I've had enough. I'm deeply irritated by the fact that the Irish Labour Party is the worse performing social democratic party in Europe, securing a mere 10 per cent of the vote. This rump outfit with its ageing parliamentary party has run out of steam. It has stood still for the past three elections. And still there are people that think it's all down to electoral strategy. A few more votes here and there and we'd be in government...
Bollocks. It's more to do with identity than anything else. Labour is clueless about how to delelop a coherent narrative that can critique the celtic pup. The party is afraid to be critical of the economy lest it frighten the so-called middle classes - the aspirational types that are supposed to swing elections.
Of course the paid commentariat is equally clueless and some hig paid hacks are opining that it's Labour's perceived trade union identity and its taint of old fashioned class politics that puts off these aspirational new workers. Again, bollocks. Let's be clear about this. Labour's current connections with the union movement are largely residual and sentimental. Union leaders don't give a shite about theLabour Party because they have been given a seat at the top table by Fianna Fáil and they have known no other way of doing business since 1987. I'm really fucking sick of pundits calling for Labour to be courageous and to "modernise". This is sloppy thinking, using inappropriate comparisons to the Blair project within the British Labour Party.
I wouldn't mind if Irish Labour was too dependent on trade union members. After all there are over half a million trade union members but only about 200,00 Labour voters. I wouldn'y mind trying to think my wat around a problem in a context where there might be a parliamentary party at least twice its current size. More later.
No comments:
Post a Comment