The Great Left Alliance supposedly poised to “take power “ on the mythical tidal wave signalled by the election of Catherine Connolly has not even managed to remain intact until the inauguration.
It was always a bit of a charade given the background of the component parts, and this weekend Social Democrat leader Holly Cairns made a point of having a dig at the putative centre of a ‘left’ coalition, Sinn Féin.
Her claim that the Shinners are “not left wing” enough for the battle hardened shock battalions of social democracy might appear to be gratuitous student-uniony banter, unintended to damage relations.
I believe it was quite calculated and even astute. The fact that Cairns went out of her way to make that claim in two separate interviews is surely proof of calculation. It also suggests that the Soc Dems leader and her advisors have spotted an opportunity that might pay further electoral dividends.
I was struck by the fact that when Mary Lou, opportunistically some might claim, went for the jugular following the alleged sexual assault on a little girl at Citywest during Leader’s Questions two weeks ago that Cairns and Ivana Bacik looked uncomfortable and didn’t follow the same line.
Mary Lou has her finger on the pulse of the communities in which there was a large spoiled vote fuelled by the outrage. Cairns and Bacik do not. Indeed, Cairns in her Irish Times and Late Late interviews again made a reference to how Irish men are a greater danger to women and children.
The response on her X page will tell you how well that was received. It is a ludicrous non-sequitur. If a pit bull attacks a child you hardly implicitly downplay that by claiming that Bully X crosses are “worser.”
That aside, she does know her own audience and that there is a substantial section of the electorate who will always think that mass immigration is the best thing since Tofu and Prosecco.
Sinn Féin were making inroads into that constituency but were squeezed to “left” and “right” in last year’s pretty much disastrous run of defeats as immigration emerged as a central issue in the local, European and general elections. Their panicked lunge to the “right” led them to shed votes among ultra-liberals while not doing enough to reclaim those who recall Sinn Féin’s hostility to any opposition to IPAS.
For a smaller but growing liberal party like the Soc Dems it makes perfect sense to aggressively target that soft Shinner vote. Sinn Féin are in a weak position to defend that flank as they are desperately attempting to shore up their working class nationalist and rural vote.
The bickering over who is more left than the other is infantile cosplay. An infantilism echoed on the right by some lads who think the minimum wage is Communism. Socialism means state ownership of the means of production. Not banning nitrates or greyhound racing, nor even claiming that a man on a whim can decide to change sex.
Nor is demanding higher state dependency payments, or calling for more houses or teachers or nurses, socialism. ALL opposition parties do this welfarism. The Shinners themselves are on the opposite side north of the border where they are the targets of left and indeed SDLP and TUV criticism over atrocious housing waiting lists, schools and hospitals.
None of Sinn Féin, the Soc Dems or Labour are socialists in an economic sense. You won’t even find the word in any of their manifestos or policy documents. Sinn Féin even oppose increased corporation tax.
The only actual socialists in the fragile ‘Connolly Movement ‘ are People Before Profit.
Even the reds of PBP generally play down the traditional socialist aspects of their programme in favour of the sort of “petit bourgeois liberalism” which has been majored by the post-socialist left following the collapse of the command economies in the Soviet Union.
There are no surviving socialist states. The one-party Communist People’s Republic of China is a dystopian totalitarian state in which rapacious Capital enjoys a free reign unmatched since small boys and girls were pulling 16 hour shifts in the Satanic Mills of Dickensian England.
In fairness, and in contrast to say, Ógra Shinn Féin, not to mention the great and good of the China Ireland Institute, PBP are not fans of General Secretary Xi and have been, along with Senator Ronan Mullen and a few others, among the rare Irish critics of that monstrous regime.
Anyway, all of that is neither here nor there. There are ideological fissures in the alliance that will undermine any chance of a successful left bid for a Dáil majority. More to the point is that it is difficult to envisage any workable electoral strategy that would deliver the number of seats that a left liberal coalition would need to displace Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael or any combination involving either or both.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have managed over the past number of electoral cycles to cobble together arrangements based on distinct voter bases, with the addition of smaller parties and independents as required. That is certainly under threat, but it has shown a remarkable resilience so far.
The left liberal ‘alliance’ faces a different problem. There is no evidence from the actual numbers who voted for Connolly that there has been a surge in new voters that will boost the vote share of the individual parties who threw their weight behind Connolly on a normal turnout for a general election.
It will be dog against dog then, as normal the next time out. Which, barring an unlikely government collapse, will be the Galway West bye election. That will be sometime after Christmas and, as things are, it is expected that all factions will stand their own candidate.
In that context, Cairns peremptory strike against Sinn Féin may set the scene. The Soc Dems did badly in Galway West in the general election with 3.6% but are staking a claim to be the party that was quick to back Connolly and are arguably closest to the new President’s Pollyanna Weltanschauung.
The overall left liberal vote was 36% with Sinn Féin top of the pile. However, Sinn Féin did extremely badly in the local elections in the city and rural areas including Conamara. There is no obvious candidate to join Mairéad Farrell so there is an opening for the Soc Dems and Labour and perhaps Greens and PBP if they agree to co-operate and perhaps even run an agreed candidate.
Mary Lou was quick out of traps to squash any speculation that her party would have anything to do with that. Proof, if you require it, that whatever the smiles and group hugs the smarter Shinners know they made a major error. They blinked on the Presidential elections by being drawn into backing a candidate who was rejected by large numbers of Sinn Féin’s own supporters who stayed at home or spoiled.
They are again likely to face plebeian opposition to their right the next time, albeit a currently disparate and disorganised one. The real challenge might come from the other left liberal factions who do have greater scope for strategic electoral agreements unlike Sinn Féin who are never going to stand aside for any “ally” in a more serious contest.