Kelly is making noise but there is no immediate threat to Howlin

Is the Labour Party facing something of a peasant’s revolt in the autumn?

Alan Kelly’s broadside against party leader Brendan Howlin on Friday did not explicitly include him throwing down the gauntlet to his leader. But while his language might have danced around the issue, there was no doubt it amounted to a challenge, given the tenor and directness of his criticisms.

“I certainly believe from a leadership point of view, after two and a half years we haven’t been able to turn the ship around,” he told Tipp FM.

There have been rumblings over Howlin’s leadership during the summer, particularly following the publication of an opinion poll that put the party’s national support at a new low of 3 per cent.

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While one poll could hardly be taken as representative, it sent ripples of concern through some quarters in the party.

During August, a group of 14 councillors – urban and rural, young and old – wrote a joint letter to Howlin requesting an urgent meeting. They said there was a failure “to be heard in any significant way by the public, the lack of knowledge by the public about what we stand for, our frequently disengaged membership and the failure to make progress in opinion polls”.

A further 16 councillors wrote a counter-letter pledging their support for Howlin. He also won the public support of all his TDs and Senators, with the exception of one – Alan Kelly, who remained uncharacteristically silent on the issue.

It was decided the matter of leadership would be discussed by TDs, Senators and councillors at the party’s “think-in” in Drogheda on September 16th.

And there it rested until yesterday when, out of the blue, Kelly gave an interview to his local radio station in which he suggested Howlin was not the right person to lead the party, and also restated his own ambitions.

Cue a furious response from Howlin and most of the parliamentary party to Kelly’s intervention. It was “disappointing” and “not appropriate” and would amount to a massive distraction for the party at a time when it was “finally finding its feet”, as one of them put it.

‘Entirely premature’

Howlin himself was having little of the challenge. “These things are entirely premature. Most people in the party want us to get on with the job and certainly do not want us to go down the rabbit hole of some contest,” he said.

So will this amount to one? Kelly has never made any secret of his leadership ambitions and wanted to mount a challenge against Howlin in 2016. However, he was unable to secure a seconder among the other six Labour TDs and – under party rules – could not stand.

In one sense, his supporters could argue he is being thwarted by party rules. But then again, the rules have been decided by a majority, and that majority – on the evidence so far – seems to be strongly buoying up the Howlin leadership.

There is no immediate threat to Howlin. He has the support of all the parliamentary party, bar Kelly. He also seems to be backed by a clear majority of its 51 councillors and (probably) most members.

That said, there are issues which cannot be ignored and all of them stop at his door, either because he is ultimately responsible for all major policy and operational decisions, or it reflects on his style and mode of leadership.

Following Kelly’s intervention, it is certain the upcoming party think-in will be wholly dominated by Howlin defending himself.