Irish Examiner view: Future of moderation tied to waning parties

FF and FG need new purpose and energy rather than different leadership

Taoiseach Micheal Martin (left) alongside Tanaiste Leo Varadkar during a Covid-19 press briefing at Government Buildings in Dublin.

Just days ago, BirdWatch Ireland reported that 54 once-common species, 26% of our bird populations, are so endangered they are on the Red List. 

Since 2013, 23 species have fallen to Red List status. Only six revived their fortunes and escaped the dreaded list, often the first peal of the grim reaper’s bell. 

Were there a Red List for political parties, Fianna Fáil (FF) would be on it; Labour, too. 

A February opinion poll put FF on 14%, down three points. Labour, at a moment when work is changing in ways more dramatically than at any time in the last century, managed a pathetic 3%.

The Green Party, despite relentless online misrepresentation, hit 6%. Greens leader Eamon Ryan’s rating was up eight points, to 35%, suggesting that more and more people realise the great jeopardy, and the sources of that jeopardy, facing our way of life.

FF again lost ground, falling from 17% to 14%. However, its leader Micheál Martin achieved 42%, up three points. 

Mr Martin’s rating is closer to the FF ratings of old, achieved when an afternoon in the Galway tent might change a person’s life and fortunes. 

Despite that, his position is constantly undermined by colleagues who imagine that with a different leader, they might wind the clock back and again pitch a marquee at Ballybrit.

That delusion persists, despite a decade-long draining away of support, especially among those under 35. 

That decline is driven by what seems a cultural inability to move from the old Charvet days to a carbon-free tomorrow. 

Just as Canute tried to stop the tide, FF seems intent on trying to stop time and, sometimes, social progress.

The latest FF insider to imagine that the general, rather than a worn coterie of calcifying veterans — almost exclusively male — is the reason the party’s support is in freefall is Sligo TD Marc MacSharry. This week, he said he has no confidence in the Taoiseach’s handling of the pandemic. 

Mr MacSharry, a frustrated FF princeling who has been consistent in his criticism, asserted that just because he is a Government TD, it doesn’t mean he has to stop exercising his brain or his judgement. 

The comments were made in the context of the pandemic, but there is mounting speculation of a move against Mr Martin.

Mr MacSharry, and others who share his views, may struggle to accept that the fate of FF and this republic are no longer inextricably linked.

The Fine Gael ‘MacSharrys’ — there are some — should not gloat, as they are on the very same trajectory, but maybe an election cycle behind FF.

The fate of those parties — Labour, too — underlines the generational divide in politics. 

Those who remember Haughey’s belt-tightening hypocrisy will not regret the implosion of conservative, market-focused parties, but they are old enough to remember the carnage that gave us Sinn Féin. 

That their children seem increasingly indifferent to that carnage suggests that FF, and FG, do not need a new stardust-sprinkling leader, but a new purpose and energy.

The future of moderate, centrist politics is far more important than the fate of either party, no matter how important or powerful their King Canutes still imagine themselves. 

As the old books on military strategy advise: “First, identify your real enemy.”