Una Mullally: The ‘middle Ireland’ Fine Gael thinks it is responding to doesn’t exist

Last week’s Irish Times/Ipsos opinion poll was more bad news for Fine Gael and Leo Varadkar. It is also not surprising. As the party slides into the doldrums of 18 per cent, and its leader drops six points to 37 per cent, the heat is on.

We’re also beginning to see the outline of Fine Gael’s pitch for staying put, despite a general election – if scandal or drama doesn’t intervene – being some way away. So what can we deduce?

Sending Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, Martin Heydon and Peter Burke out to pitch a €1,000 tax cut was a massive strategic error. The electorate greeted it with apathy, but this kite-flying moment caused tension within the Coalition, which means Fianna Fáil will now seek to assert itself further in “budget season”. But more than that, it demonstrated a poverty of vision. Given the opportunity to fly a kite, why was something so inconsequential pitched? Is that really Fine Gael’s big idea?

Such errors demonstrate a lack of understanding regarding what the electorate wants and needs. This is a result of Fine Gael’s cartoonish disconnection. Throwing out random tax cut ideas with a level of depth and detail that could fit on a Post-it is not what people are after.

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Varadkar would have known well that such an intervention – as silly as it was – would irritate Fianna Fáil. This is an indication of where things will go in electioneering terms.

What we’ll begin to see is a version of the replay of the 2020 general election campaign when Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were campaigning against each other and then trying to wipe the electorate’s recent memory by entering into Government together. This will be an even more impossible task than it was in 2020, given their proximity – ideologically and practically – and their collaboration in Government.

When the time comes for both entities to uncouple in a campaign setting, it will have the flavour of the famous Spider-Man meme which features identically dressed superheroes pointing accusatorially at each other.

One of the largely organic pieces of political branding that most effectively damages both parties is the widely used “FFG” or “FFFG” shorthand. Neither party can disentangle itself from the other, following governments in a confidence and supply arrangement, and then a more clearcut Coalition. This consolidation has hurt Fine Gael more than Fianna Fáil, as the polls show.

Sinn Féin is popular, and Fine Gael will attack it more than Fianna Fáil – so it’s a safe bet who will self-immolate at greater speed in that battle

Because Fine Gael has a tendency to lean into negative campaigning tactics, how is it meant to, with any authenticity, kick its Government partners? The electorate will merely respond: if you think they’re so bad, why were you in Government with them?

A veteran political organiser recently said to me that the most successful poster Sinn Féin could run during an election would be one of Micheál Martin and Varadkar side by side with the slogan: Give Us Another 100 Years.

Yet Fianna Fáil will be very aware that the only way it can cling to power is with a grip on Sinn Féin’s coattails. That potential for Coalition is a bridge Fine Gael has long burned. Sinn Féin is popular, and Fine Gael will attack it more than Fianna Fáil – so it’s a safe bet who will self-immolate at greater speed in that battle.

[ Opinion: Who is Fianna Fáil for? A dwindling, increasingly regionalised demographic ]

The “middle Ireland” Fine Gael thinks it finds itself responding to does not exist. If middle Ireland really means middle class, or relatively middle income, much of that demographic has gravitated towards Sinn Féin. What Fine Gael has left is an ever-depleting base – beyond the party loyalists – primarily composed of a wealthy slice of Irish society for whom the housing crisis, hospital waiting lists, and childcare costs are not urgent issues.

Why would one not care about such things? Well, if your mortgage is paid off, if you have private health insurance, if childcare is irrelevant because your children are grown up, and if you subscribe to an I’m-alright-Jack state of being, then you might vote for Fine Gael. But how many people are really in this demographic? Plenty of wealthy 60-somethings have their adult children living with them. The housing crisis has long spread beyond merely the less well-off.

The issue for Fine Gael is that if those are its people, everything it does in a campaigning context to consolidate them as prospective first-preference voters will turn everyone else off.

When you’re on the defensive, negativity has a way of flavouring your response. But negative campaigning is an extremely difficult thing to pull off when you’re unpopular. People don’t like it. It wears them down. It angers and frustrates them. It divides the electorate and lowers the quality of discourse. It will backfire.

[ Una Mullally: Dublin is a dirty, smelly, sticky old town once again ]

The idea that Varadkar’s return to the position of Taoiseach would somehow increase Fine Gael’s popularity is the sort of delusion that could only exist within the Fine Gael bubble. A different leader would probably slightly improve the party’s fortunes – but when it is so convinced that it’s right, the notion that it might suddenly acquire the capacity to self-reflect and change tack feels as unlikely as a role in the 34th Dáil.