What now for Micheál Martin and Fianna Fáil after the debacle of the last week? Is this the beginning of the end?
It is often the way in politics that when a leader seems at the height of his or her powers, the lustre of their ascendancy obscures a decline already in train. Sometimes this is because of old-fashioned hubris, sometimes because things happen in the background before they happen publicly. And sometimes it’s just because very few political careers end in the way that politicians want them to.
The Fianna Fáil leader entered the presidential election process this summer with his political pre-eminence undisputed. The most popular politician in the country, Taoiseach for the second time after winning the recent general election, the dominant figure in the Government, undisputed master of his party. Cork’s defeat in the All-Ireland hurling final – a disappointment he took with grace and humility, perhaps not universal in the real capital – was the only cloud in the sky.
And then the Jim Gavin calamity. Martin and his party now face an excruciating few weeks, with their zombie candidate still on the ballot paper, a constant reminder of crisis they confected entirely by themselves, for themselves.
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The anger among Fianna Fáil TDs in the wake of Gavin’s withdrawal was genuine and deep and kinetic.
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“It’s embarrassing. Just really f**king embarrassing,” said one senior TD.
“It makes us look like a collection of complete f**king eejits,” was the unchallengeable verdict of another.
The f**kometer readings were off the charts. And if profanity is an indicator of intensity – and in my experience it often is, at least in the private discourses of our politics – then feelings in Fianna Fáil this week were running at a level not seen since the wretched last days of Brian Cowen. Could we be heading for a similar denouement?
No. All this and more was ventilated at a lengthy and fizzy meeting of the parliamentary party on Wednesday evening. It was addressed by a contrite and humble Micheál Martin, wisely abandoning the slightly defiant note of “we all made a mistake” in a television interview on Monday evening, which did not go down well.
Instead, Martin accepted responsibility and prostrated himself for anyone to kick when he was down, which a few did, though more restrained themselves. A lengthy symposium of gloom ensued.
So what happens now?
Martin is going nowhere. Not even the most strident of his internal critics believes that he could be pushed out, though there were a few efforts to get something going on Monday and Tuesday.
But something has changed, all the same. The meeting on Wednesday was not like the previous showdowns with his parliamentary party, when Martin always emerged on top, getting his way, routing his critics by being several moves ahead and being more adept at politics than they were. This was different. His leadership after the recent debacle will not be the same as it was beforehand. The power dynamics in the party have shifted.
It’s not always easy to put your finger on the essence of political power. Those in office usually (though not always) have it, of course, but that’s not quite the same thing. Part of it is the belief of others that you will influence the course of events in the future. Martin’s ability to do that has been diminished by the events of recent weeks. And that is, I think, irrevocable.
For sure, there is a group of Fianna Fáil TDs that would like to see Martin’s leadership end. Many of them have carried membership cards of that group for years. They are probably more numerous now than ever, because the longer you are leader, the more people you disappoint, the more the grudges against you stack up, the more enemies you make. But the kick-him-out gang are not numerous enough to be decisive.
The important people are those in the middle, neither reflexively loyal nor viscerally hostile. In the past, when talk of challenges to Martin was in the air, they made a pragmatic judgment about who was more likely to help them win their seats as leader at the next election.
But now they believe – correctly – that Martin will not lead Fianna Fáil into the next election. So that option is not there. And that means they are thinking about the leadership in a completely different way. This was brought home to them this week.
Many of the middle ground are young TDs or new or both. This week, with heaves in mind, I delved back into Alan Clark’s Diaries for his account of the fall of Margaret Thatcher (born, like Charles Haughey, exactly 100 years ago). “Young turks,” he reflected after one crisis meeting trying to save Thatcher or at least influence her successor. “And young turks are bad news ... carving out their own career prospects and wanting to identify with the new winner.” This dynamic will now be present in Fianna Fáil, and may accelerate things. Perhaps it is a mark of Martin’s remarkable success in restoring Fianna Fáil since 2011 that the party is now discussing heaves.
Conventional party wisdom suggests that before this week, there were two front-runners to succeed Martin, Jim O’Callaghan and Jack Chambers, and two in the following pack, Dara Calleary and Darragh O’Brien. Chambers’s prospects have taken a serious setback, leaving O’Callaghan out in front.
I expect O’Callaghan – who this week, with rather refreshing honesty, announced he was interested in some day leading the party – will be cautious and lawyerly. He is relatively new to Cabinet and has not yet faced a big crisis. A bloodbath serves nobody’s interests. So he will bide his time. But not forever. The great game is now afoot.
