ANALYSIS:Labour believes next election will be its best, writes HARRY McGEE
IN HIS first press conference as Labour Party leader in the summer of 2007, Eamon Gimore predicted that the party could win 30 seats under his leadership.
The comments were greeted with some scepticism at the time and for very good reasons. The party had just experienced a disappointing “as-you-were” election where it returned to the 30th Dáil with the same number of seats as it had in the 29th Dáil. That was 20 TDs and three young new deputies had hardly dented the party’s worryingly high age profile. In that context, the prediction seemed optimistic, verging on foolhardy.
But at its two-day parliamentary party meeting held in Faithlegg House this week, the prediction has a decidedly modest look to it now. The party has been on a sharp upward trajectory under Gilmore. There were two very strong election showings this summer, especially in the European elections where it gained two seats.
In last week's Irish Times poll, Labour pushed Fianna Fáil into third place for the first time, even in the "core support" indicator.
The confident and assured mood of the “think-in” reflected the surge in support. Behind this buoyancy lies the belief that if an election is called within the next 12 months, Labour could top its best ever performance, the “Spring Tide” in 1992, when it won 33 seats. Gilmore, who is the party’s most “presidential” leader in bearing since Dick Spring, outlined in some detail this week the audacious scope of his ambition.
His only uncomfortable moment came when comments he made were interpreted as leaving some wriggle room for an arrangement with Fianna Fáil after the next general election, prompting him to categorically rule it out.
In a pre-2007 scenario, that would have left but one choice, a Mullingar Accord-type arrangement with Fine Gael. But not any more. Gilmore believes the Labour Party can be the “third option” to lead the country. His argument is that the economic upheaval of the past 18 months can transform politics too.
His key message to delegates, and to the wider public, was that politics is now a three-way contest, and that he can become taoiseach. It is very much a long shot. The party still has no real footprint in several western constituencies. But strategists believe that there’s a chance, albeit remote, that if Labour are within shouting distance of Fine Gael, it could theoretically form a minority government, with the support of others.
There were four policy sessions at this year’s meeting – on enterprise policy, the Lisbon campaign, primary education and Nama.
The education session, in particular, was described by TDs present as thought-provoking. Party education spokesman Ruairi Quinn and Seán Cottrell, the director of the Irish Primary Principals Network, discussed the need for a forum where, inter alia, the role of the churches in the management of primary schools be reviewed.
But, unsurprisingly, it was Nama which dominated. And unsurprisingly, too, the parliamentary party voted unanimously to reject the Government proposal in favour of the party’s own proposals for temporary nationalisation of the banks.
The party, under Gilmore, is not in the mood for a Mullingar Accord. And it certainly has no intention of following a Tallaght Strategy, or anything that would be seen as making the slightest concession to Fianna Fáil or the Greens. Its ambitions may be revolutionary. But its strategy for opposition over the next Dáil session will cleave to tradition.