Labour should be more independent

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?” John Maynard Keynes

For the record I spoke and voted against the Leadership motion on electoral strategy at Labour’s conference in May of last year.

And I now believe, in the aftermath of two bad polls for Labour and Fine Gael, that the time has to revisit that decision.

I believe the concern expressed by those of us who feared that an electoral pact with Fine Gael has been vindicated since that date. In three of the last four polls Labour has been at 10%, a point and a half below our General Election performance in 2002.

I don’t like a politics that is about ruling people out, particularly from a party with our share of the vote. More especially I believe that the nature of the pact we are now in forces us to define our politics in a negative way. From my experience on the doorsteps, the Opposition is perceived as being against things. In doing so, even though Labour in particular played a key role in the origins of the Celtic Tiger, we are perceived as being begrudging about the progress made in recent years. And, let’s be honest, progress there has been. Not enough, and certainly not as much as an imaginative Government could provide, but progress nonetheless.

The reality is that the people I meet on the doorsteps recognize the limitations in this Government. They know they were lied to in the run up to the last General Election. They are, I believe, open to arguments that suggest things can be done differently. As an opposition, we haven’t been making enough of them.

My view, that Labour should contest the election as an independent party, is as strong as ever. I see no reason whatsoever why my party should argue for the election of the leaders of either ‘tweedledum’ or 'tweedlee' as Taoiseach. There are enough people deluded on this subject without us adding to it. In fact, though I differ with him on the strategy issue, I firmly believe that my party leader, Pat Rabbitte, is the most talented and able of the three party leaders. We should not be subordinating our presentation of him to that of the Fine Gael leader, which this strategy does at the moment.

I do accept though that my view is probably still a minority one within the party and that a decision was taken by the party conference last year. Pat Rabbitte is not going to ditch Enda Kenny at this stage, however much I wish he would.

But even within the confines of the strategy we adopted at Tralee, I believe there is considerable scope for a more independent presentation of both Labour and Fine Gael.

At the time we were told by Pat Rabbitte that Labour would enter the election on an independent platform, albeit under the auspices of agreed principles with Fine Gael. That however has not happened. Rather we are moving towards agreement on a broad common platform as evidenced by the publication of a recent document on health care.

I believe this has come to the detriment of both parties.

The truth is that we are not that similar. Our supporters look for different things from us. In some cases, like the Aer Lingus privatization, those demands are polar opposites. By doing our compromising before the election, we are minimizing our appeal to our respective constituencies. In our case that makes us, Labour, vulnerable on the Left, and Fine Gael, vulnerable to Fianna Fail and the PDs on the right.

This difficulty has been compounded by the fact that the pact deal has been done so far out from the election itself. This has hindered the development of policy in both parties and worse still has robbed us of the drama and news value of the parties coming together in the sight of the election. In short, Pat Rabbitte should have played much harder to get.

We are where we are though. And I for one don’t believe it is too late to turn the ship around. But as a Labour Party candidate I want to hear us articulate a sensible and coherent social democratic alternative, regardless of how Enda Kenny feels.

I want us to portray clearly how we can afford to spend more on key public services like health and education, because I know we can. Such a platform should include radical measures for the extension of free primary care to the whole population. I want to hear the radical agenda on climate change.

Indeed I would like my party to stand up clearly on behalf of the national interest against sectional interests, especially with regard to the development of a national infrastructure compatible with twenty first century prosperity.

I would like our tone to change. Let’s not oppose measures simply for the sake of them. I certainly can see some merit in stamp duty reform for example. The purpose of taxation as a policy tool is to incentivise certain types of behaviour – property downsizing should be part of that.

In fact, on taxation we are doing the Government’s work for it. Our current position (taxes are down and will stay down) accepts the Government’s argument that taxation is the be all an end all of our economic success. It gives far too much credit to the Government and undermines our fair arguments about the Government’s addiction to taxation by stealth). The truth is that taxation is only a single factor in our economic success. Let our commitment be that we won’t increase any taxes unless it is necessary for the good for the country – carbon taxes being a case in point.

This election is not over. The public may not have endorsed the Opposition approach so far but I believe they are open to persuasion. But if we are to succeed we need both Labour and Fine Gael to maximize our support.

In our case, that boils down to letting Labour be Labour.