Gilmore offers a 'third way'

ANALYSISLabour will go into the new Dáil session determined to establish itself as a stand-alone party, writes Harry McGee

BY THE time Eamon Gilmore brought his parliamentary party's two-day meeting to a close yesterday, he had laid down a very strong marker that the Labour Party which will contest the general election in 2012 will have gone through very substantial changes between now and then.

The Clonmel meeting was his first as party leader, and the dominant theme of his contribution was that the party can no longer be viewed as an adjunct to larger parties but rather as representative of a "third way" in Irish politics.

"I have never accepted that the essential political choice in this country must always be between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. I believe passionately that, just as in every other modern European democracy, people in Ireland should be able to choose a Labour or social democratic option when they get to vote," he said.

From his own personal and pragmatic viewpoint, this is also highly desirable. Gilmore does not want to get bogged down in the circular and counterproductive debates about alignments with Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil that dogged then leader Pat Rabbitte in the run-up to the 2007 general election - it is clear that he is already working on strategies to avoid falling into that trap.

There was a decidedly upbeat atmosphere to the meeting, that seemed to consign to the past the disappointment of last year's "stand-still" election where Labour made no gains.

Though relatively new to his job, his colleagues generally believe that Gilmore has made a very confident and competent start to his leadership, performing strongly at Leaders' Questions while at the same time having a little more populist appeal than his predecessor Rabbitte.

It was also obvious from the agenda, and the thrust of the contributions, that the party's immediate strategy for the forthcoming Dáil session will be to focus to an almost unrelenting extent on the economy and the Government's handling of the downturn.

The Labour leader gave a taster of the turbulent Dáil session we should expect, with very direct attacks questioning the ability of Taoiseach Brian Cowen and Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan to manage the downturn. Gilmore did not pussyfoot when choosing his words: the Government made him "nervous"; Lenihan was "out of his depth"; Cowen was like a "rabbit caught in the headlights".

It would have been a major surprise if it were otherwise. In a harsher economic climate, you sense that this more aggressive stance will have strong purchase with the party's traditional constituency.

In the medium term, next year's local and European elections will provide the first real test of Gilmore's leadership, though local elections can never be directly comparable to elections that change governments. The party, like Fine Gael and Sinn Féin, performed very strongly in 2004 at the expense of Fianna Fáil, which had its worst election in a generation.

That leaves Labour with a quandary. It jumped from 80 to 101 full council seats four years ago. Can it maintain and even make gains? The recent electoral area changes (with the elimination of three-seaters and the big increase in seven-seaters) may militate against it. At the same time, it is hoping to consolidate its strong support in larger urban centres. Head of Labour's election committee James Wrynn has targeted 30 seats as potential gains. It must be pointed out that the party's overall target, while unstated, is far more modest than that. One sensed from talking to strategists that the party will consider anything above 100 seats a victory.

But even at such an early stage of the election cycle, it was planning for the longer term - specifically for 2012 - that Gilmore majored on this week.

Appropriating the Blairite phrase "third way", Gilmore has now outlined a two-prong strategy on how this modernisation can be achieved. The first is policy-based, presenting Labour's own ideas and policies on the economy and the wider societal issues.

Gilmore gave a taster of what might be expected when he floated the suggestion that capital spending should focus on a major school building programme, and on a national insulation scheme. The party's alternative economic policies will take more shape in the run-up to the Budget, when finance spokeswoman Joan Burton will unveil a fully costed economic statement.

The second strand is renewal. A commission of 20 drawn from all sectors of the party is expected to report on ways of modernising the party by November.

Chaired by accountant Greg Sparks, the report is keenly anticipated. Some of its key recommendations are believed to centre on the relationship between the party and trade unions. The country's largest union, Siptu, is closely associated with the party, and it is entitled as of right to have 100 delegates at annual conference. The upshot of this voting bloc is that there are always Siptu members on the national executive.

A two-day special conference in late November will discuss the Sparks report. Given that it is inevitable that the report will advocate some fundamental internal changes, it is likely to give rise to heated - and perhaps fractious - debate.

This week Gilmore stressed, more than once, that changes in the party's organisation, practices, power structure and even its philosophical direction will be needed if the party hopes to make a breakthrough in 2012.

His first major task is to steer through approval for the Sparks report in November.

• Harry McGee is a member of The Irish Times political staff