Don't do it Labour!

The results of the Irish election are in. As expected, Fianna Fáil were punished for the crony capitalism they practised that has brought the country to economic ruin. For the first time, the Labour Party came in at second place and with at least 36 seats they are, by some distance the second largest party in the Dáil. Fine Gael, which in recent years has shed most of its social democratic elements to become a clearly centre right, party, was the other big winner. With over 70 seats it is by far the largest party and will be the dominant element of any government.

Irish politics has been blighted by the dominance of catch all populist parties and the consequent failure of any kind of right-left, ideologically-based politics to emerge.

For the first time we now have a situation where the major parties in Ireland are orientated around an ideological divide with social-democratic Labour on one side and Christian democratic Fine Gael on the other. Despite the fact that, unlike Labour, the remains of Fianna Fáil have the same economic policies as Fine Gael, the consensus view is that it is a Labour/Fine Gael coalition should be the basis of the next government..

To enter government in these conditions would be a disaster for Labour for a number of reasons.

First, having achieved its greatest ever number of TDs Fine Gael is in no mood to allow Labour to implement its social democratic policies through a coalition arrangement as it was in 1994-7 when it had many fewer seats and a less clearly right wing orientation.

Second, this is the chance that Labour has waited for since the foundation of the State; the opportunity to develop a "normal" political system, based on left/right divisions rather than on populism and clientelism.

By entering government now, Labour will leave the left wing of Irish politics open to conquest by the thugs of Sinn Féin and will throw Fianna Fáil the life line of the status of official opposition. Given that the incoming government will have to continue with severe austerity measures, the potential for Sinn Féin to grow in these circumstances  is even greater.

Most importantly by joining a coalition with a party whose approach diverges from theirs on the important issues, they will be implicitly accepting that it is the distribution of the spoils of office rather than policy that is most important.

Of course, in the short term Labour may have less influence if they are not part of a government. However, in the long term, their influence will be immeasurably enhanced by taking on the role of official opposition and orienting Irish politics around the left/right divide that provides their raison d'etre.
A further period on the opposition benches would be a bitter pill to baby-boomer TDs such as Ruairi Quinn, Pat Rabbitte and Eamon Gilmore who may be too old for ministerial office next time around. However, if they have the long term interest of the party and the political system at heart they will take an approach untypical of members their generation by sacrificing personal fulfillment for the greater good.