How remarkably convenient that the Fianna Fáil election post-mortem – 18 months late – should conclude that the party’s miserable performance at the polls at the last election was really the fault of pro-life TDs, and not at all the fault of Micheál Martin and his leadership. One might almost get the impression that a report commissioned by, and paid for by, party headquarters, was constructed in such a way as to exonerate party headquarters for the disaster.
The Independent’s Fionnán Sheahan obtained the scoop:
An internal report blames Fianna Fáil lack of a clear identity from Fine Gael for the party’s bad general election result.
The abortion stance, manifesto, poor social media and a lack of connectivity in urban areas also contributed to the poor outcome.
Fianna Fáil position on the abortion referendum in 2018 is also identified as posing a problem for the party. Mr Martin allowed TDs to vote in line with their conscience, but a majority of TDs and Senators publicly opposed the repeal of the Eighth Amendment.
It is not just abortion that gets the blame, of course: The report can be summed up, if you read what has been published, as “everyone, bar the leader, is to blame”. Mr. Martin is singled out, in fact, for praise, for his “hard work on the ground”. Meanwhile, “leaks from the parliamentary party” are singled out as a cause of failure, as is “poor candidate selection”. Mr. Martin escapes almost blameless, happily, and predictably, enough.
It is all nonsense. The abortion point, in particular, is heinous nonsense, and obviously so.
After all, the very first opinion poll in the election campaign showed FF winning enough votes to be the largest party in the state. A year earlier, in the local elections, FF had won enough votes to actually be the largest party in the state. In September 2019, a Red C Poll put Fianna Fáil on 28% of the vote. At the election a few months later, it won just 22% of the vote. All of these results took place after the abortion referendum in 2018. If this review is to be believed, then some percentage of Fianna Fáil voters abandoned the party over abortion at the general election, even after they had supported it – despite the abortion issue – in 2019. That is obvious nonsense.
In fact, the results of the election themselves make clear it is nonsense. Those Fianna Fáilers who lost their seats at the election – Timmy Dooley, for example, in Clare, or Fiona O’Loughlin in Kildare South, or Lisa Chambers in Mayo, or John Curran in Dublin Mid West – were almost all good liberal repealers, in the Micheál Martin mold. Those vulnerable TDs who held their seats were almost uniformly from the pro-life wing of the party. FF held two seats in Cavan Monaghan, for example, against the run of play. Elsewhere, under-pressure incumbents like Mary Butler in Waterford held on. If abortion was a major factor for voters, then we might have expected the reverse to be the case. Of the 16 FF TDs who lost their seats, a large majority were people who had taken a pro-repeal stance. It did not save them.
Ultimately, the voters rejected Mr. Martin.
We can say this because, after all, the Fianna Fáil campaign at the last election was Mr. Martin, and Mr. Martin almost alone. The party would rather forget that, and the review barely mentions it. The entire campaign was Mr. Martin, with almost no promotion of members of his front bench. When he was not available, the faces promoted by the party were the liberal female candidates he has built his leadership on promoting – outings for Lisa Chambers and Catherine Ardagh on late night television were regular. Old hands like Willie O’Dea and Eamon O’Cuiv were pushed to the sidelines. This strategy, apparently, does not get a mention in the review. Mr. Martin was Fianna Fáil at the last election, and his face was on the posters.
Every decision the party made for the previous four years was his. The decision to back Fine Gael on confidence and supply. The decision to endorse the Fine Gael housing Minister. The decision to promise, during the campaign, not to go into Government with Fine Gael, which he promptly broke. All of it – the dithering, the lack of policy, the lack of any identity other than “it is our turn” – is on Mr. Martin.
It is not a coincidence that this review blames Mr. Martin’s enemies, rather than himself, for his party’s failures. There are a great many people in Fianna Fáil who do not want to admit what has long been as plain as the perpetual frown on the Taoiseach’s face: The leader is a dud, and his strategy has been a decade-long failure.
This report is a whitewash. Fianna Fáil members have seen their membership fees pay for it. They should be up in arms, and revolt.