First six months crucial for Brendan Howlin to prove himself

In the end it was a coronation. The process that resulted in Brendan Howlin becoming the new leader of the Labour Party was seamless. The politics of it, on the other hand, is more gnarled and twisted.

There will be uncomfortable questions asked about the uncontested nature of the process.

There will be those within Labour who will argue that there was a democratic deficit in the collective decision of six Labour TDs not to allow the seventh, Alan Kelly, the chance to put the leadership question to the wider membership.

There’s no easy answer as to whether that decision was a correct one. Sure, on the face of it the process was unfair. The party has set out clear rules on leadership. It is decided by the 4,000 members of the party unless there is only one candidate. The requirement for becoming a candidate is simplicity itself. The person has to be a TD and get a nominator and seconder from within the corpus of the party’s Dáil deputies.

It is likely that when the rules were being drawn up, nobody foresaw the dreadful scenario of the party holding only seven seats, thus raising the entry threshold to a comparatively high level.

Kelly was the victim of that. His failure to secure a second from his six fellow deputies was a little like a prospective Olympic athlete failing to secure the qualifying time. Without a seconder, he was not even to run onto the pitch.

On the face of it, the decision of his colleagues was unfair. Kelly, it might be argued, should have been afforded a nomination to make a contest of it. By doing so, so it went, his colleagues knew he would hold sway over the wider membership.

And there will be blowback, there’s no doubt about that. On Friday, the respected Galway councillor Niall McNelis complained that the leadership question should have been put to the wider membership. In a cutting line, he said the fate of the party had been decided by four people (neither Joan Burton nor chairman Willie Penrose participated in the decision) rather than 4,000.

It’s a fair argument but the contention that Kelly would have bested Howlin in a straight contest does not hold water. The Wexford TD is a veteran of over three decades standing and commands a lot of respect and authority. The tail wind that saw Kelly triumph in the deputy leadership context two years ago might not blow quite as hard this time of asking.

And it wasn’t really undemocratic. The rules were observed to the letter, if not the spirit, of the law. They themselves are elected so even though their number is tiny, they also comprise an electorate. The optics are not great.

Kelly himself was not there when the new leader was unveiled. It suggests a split. Howlin will have to work very hard to make sure it’s temporary rather than permanent.

There were stark political considerations. The party is in dire straits. Most of its base built up over generations has evaporated, or gone elsewhere. A long painful period of rehabilitation awaits it. It is really hard to know if a leadership contest held over a period of two months would have been beneficial or detrimental. If one of the TDs relented and allowed Kelly a run, some fear it would have ended up with a situation like that for Labour in Britain where Jeremy Corbyn triumphed.

As of now, the party lies fourth in the pecking order of opposition groups, even when combining with the Greens. Howlin is vastly experienced. A previous Minister for Health and the Environment, he was a highly effective Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform from 2011 and 2016. Sure there was pomp but there was also action.

Questions were asked about his appetite for the chase. His demeanour in recent days suggests he is up for the challenge. He needs to examine his manner and presentation, though; go more for the modh direach. Words like ‘quantum’, ‘suite’, ‘dynamic’ and ‘paradigm’ should never cross his lips.

Labour was probably correct in going into opposition. If it had returned to government, it might have presented a real existential threat. The party still has a strongish membership and base. What it needs to do is what Fine Gael did in 2002 and Fianna Fáil in 2011. It needs to blood new people ahead of the next local elections. It also need to return to its core values and principles, compete for its a working class base ceded to other left wing parties. Being a liberal party attracting a middle class support is only part of the equation. It needs to move a good deal left to recover lost territory. If it does that, remains focused and disciplines and relevant, it can bounce back strongly.

There are lots of humps and lots of hoops ahead. The difficult first six months in Opposition will be crucial for Howlin to prove himself to the doubters.