Casual television viewers wondering what to watch on Saturday evenings now that the Rugby World Cup is drawing to a close will be pleased to hear that party conference season is once again with us. The televised leaders’ speeches will offer a compelling option for viewers, especially those who find their remote controls broken.
Last week, it was the Greens in Cork; next week, it’s Fianna Fáil, then Sinn Féin, and then Fine Gael, in that order. So, lots to look forward to over the next few Saturdays.
The conferences serve two purposes. Firstly, and most importantly, the TV coverage offers the leaders an opportunity to speak directly to voters at home, over the heads of the media and without the frequently unwelcome interpretative framing of journalists.
Secondly, the party conferences offer a chance to rally the faithful – the party activists, the leaflet-droppers, the canvassers, the cumann secretaries who are the lifeblood of a party organisation. This is especially important ahead of a two-year period in 2024-25 during which the parties are facing into four election campaigns – local and European elections next June, general election some time before March 2025 and presidential election in October 2025.
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As the time for the counting of heads approaches, the task that faces the Greens is delivery, delivery, delivery, as Liz Truss once said
Party ardfheiseanna have changed since the days when they were full of sweaty lads in brown suits and overcoats, smoking their heads off and plotting away to beat the band, drinking gallons of porter in Paddy Cullen’s since about midafternoon. But they still represent a coming together of people who share a commitment and a project. For all the polling and focus groups and social media messaging, these are the people on which the parties will depend in the coming period of intense political competition.
The Greens gathered in Cork City Hall last Saturday evening, where Eamon Ryan delighted in telling visitors that the British government had to pay for the rebuilding of the landmark after the Black and Tans burned it during the War of Independence. Ryan has done a rebuilding job of his own on the Greens. Left with no seats and no money after their last stint in Government, Ryan brought them back into power nine years later and has achieved a transformation of the legal framework for tackling climate change. But legal frameworks – important though they may be – are hard for voters to see, feel and appreciate. As the time for the counting of heads approaches, the task that faces the Greens is delivery, delivery, delivery, as Liz Truss once said.
And that is proving much, much harder. Much of it is in the hands of other State agencies, especially local authorities, whose urgency does not match the Greens’ needs. Bus corridors and cycle lanes and greenways are transforming our cities, towns and villages, Ryan said. If so, it is a slow transformation. Green ministers need to get their agencies to vastly accelerate the pace of delivery. Their TDs need to sit in their constituencies, pester local councils, and convince voters that they are making a difference for the better in their daily lives. Last weekend, I got a sense that many Greens understand this; I did not get a sense they were very confident they could do much about it. It’s time to go door-to-door, Ryan told them. But what kind of reception awaits them?
Fianna Fáil meets in Dublin next weekend in reasonable shape but facing two enormous questions that it must answer in the coming months. In his decade and a bit as leader, Micheál Martin has done a rebuilding job in some respects greater than Ryan’s, taking the party from near oblivion back to the centre of political and national life. True, the party is only half the size it was and has a demographic profile that would make most nursing homes look vigorous. But given its very survival was in serious doubt a decade ago, Martin’s revival has been a remarkable feat.
[ Micheál Martin has remade Fianna Fáil into a vehicle for its leaderOpens in new window ]
But what does he do now? This is one of the great questions facing his party now. A Martin-less Fianna Fáil would be a much-diminished force at the next election. Six months ago I would have said Martin was a cert to go to Brussels as Ireland’s next European commissioner when the vacancy arises in the summer; now he looks like a man who is reconsidering his options. His choice will have profound consequences for his party.
How can a party that has served three terms in Government make a case for a fourth? How does a leader rejected by so many voters last time revive his appeal?
The second choice – not unrelated to the first – is what attitude the party will take to a possible Coalition with Sinn Féin. So let’s see what the delegates – whose views the leadership cannot ignore – are saying about that next weekend.
Sinn Féin meets in Athlone in a fortnight in rude good political health, eager for the coming fight. Watch out for Mary Lou McDonald projecting herself as an alternative Taoiseach and her frontbenchers as a Government-in-waiting. Expect the Palestinian delegation to be cheered; expect a tightly controlled message of change, directed at those sections of the electorate that are interested in Sinn Féin, but with whom the deal has not yet been closed. Reassuring the waverers will be as important as firing up the troops; maybe more important.
Fine Gael, in Maynooth a week later, is facing perhaps the most acute questions, and so maybe the most interesting weekend. How can a party that has served three terms in Government make a case for a fourth? How does a leader rejected by so many voters last time revive his appeal? What is distinctive about Fine Gael’s offering? What can it offer voters that they won’t get elsewhere? The Fine Gael national conference should give us some sense if the party has answers to these questions – or if it does not.
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