Mary Minihan: Past glories a memory as Labour puts on brave face

Conventional wisdom states that Joan Burton’s team is going to take one hell of a beating at the upcoming election.

Yet there was little evidence of despondency in the face of dire predictions about catastrophic seat losses at Labour’s national conference in Mullingar on Saturday. Instead, something of a plucky “whistle past the graveyard” mood was in evidence.

Here was a group of comrades bracing for the worst, but still believing their cause was just.

Enough of the electorate might not be convinced to appreciate their efforts to enable them to salvage the situation in certain constituencies, but they were determined not go down without a fight.

The Tánaiste and Labour Party leader's birthday falls on Monday, and she got an early, modest gift in the form of a slight opinion poll fillip at the weekend.

The slender increase from 9 to 10 per cent in the Sunday Business Post survey was within the margin of error, but the move to double figures provided a psychological boost which was gratefully seized on by delegates in desperate need of some good news.

Frustration with Fine Gael’s apparently effortless ability to claim credit for Government policies that have been articles of faith for Labour for many years was palpable.

“You’d swear Labour had nothing to do with the marriage equality referendum,” Minister of State Aodhán Ó Ríordáin complained.

"It can be frustrating," fellow junior minister Kathleen Lynch conceded.

In more rational moments, a significant number of Labour’s incumbents must know they are not long for this political world.

An unsentimental electorate lies in wait, with seemingly little regard for a party that is more than 100 years old.

Labour canvassers report that the anger and hostility they faced ahead of the May 2014 local and European elections has dissipated or at least abated.

But they also say that those who open the doors can be polite and non-committal, which makes experienced campaigners very nervous indeed.

The controversy over the recent appointment of former Ictu leader David Begg as chairman designate of the Pensions Authority has also been mentioned.

‘Forest of placards’

In 2011, Labour returned to

Leinster

House with a record 37 seats after securing a healthy 19 per cent of the vote, with then leader

Eamon Gilmore

warning colleagues they would face a “forest of placards” as they prepared to enter Government.

There was no forest of placards in Mullingar at the weekend, but the remarkably high security levels at the venue exacerbated the sense of siege mentality.

Indeed, the level of internal upheaval Labour has experienced since 2011 should not be underestimated.

The silly and probably unnecessary promises made in advance of the game-changing general election came back to bite the party.

The leadership change and subsequent reshuffle that followed the mid-terms meant the organisation could not hope to match Fine Gael’s focus on consistent messaging and conscientious minding of its grassroots.

In truth, Labour’s message to supporters and potential supporters must inevitably be more complicated than that of its Coalition partner.

Delegates at the Fine Gael conference in Citywest the previous weekend had the cock-a-hoop swagger that can only result from being connected to a party in rude good health.

Fine Gael strategists are ruthlessly sticking to an “it’s the economic recovery, stupid” mantra in order to retain their position at the helm of the ship of State.

Labour finds itself in the tricky position of having to persuade supporters that it “reined in” certain Fine Gael tendencies, while depending on transfers from the senior partner’s voters.

Ms Burton attempted to characterise the Coalition relationship as one of constant negotiation and compromise in which the centre left and the centre right eventually find centre ground.

This ongoing “battle of ideas” was entirely absent from the Opposition side in the Dáil these days, she ventured, where a culture of petty bickering holds sway.

The conference heard touching tributes to long-serving members and poignant farewells to retiring stalwarts, including Pat Rabbitte, Ruairí Quinn and Eamon Gilmore.

But the event was largely about rallying the troops and giving Labour foot soldiers the courage to go over the top of the trenches.

Party canvassers have enemy targets in their sights and left the conference armed with “five reasons to fear Sinn Féin in Government”.

The portrayal at the weekend of Sinn Féin as a political bogeyman protecting the likes of Thomas “Slab” Murphy went down very well with older supporters, although some younger backers are not quite so convinced of the wisdom of the strategy.

‘Crashed the economy’

Labour is probably not fishing in the same pool for votes as

Fianna Fáil

, but nevertheless the conference heard repeated references to that party having “crashed the economy”.

Meanwhile, the fate of Independents, riding high in the polls but variously derided by Labour as a “dolly mixture” and an “alphabet soup”, remains one of the imponderables of the election.

On the doorsteps, Labour canvassers will be asking voters to reflect on factors such as the minimum wage increases, the restoration of public service pay, the establishment of a Low Pay Commission and the long-delayed move to legislate on the X case.

Many will also point to a promise to deliver a referendum on the Eighth Amendment in the next government, if returned to power.

Labour's bullish deputy leader Alan Kelly told a workshop it was essential that the party "differentiate" itself.

Voters “thank you for the past but they think about the future”, he said. For Labour, however, only the second half of that statement may prove to be accurate.