Is that a power to the people clenched fist we see before us? Or is it just a two-fingered salute to the establishment? Polls show the largest single bloc of the Irish electorate gathering under the ample but amorphous banners of Independents/Others. This is not a momentary whim – it reflects a deep anti-establishment mood that has taken hold across Europe.
And it is in some ways the most exciting thing to have happened here since the foundation of the State. But precisely because it is such a profound shift, we have to ask whether it is a negative or a positive, a constructive or a destructive, energy. Can the two fingers be closed into a fist that asserts real democratic power?
The evidence from last week's Irish Times poll is that so far the 30 per cent of the electorate that intends to vote for Independents is driven more by disgust than by hope. The most striking findings are the answers to questions about which political grouping would be best at dealing with a range of issues, including job creation, political reform and "speaking honestly and openly".
Don’t know
It is unsurprising that by far the most common answer was not Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil or Labour. What is remarkable is that it’s not Sinn Féin or Independents either. The clear winner on every single question is “Don’t Know”. On democratic reform and speaking honestly and openly 37 per cent and 38 per cent of people respectively simply don’t know who to trust.
There are always “don’t knows” in polls, but these figures are way off the charts. They’re capturing not just ignorance or apathy but a genuine dilemma. What they’re saying is that no one is coming up with a narrative of the future that the biggest single chunk of voters finds persuasive. And this confusion is not, to adapt Brian Friel, an ignoble condition. It’s a perfectly rational reaction to the void that has opened up between what politicians say and what they do. What is there to know about a void?
But you can’t run a country on “Don’t Know”. A plague on all houses is a vision of death, not of renewed public life. The very success of Independents has changed the meaning of their political existence. They are becoming a power in the land and with that power comes a profound responsibility. The Independents have found themselves with a historic mission – to restore to the Irish people a sense of collective democratic dignity, a mission they can’t fulfil without a broadly coherent narrative of a possible future.
It’s obvious of course that no single platform can contain all of those currently grouped together as Independents and others. The far left groups couldn’t even hold together an alliance of like-minded Trotskyites. (The United Left proved as durable as a paper raincoat.) The Lucindaites may or may not form yet another centre-right party, which seems like a solution in search of a problem. And in any case, the formation of a single, disciplined group of Independents would be a self-defeating contradiction in terms.
What’s needed is something much more radical – a genuine bottom-up movement that is not primarily about politicians but is, rather, a means for citizens to take back their democracy. What principles would such a movement have? First, equality – the essential republican principle that no citizen should count more than any other.
Renewal
Second is democratic renewal – a recognition that the system we have has failed and that we need to build a different one in order to create new possibilities for engagement, responsibility, accountability and innovation. Third is community – how do we get the energy, decency and civic pride of local life to flow into a collective national enterprise? And fourth is sustainability – Ireland must move beyond the toxic economics of boom and bust and commit itself decisively to economic, social and environmental sustainability. A modest prosperity must be the goal – not swings between the extremes of hyper-development and austerity.
These principles are broad enough to underpin a serious narrative of the Irish future beyond anger and beyond populism. But what do they mean in practice? Well, here’s the point: get the people involved in answering that question. Existing Independents who see themselves as more than local constituency champions or opportunistic surfriders on popular rage can offer citizens something genuinely new – a chance to vote for a platform that they themselves have helped to shape. There are already fine existing initiatives, such as The People’s Conversation launched by the umbrella group for the voluntary sector The Wheel. They can be built on the co-incidence of a general election with the centenary of 1916 in a context in which real public engagement is possible.
Existing independents face a choice. They can freewheel, or they can take on the historic task of serving as catalysts for the creation of a new political force – the power of an awakened democracy.