Election 2024Analysis

Are parties of soft left ready for scrutiny and relentless demands of government?

Rocky relationship between the Social Democrats and Labour would need to be ironed out for each to play any meaningful role in power

Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik with Fine Gael's James Geoghegan: Labour would be tied to whatever red lines the Social Democrats might have. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA Wire
Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik with Fine Gael's James Geoghegan: Labour would be tied to whatever red lines the Social Democrats might have. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA Wire
Jack Horgan-Jones's picture
Jack Horgan-Jones
Mon Dec 02 2024 - 06:00

As the second night of counting drew in on Sunday, it seemed the Social Democrats and Labour were heading for about 20 seats between them. However, once that milestone has been met, the trajectory for the two parties is not clear.

In the days ahead, the parties will meet internally – and then with each other.

The exact structure of how things proceed is not clear. Both parties will have internal discussions. Some Social Democrats expect that founders and now-ex TDs Roisin Shortall and Catherine Murphy will be involved, but other party figures describe how they will be on call for advice if needed, rather than on site.

Labour leader Ivana Bacik is likely to reach out to her counterpart Holly Cairns – or Cian O’Callaghan, given the recent arrival of Cairns’s daughter – in the coming days and Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman. His interest in entertaining the possibility of going back into government remains to be seen. A senior Social Democrat indicated the party would be making moves, wanting to “take some initiative that isn’t simply sitting by the phone waiting for someone to ring you”.

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[ Ivana Bacik: 'First people we will talk to is the Social Democrats' ]

Both parties have outlined that they want to be in government, so that generates enough momentum for talks. “We do have an obligation and a responsibility to have that discussion,” says a Labour TD. If a shared platform emerges from those discussions, logic dictates they would discuss it with the larger parties – but there is also a realism in both parties about their bargaining power – and an abundance of caution born of two factors.

The first is that they know the costs of government would likely be massive, as the Green Party’s near-annihilation attests. “We’ve seen smaller parties go into government and overpromise and get absolutely hammered,” says one Social Democrat.

The second is that the price they could extract for going in – assuming Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil form the core of the next government with a seat total in the region of 85, just short of a majority – would be limited by simple arithmetic.

The Social Democrats have signalled openness to going into government but in the same breath outlining that a meaningful change from the current government’s approach to things like housing, health and disabilities must be on offer. It is hard to see how Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil would agree that their stewardship of such key areas has been so wayward as to need correction on this scale.

[ Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael likely to seek coalition deal with Labour and Social Democrats ]

The party says it will be firm on its “five red lines” from the campaign trail, which one TD describes as the floor for negotiations – acknowledging this may make them the path of most resistance when it comes to forming a government: “If they [FF and FG] can rely on a couple of Independents, they’ll do that.”

Labour sources acknowledge that the simple maths of government formation will deplete their power. “If government was impossible to be formed without Labour and the SocDems, then we’d have a bargaining tool, but I don’t see it,” says one.

“The leverage isn’t there,” says a second senior figure in the party. They also acknowledge that an opportunity to influence policy and government is attractive, especially with the public finances currently so healthy.

Across the party, there is a clear aversion to going in alone, even if that would in effect bind Labour to whatever red lines the Social Democrats might have. “We won’t be going on our own, there’s no way we’ll do that,” says a source.

The relationship between the two parties is pretty rocky. The Social Democrats stance towards Labour is a sort of studied indifference – and publicly, a mix of puzzlement and frustration about the perennial question of union or closer co-operation with Labour.

[ Gary Gannon: 'If Social Democrats are in government, it'll be a government of change' ]

Labour, for its part, serially questions the Social Democrats mettle. There would be a fear, one Labour TD says, questioning whether in government “at the first sign of an Instagram post that would make them uncomfortable, would they fold?”

One Labour figure questions whether either party is entirely ready for the scrutiny and relentless demands of government: “It takes over your whole life. Everything is secondary.”

How this might be ironed out in discussions is anybody’s guess.

As it stands, talks will take place – but with serious reservations and caution over the terms on offer and the consequences of going into government. In some ways, a Labour source says, it is more about showing the voters who are gravitating towards the centre left that there can be a “centre-left bloc that can be a proper opposition or a proper component to the government”.