‘Simon Harris has to make changes’: As Leo Varadkar bows out, what is next for Fine Gael?

A little less than seven years ago, when he was running to become leader of Fine Gael, Leo Varadkar said he wanted to lead a party for “people who get up early in the morning”. It became one of the enduring lines associated with the soon-to-be former taoiseach.

It divided and enthralled people. To some it promised much; to others, it was odious.

Like all memorable political slogans, it captured something intangible, including the confidence and ambition of a new leader. For some, it has now become a byword for unfulfilled promise.

“He was right, and he got slated for it, and he should have stuck with it,” says Ciarán Cannon, the Galway East TD for Fine Gael who this week became the 10th member of the parliamentary party to indicate they will not run again for a Dáil seat.

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The loss of established TDs is one of the most visible signals of what Brendan Griffin, the Kerry TD who is also stepping down at the next election, describes as a “drift”.

“I wouldn’t say the motivation has been there for some time, that’s been a problem… there has been a drift for some time.”

As Simon Harris, the 37-year-old Minister for Further Education, stands on the verge of assuming the role held by Varadkar, his party will look to him to correct that course.

[ Leo Varadkar says there is no ‘scandal’ that prompted decision to quit as Taoiseach ]

But where does Fine Gael think it all went wrong for them? What is the solution? And what is possible for a party that risks moving from listlessness to decline?

Nobody is talking for us

Among the cohort of retiring TDs who spoke to The Irish Times, there are, in broad strokes, two criticisms. The first is that Fine Gael has not been effective at telling its own story.

“There is unbelievable money being pumped into rural Ireland,” says Paul Kehoe, the Wexford TD and former Government chief whip and Cabinet minister. “Have we reaped the rewards? I don’t think so.”

For Cannon, the connection has been lost between Fine Gael and large swathes of people whom he thinks are the party’s natural voters.

“They are people who feel they are making an incredibly valuable contribution to the economy, are proud of it and want to see that contribution used wisely,” he says.

They feel, in his verdict, that “nobody is talking for us”. He adds he has “lost count” of the number of people who tell him they used to vote for Fine Gael.

“They are ready and waiting in the wings if someone can reconnect with them and convince them we are on their side,” he says.

Senior party figures, still deeply shaken by the shock of this week and depleted by its toll, are looking to regroup now behind Harris

The other side of the coin is a sense that Fine Gael has drifted from its core identity – not an uncommon complaint for a party that has spent 13 years in government, especially during a period of rapid change that has been pockmarked with crisis.

But part of the solution, from many of those exiting politics, is to reorientate the party by focusing on the segment of votes that is available to them, sharpening and narrowing its message.

“We have to go back to Fine Gael basics for the future,” argues Kehoe, citing a focus on law and order, the economy and enterprise. While he says there has been huge support for small businesses, Fine Gael in government has given with one hand and loaded on costs with the other.

[ Varadkar’s decision to step down represented a refreshing burst of humility ]

“They can’t take everything that’s being thrown at them,” he says, objecting to the raft of legislation on sick days, the minimum wage increase and other obligations for employers.

For Griffin, notwithstanding all the support for businesses during the pandemic, now is when they are weary and fading.

“You don’t need to give a marathon runner his water and salts when they are starting out; it’s at mile 20 when they’re hitting the wall.”

Social agenda

There is no shortage of concern over a perceived drift towards a social progressivism that, while not antithetical to what they see as “Fine Gael values”, is certainly not at the heart of the party. The most recent – and damaging – incarnation is the lost referendums last month.

Retiring TDs are setting their sights on pastures new. Cannon is looking forward to hosting a late-night weekly music show on Loughrea Community Radio. But the scars of recent events are fresh. “There are wake-up calls and then there are wake-up calls, and then there is that,” he says.

Griffin agrees. “A lot of people have said to me since, ‘Who was asking for these, this is something that would never have been raised at a Fine Gael meeting ever. Why burn so much political capital on something that’s not a party priority at all?’,” he says. “The social agenda will be the biggest concern among members.”

Paul Kehoe says Fine Gael was always seen as a conservative party.

“Not that we want to go back to the church-State days again but we have to look at woke politics and see what that means for future generations,” he says.

The proximity between the “social agenda” or “woke politics” and a drift from Fine Gael values in the collective assessment of many of the retiring TDs is striking.

[ Leo Varadkar did not fulfil his promise for ‘people who get up early’ ]

It’s worth noting that, as a group, they are largely over 50, male and from non-urban centres. That is only a segment of the electorate – indeed, it is only one segment of the parliamentary party and probably shrinking. But Harris will need to be aware of this concern as he assumes the mantle – the potential for a backlash from within against a perception that, for a political generation which garnered huge plaudits for social reform, the leadership of Fine Gael has begun to sail too close to this particular wind.

