Ordinarily, the musings of a single columnist in a Sunday Newspaper wouldn’t be considered especially newsworthy, but there are several reasons for making an exception for Shane Ross’s latest contribution to the Sunday Independent.
First, he is no ordinary columnist, but a man who was until relatively recently a cabinet Minister, where he served alongside the present Taoiseach and several of the sitting Ministers, which might indicate that his views are those of a person who has reached the very summit of the Irish establishment.
Second, he is somebody who has had electoral success that very few people in Ireland can match, having topped the poll in two consecutive elections in the South Dublin constituencies that he contested in 2011 and 2016.
Third, he is a journalist of significant experience, most recently having completed a controversial but well-received biography of Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald.
Fourth and finally, Shane Ross is not and never has been a man of the left, and would traditionally have been regarded as being on what passes for the centre right of politics in Ireland.
All of those factors make it worthy of comment when he would say something as – frankly – insanely stupid as this, and then commit it to print:
The Government is failing to face the real danger: that there is a large racist rump in our electorate. There are far-right sympathisers within their parties. Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin should follow Ivana’s example. Fellow-travellers of the far right may be operating unpunished in their midst. Remember it was Fianna Fáil’s Mayo councillor, Noel Thomas, not an Independent, who uttered the haunting words “the inn is full” just before Christmas.
Leo should invite Micheál, Mary Lou McDonald and all party leaders to join him in a countrywide tour. They should order their TDs and senators to form “welcome committees” in every constituency. As local elections beckon, they should refuse to nominate anyone who failed to join the fight against racism.
They should remove the party whip from any TD who was ambivalent on the initiative. They should deselect any sitting TDs who failed to commit wholeheartedly. This battleground is not normal politics. It is a sewer where only rats can prosper.
In a funny sort of way, what Ross suggests here would actually be very good for Irish democracy, in that it would force TDs, Senators, and Councillors who are deeply uncomfortable with their parties’ policies on immigration to split formally with those parties and offer the electorate new options. There’s a good chance that such a purge would leave us with 15 or 16 national politicians looking for a new home, at a time when the electorate is looking around for other options. Since those TDs will probably never jump ship of their own free will, a Ross-esque purge of them from the ranks of the Government would probably do the electorate a great service.
However, that thought is rendered irrelevant when you recall that Ross is not offering advice to the dissident TDs and Senators here, but to the Government and the Taoiseach.
First, he says, Leo Varadkar should invite Mr. Martin, Mary Lou McDonald, and other party leaders to join him on a nationwide welcoming tour. It is, to be gentle, unlikely that Ms McDonald, for one, would take him up on that offer, since whatever else she may be, she is not insane. Leaders of the Opposition do not generally consider it to be in their interests to tour the country with the head of Government to chide the public for opposing the Government’s policies. The Taoiseach would be inviting the leader of the opposition, in public, to embarrass him.
Second, he suggests that the Government should order local TDs to join with opposition politicians to form “welcoming commitees” at local level, and that Government Parties should “refuse to nominate anyone who failed to join the fight against racism”. Of course, one big problem the Government parties have already is that they can barely find competent candidates for the local elections as it is. Pitching last-minute selectees who are reliable Government drones against de-selected local councillors who are “putting local community before party loyalty” and running as independents is not, one might suggest, a recipe for success.
And third, Ross suggests a purge of the Government by stripping the whip from and de-selecting any TD who refuses to “commit wholeheartedly” to supporting the Government on immigration. This would – the de-selection part especially – immediately turn a bunch of Government TDs into Independents who could and would vote against the Government regularly, and could and would stand against the Government at the election as independents.
It is, perhaps, the stupidest three paragraphs of text ever suggested, in apparent seriousness, to an Irish Government. And it is notable that it has been suggested by a man who was until recently a very senior member of that same Government. If this is the calibre of thinking we are getting – even from politicians who were and are held in some esteem as a capable people, as Ross arguably is, or was – then we are in a very bad place indeed.
But perhaps, to be charitable, Ross simply wasn’t thinking. Perhaps this column wasn’t a serious policy proposal, and was more simply a cry of rage at the fact that his views on immigration and other social matters which have been dominant for most of his life, appear no longer to be so in vogue.
There’s something chilling about it all, though. If this is how Shane Ross wants to treat elected politicians who disagree with him, one can only imagine what he feels about the average working man or woman who dares to take a different view and speak up about it.
His editor at the SIndo should really have had a word. Or perhaps the media really is right about the rise of extremism in Ireland – after all, we now have a very senior politician and journalist endorsing a political purge of all those who dissent from his views. That’s pretty extremist, no?