The eight months after the declaration of war in Europe on 3rd September 1939 became better known by the Americanism the ‘Phoney War’. Without any fighting taking place in western Europe, it was more a war ….. that wasn’t actually a war.
Much the same could be said about Ireland’s 2024 general election. This sees Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil eyeballing Sinn Féin, their so-called electoral enemies, in the opposing trenches. But are Sinn Féin really the enemy?
Most people now agree that the principal reason behind Sinn Féin’s collapse in the polls over the last twelve months is not because they opposed the government’s immigration policies but because they broadly supported those same immigration policies!
In fact, it could be said that under McDonald’s leadership Sinn Féin have been on the same page as the government on just about everything from hate speech to gender ideology. On economic matters, the only real difference between the parties would appear to be that Sinn Féin believes that the government isn’t throwing enough money at whatever the government is throwing money at these days.
Welcome to Ireland’s own Phoney War or General Election 2024 as the politicians and political pundits would prefer us all to call it. Much like the actual Phoney War, Ireland’s GE2024 is more like an election campaign …… that isn’t really an election campaign.
The main thrust of both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil’s election campaigns now appears to be that Sinn Féin, the main opposition, are ‘not fit for public office’. However, this would appear to be designed to mask the fact that the policies of all three parties are broadly similar in many respects.
Interestingly, the ‘not fit for public office’ line was deployed by Fine Gael against their old adversaries Fianna Fáil for many years. All of that now appears to have been forgotten about now that the two parties have been happily sharing power for the last four years.
What Ireland’s phoney electoral war masks is the fact that its two political big beasts – Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil – are in ongoing electoral decline. As recently as 2007, Fianna Fáil secured 41% of the popular vote in a general election. Today, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would be more than happy if both parties combined secured the same percentage vote.
What’s missing most from GE2024 is the idea of cause and effect. In most democracies, a popular vote has consequences – political parties win or lose elections based on their electoral performance. By the same token, leaders of political parties remain or are removed from positions of leadership based on their electoral performance.
However, that does not appear to happen in modern Ireland, going by its recent elections at any rate, and there is nothing to suggest that this general election is going to be any different.
For example, in the 2016 General Election Fine Gael lost 26 seats – a third of its Dáil representation – which by any reasonable measure surely counts as an electoral hammering. However, not alone did party leader Enda Kenny not resign but Fine Gael even managed to stay on in power by cutting post-election deals with independents such as Katherine Zappone and Shane Ross.
It was much the same story in GE2020. Fine Gael had another disastrous general election losing a further 15 TDs. Again, not only did party leader Leo Varadkar not resign but Fine Gael again remained in office this time by cutting post-election deals with the Green Party and their longstanding electoral opponents Fianna Fáil.
It was a similar story over at Fianna Fáil. Micheál Martin fought GE2020 on the basis of replacing the Fine Gael led government. After a poor election in which Fianna Fáil actually lost six seats, not alone did Martin not stand down but he actually ended up going into government with the Greens and Fine Gael – the party he had earlier vowed to replace in government!
If readers can’t ever recall being asked about voting for a Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil/Green coalition then it’s because they were never asked about it. That ad hoc coalition arrangement was cobbled together after the election principally by the rejected leaders of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
It was much the same story with the coalition’s Programme for Government, the policy roadmap guiding the country for the last four years. Even though the Greens secured just 7% of the popular vote, the general view is that the coalition’s manifesto heavily reflected the Green Party’s own election manifesto. That would appear to have been the price that both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were happy to pay in order to be in government.
In most democracies, general elections are viewed as high stakes electoral events which make or break political careers. In Ireland, the opposite is true. The country’s political ruling class engage in a phoney election campaign knowing that the real business of politics now happens after the election. Most important of all, this political deal-making happens largely out of the oversight of the electorate.
Modern Ireland might like to think of itself as some liberal and progressive idyll but on the basis of the last two general elections, it could hardly be pointed to as some exemplar of parliamentary democracy. In simple terms, regardless of which way they vote, the Irish electorate now usually end up being ruled by the same politicians.
Either way, it seems like another Phoney War has just broken out in Ireland with parties making exaggerated and ridiculous claims about non-existent policy differences. Ireland’s main political opposition party also appear happy to play along with the theatrics of this political pantomime.
GE2024 is intended as a high energy, low consequence electoral event after which Ireland’s political class will again decide the make-up of the next administration. As in the last two elections, all the signs are that this will again happen behind closed doors and out of electoral oversight.
It remains to be seen if the Irish electorate will again go along with their plan.