Fianna Fáil is changing but not quickly enough

In the week running up to the Fianna Fáil Ardfheis in Citywest there has been no shortage of reminders of the party's past. The Oireachtas banking inquiry committee learned two days ago it could complete and publish its report. Yesterday, the death of PJ Mara uncorked a vatful of colourful, scabrous anecdotes harking back to Fianna Fáil past. It was impossible to avoid the seepage of a tincture of the poison that once coursed through its veins.

It is not its past that will threaten to hammer Fianna Fáil in the general election, however: it is its present and its future.In that context, possibly the most interesting session at today's conference will not be party leader Micheál Martin's stump speech but the contribution of British political scientist Tim Bale, author of the seminal work on the Tories: The Conservative Party: from Thatcher to Cameron.

Bale came to the Fianna Fáil Ardfheis in the RDS four years ago and gave a fascinating presentation that outlined how a party floored in an election can revive its electoral fortunes and political strength. He set out 12 steps for recovery. He is returning today to take stock of where the party has succeeded, and where it has not.

Some of his recommendations were obvious ("grasp the enormity and scale of the defeat") but some were slightly counterintuitive ("underestimate your opponent at your peril"). Enda Kenny has turned out to be a far more formidable political adversary than Fianna Fáil acknowledged when he was in Opposition and portrayed by them as a lightweight.

Lick wounds and move on

The advice included big spending on polling and opinion research as well as a warning not be over-obsessed with justifying its record. It was over and it was lost, went the message. Fianna Fáil needed to lick its wounds and move on.

He advocated less effort on structural reform than was done by the party (it went through a large restructuring in 2012, which included introducing one member, one vote instead of an arcane, convoluted and unfair system based on its cumann system).

On the next set of steps set out by Bail, Fianna Fáil’s record has been patchy. The party needed a communication strategy to show it had changed and renewed itself. That has not happened sufficiently. He also argued that policy review should be strategic rather than root and branch. The rationale for this was that too much effort would be expended working on policies that might never see the light of day. He advocated a robust opposition to government, without becoming too populist. That was always going to be a tricky one for Fianna Fáil. The Coalition essentially implemented many policies inherited from the previous government. Disowning what you had once advocated gave rise to charges of hypocrisy.

The party obviously ignored the advice not to be given false hope by second-tier elections. It has been like a dog with a bone over its relative success in the 2014 local elections. The reality is it that result is meaningless in the context of a general election. The Tories licked the Labour Party in a series of local elections between 1995 and 2005 and still got a pasting in the general elections that followed.

In Bale's view, another critical element in a party's revival was the role to be played by the leader, who must personify and catalyse the recovery. In Britain, David Cameron became that unifying and rallying figure, just as Justin Trudeau did with the Liberal Party in Canada. For Martin it has not really fully happened yet. That said, it would be a strategic blunder for the party not to persevere with his leadership for another term. As Willie O'Dea adroitly remarked about the leadership issue: "When I look around the table [of Fianna Fáil TDs] I don't see the messiah and when I look in the mirror I don't see him either."

Of course, these processes take a long time to play out. That was another Bale observation: patience and long-term strategies are required. The raw reality for Fianna Fáil is that the party's recovery will take two or – more likely – three terms. After the election, electorally, it will be in about the same place as Fine Gael was in 2002 – 30-something TDs with only a smattering in Dublin. It took Fine Gael a decade to kick on from that low. With Fianna Fáil there is the added incipient danger of a lurking Sinn Féin.

Bale’s 12th and final observation was also interesting: that parties with a venerable tradition seldom disappear. But the problem is they can. Tradition is one thing, identity is another. And that is where the party has really struggled. It’s not too sure where it stands, or what it stands for, any more.

Hopelessly outdated principles

Fine Gael has taken on the mantle of the party of power and grabbed much of the middle-class support. Sinn Féin has gouged into its traditional blue-collar support. It has talked about returning to the values of the 1926 roots. But the principles set out in its constitution are hopelessly outdated. It is no longer catch-all. There is the Averil Power conundrum. It is trying to be modern and liberal, yet a large rump of its membership, including a majority of parliamentarians, is reactionary and conservative.

The party has struggled to articulate a clear message or project itself in a way with which those outside its base can identify. Indeed, the takeaway message from its negative poster this week might be that it has ceded control of the narrative to Fine Gael.

Finance spokesman Michael McGrath spoke during the week about it being a party of “social solidarity”, a fine concept, worth exploring, but hardly a catchy slogan. Fianna Fáil needs to find and spell out its purpose in clear, unambiguous language. And it needs to do it quickly.