Here’s a straightforward statement of fact: If this poll is anywhere close to accurate, Labour Party Leader Ivana Bacik will lose her own Dublin Bay South seat at the next general election:
POLL: Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks
(June 30-July 1, MoE 3%)Sinn Féin 31 (-1 in a month)
Fine Gael 19 (-1)
Fianna Fáil 19
Social Democrats 6
PBP-Solidarity 4 (+2)
Greens 3
Aontú 3
Labour 2 (-1)
Inds/others 13 (+1)https://t.co/Ip2daTBUF7— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) July 1, 2023
She won’t be on her own: Any TD in seats where Labour is dependent on a “Labour” vote are almost certainly gone: That’s Bacik, Aodhán O’Riordáin, Duncan Smith, Ged Nash, and Sean Sherlock. Their best hope of retaining seats is probably, ironically enough, the two TDs they have in rural constituencies who have amassed a very large personal vote – that’s Brendan Howlin in Wexford, if he seeks re-election, and, hilariously, Alan Kelly in Tipperary, who was ousted unceremoniously from the leadership to make way for Bacikmentum.
And on 2%, even those two are not guaranteed to make it. Where did it all go so wrong?
The obvious problem is that Ivana Bacik has terrible political instincts: On the occasions when you do see her in the media, it is more likely that she is defending the Government’s view of the world than opposing it. On the issues where she is most vocal, like immigration, and hate speech, and abortion, there is not a cigarette paper between her position, and that of the Government. She may as well be a Fine Gael county councillor from Dun Laoghaire, except one with a bigger than usual platform. The basic question “what do you get with Labour that you don’t get with the Greens” has no answer, because there is no difference.
The other issue is that Bacik’s niche in Irish politics – outspoken progressive left wing academic woman – used to be a very rare niche indeed. She was unique, at a time when she was a young campaigner and Irish politics was dominated by Albert Reynolds and John Bruton. Now, her liberal woman unique selling point is basically the prototype for an Irish politician: Holly Cairns, Mary Lou McDonald, Neasa Hourigan, Josepha Madigan, Lisa Chambers, Jennifer Carroll MacNeil, and about any one of seventeen others. Where being the leader who makes a big deal out of international women’s day was once her thing, now Bacik is just yesterday’s news on that front.
And the other problem for Labour is that Bacik is a politician so closely identified with social issues and “the liberal agenda” that she is unable to offer any kind of economic message. What’s more, she’s a uniquely unsuitable messenger for a cost of living campaign, being as she is a very well off and wealthy resident of one of the country’s wealthiest suburbs in one of its wealthiest constituencies. “I feel your pain” just doesn’t come off as authentic from Trinity College’s Reid Professor of Criminal Law.
Finally, to be brutal: She is just not a very effective communicator. In a crowded field of loud and well-platformed left wing whingers, her soft-spoken style doesn’t stand out. If you want outraged calls for revolution, then you’ve got people before profit. If you want a relentless focus on health and housing, you have Sinn Fein. And if you want a sort of soft liberal “the top priority is more gender quotas” politics, then you have Holly Cairns, who has a claim to represent young women that Bacik, via the inevitable march of time, has lost.
Add to all this that the Labour Party has still not been forgiven on the left for their record in the 2011-2016 Government and what you are left with is an unsuitable and unpopular leader of an unpopular party.
The 2% in yesterday’s opinion poll may, of course, be at the lowest end of the true range of the party’s support – but what is clear is that under Bacik, Labour are going nowhere.
Perhaps this is not surprising: Note that Fine Gael are on 19% in this poll, another dire result for that party. It may well be that the public still associate the Fine Gael-Labour Government in the immediate aftermath of the crash with the country that Ireland has become. If that is so, then there probably isn’t much that Bacik – or Varadkar – can do.