Stephen Collins: Labour's choice of Howlin reflects fear of quick election

Nerves were on edge in Leinster House during the week, with internal party tensions, promotion speculation and worries about the viability of the minority Government creating uncertainty.

The Labour leadership race was a test of endurance for the seven surviving party TDs even though it became clear last Monday that six of them wanted Brendan Howlin to take on the daunting task of trying to rebuild the party.

The seventh, Alan Kelly, the outgoing deputy leader, wanted to run himself, but he needed a seconder to trigger a contest in which all party members would have a vote.

Kelly tried to bluff the others by insisting he had a seconder but they all knew that unless one of them buckled he wouldn’t have one.

All of them came under strong pressure from elements of the party organisation to allow Kelly to stand if only in the interests of a democratic contest. However, the example of Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, who managed to persuade some of the MPs who did not support him to second his nomination to allow him into the race, was one factor in the decision of the Labour TDs in the Dáil not to buckle.

Kelly is a very different figure from Corbyn. He is not a left-wing ideologue like the British Labour leader, but he has provoked deep antipathy from some in his own parliamentary party. His abrasive style and undisguised ambition have made him a lot of enemies, and his fellow deputies felt it would be too much of a risk to allow him to take over as leader now.

Current difficulties

If there had been a contest Kelly could have won. A majority of party members would undoubtedly have been attracted to his unabashed style as a way out of their current difficulties. He demonstrated his ability to win over party members before in the deputy leadership contest.

In the event, while he held out all week, and caused a lot of angst for his fellow deputies who wanted a seamless transition to a Howlin leadership, he was eventually forced to bow to the inevitable and accept that he was not going to get the prize, this time at least.

A deeply disappointed Kelly did not turn up to the formal unveiling of Howlin as the new leader yesterday, and there are doubts about his future in the party even if the new leader described him as “a man of great passion and ability”.

One of the reasons TDs wanted Howlin to take over without a long internal debate is the belief among many of them that the Government is not going to last more than a few months and they need to be ready for an election at any time.

The minority Fine Gael-led Government found out quickly what the new politics was like when Minister for Finance Michael Noonan was forced to bow to Fianna Fáil pressure and accept a Private Members' Bill giving the Central Bank the power to force commercial banks to cut their variable rate mortgages.

While that would be a popular move with the public it is a power the Central Bank does not want, and there are even doubts about its constitutionality.

Noonan announced the Government’s intention to send the Bill into a pre-legislative process that would have allowed debate on its provisions.

Fianna Fáil was having none of it, and in the face of a certain Dáil defeat Noonan backed down and withdrew his opposition to the Bill going on to committee stage where it will be debated in early autumn.

This flexing of muscles by Fianna Fáil provoked anxiety not only in Fine Gael but also in the main Opposition party itself.

“It just goes to show that this Government has no chance of surviving. We can take it down when its suits us,” said one senior Fianna Fáil TD.

The point, though, is that it will probably not suit Fianna Fáil to take the Government down anytime soon. Micheál Martin has committed himself and his party to the new politics so he has to be seen to try and make it work.

Victory on a populist piece of legislation, which the Central Bank will in all likelihood refuse to invoke in any case, might not be the best issue on which to judge the Government’s chances of survival.

Anyway, it is debatable whether the wider public even noticed that Fianna Fáil had won the first arm wrestle with the Government over legislation.

Tension

Another issue which generated a lot of tension around Leinster House but probably barely raised an eyebrow outside it was the appointment of 18 Ministers of State by Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

The decision to expand the number from 15 to 18 was a signal that the old politics prevails when it comes to trying to contain the disappointment for a lot of ambitious TDs.

The surprising feature of the appointments was that Kenny did not try to bring long-time thorn in his side John Deasy into the fold or try and fend off potentially formidable new opponents such as John Paul Phelan. Many of his appointments were well merited and it was good to see really hard-working public representatives like David Stanton and Catherine Byrne getting promotion.

However, the fact that some more recent arrivals in Leinster House leapfrogged colleagues for no apparent reason will result in a cabal of anti-Kenny TDs coming together in the months ahead.