Goings-on in Fine Gael suggest old rivalries, like old habits, die hard

At the end of a two-day visit to Northern Ireland, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar was asked a simple question about the Katherine Zappone special envoy saga: what was his motivation in releasing his text messages about the issue when he did?

There has been much political chatter about the publication of messages between the Fine Gael leader and Ms Zappone, and his exchanges with Simon Coveney regarding the appointment.

It was lost on nobody that they emerged just hours after the Minister for Foreign Affairs revealed he had deleted texts on the matter from his phone. The temperature had risen a notch after Coveney was accused of changing his story about why he did so. Initially it was due to a data storage issue, and then it was because his phone was previously hacked.

Varadkar’s decision to put out his texts put a whole new spin on the issue. They raised yet more questions about Coveney’s recollections, and colleagues across Government speculated on the Tánaiste’s intentions.

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Speaking to reporters in Newry on Thursday, Varadkar said the reason for the sudden publication was because journalists at the previous day’s press conference had asked about it.

Beyond his intentions – and many in Government think that Varadkar’s aim was to prove he had nothing to hide on the matter – the political manoeuvre has put a spotlight on the relationship between the senior Fine Gael men.

Leadership contest

Anyone with a passing interest in politics will know that the party’s 2017 leadership contest pitched the colleagues against each other, though not in any overly dramatic way.

Some of the more memorable exchanges included an instance where Coveney indicated that Varadkar’s pledge to represent people who “get up early in the morning” was the kind of talk that had divided society over the past decade.

Coveney said he wanted to unify communities, not divide them. He positioned himself to the left of Varadkar and said he was “fighting for the soul of Fine Gael”. In short, he came out swinging.

When Coveney remarked at one stage in the campaign that he had brought people with him, Varadkar hit back by saying it was he who had “brought most of the cabinet” with him.

Regardless of the barbs, Coveney handled the defeat with dignity and declared: “Together we are going to build upon the leadership of Leo Varadkar.”

Sources close to both say that is exactly what they have done since 2017. They say that while the two might not be “pally-pally”, they have built up a strong trust and mutual respect that solidified itself around the time Ireland was facing threats of a no-deal Brexit from across the water. Their relationship, sources say, has been consistently solid. Until this week, that is.

Frayed

“Things have certainly... frayed,” one said.

That would appear to be an understatement as others place the emotions in each camp closer to fury than fray.

“The teams around both of them have been hard at work making sure their man does not cop the full blame for what has transpired here,” says a source with knowledge of how things have played out in recent days. “At the end of the day, it’s the instinct for political survival kicking in.”

Varadkar believes he has answered the questions asked of him, though others will inevitably follow given he is party leader. Coveney faces another date with the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs to clarify remaining matters.

The fight for the soul of Fine Gael – or, to the rest of us, the future leadership of the party – was decided in 2017, but recent events show that if old habits die hard, so too do old rivalries.