In its last delegate conference before the next general election, the Labour Party faced three major challenges: to clarify and develop its policies; to dispose of the question of who it is willing to go into coalition with; and to energise its activists. The conference must be judged relatively successful on these. It has also opened up national political debate for what looks like an exceptionally long campaign.
The Labour Party has suffered something of an identity crisis in recent years. Like other social democratic parties in Europe, it has had difficulty adapting to the end of the Cold War and the triumph of market-based globalisation. It has taken time to adapt to those great changes and find the best ways to respond to them and supporters and votes have been lost as a result. Labour's merger with Democratic Left has not added, as expected, to its political appeal.
This conference saw the Labour Party define its own political distinctiveness more effectively than it has managed to do in recent years. Leaders and delegates attacked Fianna Fβil, the Progressive Democrats, Fine Gael and Sinn FΘin and asserted policies on health, education, crime and the economy that establish more persuasive grounds for claiming electoral support. Calls for funding capital projects by more borrowing, for a revitalised State role and less resort to privatisation, indicate something of a departure from Blairite Third Way orthodoxy.
This impression was reinforced by a sophisticated debate on the party's electoral strategy and attitudes towards potential coalition partners. Overwhelmingly, it was decided to fight the election on Labour's policies, rather than tie it into particular alliances. Its principal target will be Fianna Fβil's ideological convergence with Progressive Democrat policies and general unfitness for office on its record in government. But the conference strongly endorsed the leadership's plea that the option of negotiating even with Fianna Fβil, after the election, be left open. This will maximise the capacity to deliver on Labour's programme, although Fianna Fβil is clearly not its preferred coalition partner.
Mr Ruair∅ Quinn came out of the conference strengthened as party leader and with an organisation better prepared for the election campaign. He admitted his disappointment at the latest Sunday Independent opinion poll which puts him and the party down several points. The task they face in coming months is to consolidate the political momentum generated in Cork, to follow that up in the Dβil and to translate it into a more engaging political message.