The most memorable contribution in yesterday’s Dáil debate on immigration, put on the order paper by the rural independents, did not come from either the rural independents themselves, or from the Government whose policies the debate was intended to criticise.
It came, instead, from the Labour Party’s resident angry man, Aodhán O’Riordáin:
Labour Party spokesman for justice, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, returned to attacks he made last week on the Rural Independent Group – over which its leader Mattie McGrath said he is considering a Garda complaint.
Michael Healy Rae TD shouted in response that the Dublin Bay North TD was “a horrible little man” and his Labour Party was “irrelevant” in Irish politics.
Mr Ó Ríordáin said the group’s motion on capping immigration was “lowest common denominator politics” from a group made up of the lowest common denominator.
“There is nothing more despicable, more cowardly, more debase in Irish politics than the actions of the Rural Independents in relation to the immigration question,” he added.
The emerging conventional wisdom in political circles is that immigration is an increasingly challenging problem for the Government because many of the communities which are particularly alienated by the arrival of migrants into their towns and villages are in the rural Ireland strongholds of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Deputy James Lawless, for example, has been a focus of some ire and annoyance in Sallins, Co. Kildare. Minister Norma Foley has received earfuls of concern – politely and impolitely expressed – in Killarney. And the political centre of gravity on the issue appears, both in media coverage and political statements, to be shifting slowly but inexorably in the direction of those who believe immigration is too high and should be lowered.
However, the smaller parties of the Irish left – Labour, the Social Democrats, and People before Profit – have reason to believe that this shift might benefit them, at the expense of the Government and Sinn Fein.
In recent days, Sinn Fein in particular appears to have decided that the time has come to nudge itself into a slightly different lane on immigration: Their TD Pa Daly – notably a representative of Kerry, where the aforementioned Killarney situation is causing local concern – announced grandly while speaking for the party during yesterday’s debate that Sinn Fein “does not believe in open borders”, and that “it’s clear the asylum situation is failing while certain people are making huge sums of money out of this failing system”. With rhetoric like that, he might find a home in the Irish Freedom Party, if this Sinn Fein thing doesn’t work out.
In addition, Sinn Fein representatives have long sounded less committed to current immigration levels at local level than they have when speaking in the national media. Last week, Fine Gael’s Jennifer Carroll-MacNeil launched a furious broadside against the Shinners for their alleged unwillingness to get involved in cross-party efforts to “combat the far right” in Dun Laoghaire when a local immigration issue flared up during the summer. Sinn Fein, the implication went, is perfectly happy to win the votes of people who think immigration is too high.
That by itself is probably enough for the likes of Labour to see an opportunity. If the Labour Party has an identity in the modern era, it might well be summed up as “the party that only the most morally pure people vote for”. Voting Labour, for Labour members and supporters, is not only a political act but an expression of basic decency and goodness. A signal that one’s heart is firmly in the correct space.
On immigration, for a particular slice of the electorate, there simply cannot be any compromise with what they see as “racism”: No controls on the borders. No limits on the number of people who come here. Absolutely no question whatsoever of anything as overtly racist as prioritising Irish people for housing over foreigners. A good person is someone who puts the planet and the human race (in that order) first, ahead of the country.
This, I think, explains the strategy of the left: If the Government moves even slightly in the direction of some kind of accommodation with the dreaded “far right” on immigration, then that alone will be sufficient to open political space for people like O’Riordáin to stand against the Government as the-one-true-defender-of-the-migrants candidate in his constituency. In a country where maybe 12% or more of the voters are either naturalised citizens, or have strong pro-immigration views, that’s enough for a seat in a five-seater like O’Riordáin’s own constituency.
This is a particular threat to the Green Party, because it shares the same broad slice of the electorate it has with the likes of Labour and the Soc Dems and PbP: Any shift to the right, even a small one, by the Government on immigration leaves the Greens desperately vulnerable to being attacked as sell-outs. It’s a problem for Fine Gael, too, particularly in liberal bastions of South Dublin that are overwhelmingly pro-immigration, and conspicuously light on migrant accommodation centres. It’s not hard to see the likes of Neale Richmond and Josepha Madigan losing votes on this issue to the Labour Party, or to a nice friendly and morally pure Soc Dem.
It is through this prism, really, that O’Riordáin’s song and dance and condemnations of Mattie McGrath and the Healy Raes should be seen. For all his protestations, a shift to the right on immigration would probably suit him politically, just fine.
The Labour Party doesn’t have many electoral niches left. This might be one they’d be happy to volubly occupy.