge it faces in government is to comfort the afflicted. Its greater test will be to define a coherent role for itself bigger than a protest movement periodically called upon to make up the numbers in government. For now, there are few resources available to support Labour’s values in government. An economic upturn, were it to come, could change its fortunes. To date that has never happened in time.

* Gerard Howlin is a public affairs consultant and was a senior government adviser from 1997 to 2007