Whither Labour?

On the afternoon of Friday, 13th June last the current leader of the Irish Labour Party showed himself to be made of metal, stern stuff or whatever, but far too late in the day. With the referendum result patent, he pronounced emphatically that 'Lisbon' was "dead". Everyone else on the 'yes' side was going 'ho hum', but Gilmore was emphatic, "dead", dead as the Monty Python parrot, "dead".

Gilmore's quick and emphatic dispatch of 'Lisbon' though, raises a question: how real was his loudly expressed embrace of the 'Lisbon' cause and dismissal of all aspects of the 'no' case? Was his embrace of the 'yes' case warm and total or was it simply a calculation to stay within the establishment, such as it is?

What was happening on the ground was clear—if those who politically tapped into it were a very mixed bag, some spinning all kinds of nonsense into the popular pot. But in a sense that was Labour's opportunity—to provide real leadership and a sound case for voting 'no'. Instead Labour chose to enter into a grand coalition with the Fianna Fail Leadership and Fine Gael, with the Greens and what is left of the PDs [Progressive Democrats] as bobtails to this grand coalition. They were a ragbag—of bluff and wind-baggery.

Many ordinary members of Labour were inclined to the 'yes' camp and the party leadership's decision to join in a grand coalition with the national political establishment for a simple reason: they could not stomach being in the same camp as Sinn Fein, or indeed Catholic irredentists. In this misplaced prejudice and bile they—the party members who so thought (if that is the word) and the leadership (such as it is)—gave away the ground to the very people they detested and walked away from the people. They left the people to themselves, ignored their concerns, and left a coterie of disparate forces of little real standing or substance in the southern context to make noise, claim leadership and don the mantle of victors.

Privately and publicly Jack O Connor of Siptu has been trammelled and traduced—privately as the worst leader the Union has ever had and "only a shop steward". Jack played no more—and as good as—a game as the IFA [Irish Farmers' Association] and the farmers played, if in relation to a different agenda.

Irish people are pro-Europe, unquestionably so. Those of us who took our cue from unthought instincts in the 1970s soon saw the error and embraced the then project. But that was then and this is now: the then project is not that of today.

The project of 1973 delivered quickly a welfare state; significant advance in the workplace (labour legislation and equal pay); and enormous release and relief from British rule for rural Ireland and Irish agriculture, freedom from Britain's cheap food policies and entry into the CAP [Common Agricultural Policy]. Today's project is a rather different affair. It entails embracing the liberal-market agenda—whether at the level of the Council, the Commission, or critically, the European Court of Justice. It is all one-way traffic, whether we think of the WTO [World Trade Organisation], Irish Ferries, the 'Swedish' case at the European Court, or the self-aggrandisement of the bureaucrats of Brussels and the trousering of 'expenses' by MEPs.

Today's 'Europe' is not the 'Europe' we joined in 1973 and is a million miles away from the 'Europe' of 'Rome'. It is also so far away from the 'Europe' of Delors (and Mitterand and Haughey) as to be unrecognizable—and that is the problem of Europe vis a vis its citizens, including the people of Ireland.

The Labour Party must surely have recognised and known all of this, must have sensed that this was the opinion of the people, whether farmers concerned about WTO, fishermen recognising the stupidity of the Common Fisheries Policy, small entrepreneurs concerned about tax harmonisation, workers about the 'chase to the bottom', or just citizens faced with an increasing impetus to 'marketize' public service provision. It chose to ignore all of this in favour of being a bit player in a grand coalition of the 'great and the good'.

Gilmore might have recognised all of this before the event: maybe he did privately, given his prompt dismissal of 'Lisbon' as the result of the referendum revealed. But that is not good enough for a leader, so-called.

If he and the Party really have a sense of opposing Sinn Fein, irredentists and others in the context of the people feeling deep disquiet about the departure of the European project from its original and intermediate agendas, then he and the party should have provided leadership instead of sitting for crumbs at the top table.

On such a performance what is the point of Labour?

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