It is often said, after a new leader’s initial cabinet reshuffle, that he or she (usually he) has “stamped his authority on the party”. Yesterday’s maneouvering by the new Taoiseach was notable then, for its failure to do just that. Rather than take the traditional opportunity to assert himself, he chose instead to stamp Helen McEntee’s authority on the party.
Explaining the rationale for such decisions necessarily involves speculation, but one can do worse, as a general rule, than to cite the apparent reasons provided to Irish Independent Ireland Editor Fionnán Sheahan: McEntee was not moved, says Sheahan, for two reasons.
The first, simply put, is that she’s too important organisationally to demote:
“She comes from a political dynasty and an influential family with a long history of Fine Gael activism.
McEntee’s husband, Paul Hickey, is also an insider, appointed by Varadkar to an internal party committee tasked with looking at political donations ahead of the next general election.
“Paul Hickey is a member of the party. That is his only role in the party. He was involved in a committee that looked at various fundraising options for the party, which concluded its work in 2022. That committee did not engage in or oversee any fundraising activity,” a Fine Gael spokesperson said.
But as a veteran party insider said: “Money wins elections.””
The subtext there is clear: Moving McEntee may have somehow risked certain donors taking a dim view of Mr. Harris’s leadership and becoming more reluctant to fund the party’s general election campaign.
The second reason, Sheahan reports, is less easy to rationalise:
The Harris camp has been coming up with reasons for not moving McEntee, including her connections and the difficulty of someone getting a handle on the portfolio in the short period of time left for the Government. And the best excuse of all is a concern among the upper echelons of the party that moving McEntee could be seen as bowing to a far-right, anti-immigration agenda.
Traditionally, one might note, political parties are in the business of maximising their potential voter base and easing voter concerns about their record. In this case, Sheahan reports, Fine Gaelers are more concerned about having the right sort of voter than having more voters, even though every number one, cast for whatever reason, counts the exact same.
Sheahan’s argument – made before the cabinet was announced – was that should the Taoiseach seek to keep McEntee in a job, it would be the “end of his honeymoon period”. That is, I think, a mild way of putting it. What it really amounts to is the end of any argument that the Harris administration will be anything different to what came before it.
Whether this is important or not is a matter of perspective: If one was a supporter of Fine Gael last week, one will probably still be a supporter today. If the party is relatively satisfied with its current standing, then no harm done.
The problem is that Harris had a rare opportunity, one that he has consciously chosen to decline. Moving McEntee out of justice would have been a big signal to people – precisely because of her standing – that he intended to meaningfully shift the Government’s priorities and approach and that, in plain language, he really is different from Leo Varadkar. It would have displayed a ruthlessness that his supporters and opponents have, at various times, credited him with possessing. It would also have been a powerful act of something politicians don’t get many chances at: Unspoken communication.
Nobody, for example, would ever expect the Taoiseach to say “I think Minister McEntee has underperformed in her job”. Even had he moved her, he would have had to shower her with praise for her work to date, but the act of moving her would have said more about his views than anything he might say. In this case, the reverse is true: Even if he says “we need to do better”, then the act of keeping her in post says more about his views than any words can.
What’s more, it says something – and not good – about his authority over his own party. The Taoiseach will, absent a big win at the coming election, never be more powerful than he was yesterday. Yesterday’s reshuffle was the one and only chance he will get to make a fresh start, on a clean slate, and define himself as something new. He will never get that chance again.
Instead, he acted cautiously, and with apparent fear of the consequences of making a call that most of the public would have understood and, I’m nearly certain, welcomed. That goes to his character: When there’s a need to make the big calls, Simon Harris is all talk, and no action. It’s been a criticism that has often been levelled at him in his career.
As for the “far right”, amongst whose numbers many senior Fine Gaelers certainly consider yours truly, I suspect that they will be happier at McEntee’s retention than her demotion. Taking her off the board would have separated the Harris Government from what preceded it, and allowed the Taoiseach to claim that his Government had a new policy that was addressing concerns around justice and immigration. Having abandoned that chance, his opponents can now plausibly and accurately claim that he in fact endorses McEntee’s record in Justice – not just what she might do in the future but what she has already done in the past.
Meanwhile, he’s now stuck with her: Having declined to sack her yesterday, making a change before the election would appear indecisive, weak, and cowardly. He weakened his Government’s argument in the general election yesterday afternoon. If, in so doing, he has kept the “upper echelons of the party” happy that he has “denied the far right a win”, then he might reflect that the upper echelons of his party have largely landed it in the mess it finds itself, and seem determined to keep it – and their new leader – there indefinitely.