Fine Gael has drifted from its core identity – not an uncommon complaint for a party that has spent 13 years in government

“I think that aspect of Irish policymaking in general is important,” says Cannon, but he adds: “The perception is that it has moved from the periphery right into the heart of who we are as a party and it’s not who we are as a party.”

For Harris, a liberal and progressive who championed the Repeal The Eighth campaign that ultimately lifted the ban on abortion in 2018, this is a tightrope to walk. It is worth noting that for all the suggestions that Fine Gael needs to move back to its traditional values, this is not a universally held view.

Louth’s Fergus O’Dowd, another retiring TD, is calling for a “kinder, gentler policy of government”.

“I think it has to become a broader church rather than a narrower one; I don’t welcome a move to the right at all – we move to the centre and to the left,” he argues.

Not rocket science

A party stalwart like Richard Bruton, the Dublin Bay North TD among the crop of retirees, has faith that the “bedrock” on which the party is founded is “still very relevant”, and that the electorate has a “stark choice between populist leadership and evidence-based policymaking that Fine Gael is good at”.

“The challenge,” he says, “is to turn that into a compelling message in the next election.”

After a decade and a half that has utterly redrawn the Irish political map, what is the ceiling for the party? What is a realistic goal for Fine Gael?

[ Varadkar says ‘no one thing’ triggered resignation and that it is ‘time for somebody new’ ]

“We should definitely be back up to the mid-20s [per cent],” says Paul Kehoe. “There’s a lot of Independents eating our lunch… a lot of Fine Gael voters are believing that populism and we have allowed them to believe that populism,” he says.

Griffin has a broadly similar analysis; he thinks the party can poll around its 2007 (27 per cent) and 2016 (25 per cent) levels – neither the triumph of 2011 (36 per cent) nor the disaster of 2020 (21 per cent) are representative.

To do that, he says, the party must get back to basics: good local elections in June, a good ground war in each electoral district and a comprehensive approach to “hundreds of battles in each polling district”.

“It’s not rocket science, that’s what we need to do,” says Griffin.

For others, the change is more far-reaching. There is a strong view in some quarters (although not universally held) that Harris has to clear house within Cabinet, something Kehoe too believes.

“Simon Harris has to make changes,” he says, and they should go beyond filling his own vacant Cabinet seat.

“The general public will expect him to make changes as well,” he said, outlining a belief that Harris will “be brave”.

The listening part

“We have been forgetting about the listening part,” says Cannon. “If you create clear blue water between you and the people who elect you, you are in trouble and we saw that two weeks ago.”

Varadkar was often criticised for surrounding himself with what one former minister described as his “family” of aides, criticising him for being “uber loyal to the adviser class” which blunted his own political instincts. Having a phalanx of advisers is part of high office, but a greater balance is needed, says Griffin.

[ Leo Varadkar in power: Five highs and five lows through Covid, a housing crisis and Brexit ]

“The best political advisers are the ones who you see at the ardfheis – really busy, sitting down talking to lads who might have come up from west Cork at 5.30am in the morning and are sitting down in the canteen having their lunch.”

Kevin Cunningham, lecturer and founder of the IrelandThinks polling company, says that, in a volatile political landscape, there is a cohort of voters moving back and forth between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

For Fine Gael, he says: “There are only certain voters who are open to you and broadly speaking you’d have to say they are Fianna Fáil voters,” he says, putting the chances of winning back votes lost to Independents as lower, while opposition voters cling to Sinn Féin, and a small left vote moves between other parties.

On the plus side for the party, he argues that voters do respond to interventions, meaning the longer the Government has the power to do things, the more people will react.

“People respond when you do good things,” he says, pointing out how in his polling Paschal Donohoe became the most popular politician in the country “by a mile” during the first cost-of-living interventions.

As for new leaders, there is evidence that bounces can happen – Holly Cairns, and indeed, Varadkar when he took over Fine Gael. But he cautions that “it seems like the increases might be small” – a best-case scenario of a sustained five percentage point increase – “but the downsides can be more significant”, he warns, pointing out that when new leaders do poorly, they tend to tank.

[ Leo Varadkar’s standing tarnished by ‘Leo the leak’ affair ]

Harris, he says, seems like he may be more popular than Varadkar among people who don’t support Fine Gael. He may be well-placed to win back some voters who left for Fianna Fáil without alienating a core Fine Gael vote, but the polling doesn’t suggest there is tidal momentum behind him.

Senior party figures, still deeply shaken by the shock of this week and depleted by its toll, are looking to regroup now behind Harris. The hope is that he can recapture something ineffable that builds momentum and a sense of intent – not dissimilar to Varadkar when he became leader in 2017.

Indeed, many of the headlines about Harris now could, and may have been, written about his predecessor. Confides one such figure privately: “That confidence has gone within the party.”

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