The 'right' to be pragmatic???

national | politics / elections | opinion/analysis Wednesday January 24, 2007 16:03 by Miriam Cotton - MediaBite miriamcotton at mediabite dot org

After all these years Fergus Finlay, still doesn't get it

In a bold attempt to rescue the Labour Party from the perception that they are selling out on their core voter base, Fergus Finlay has launched a broadside from his Irish Examiner column against the obstinate voters who refuse to accept Labour are right to have sold their soul.

Finlay has been banging his head against this particular wall for a long time and no matter how politically bloodied he and the Labour Party get because of their adoption of the principle of ‘pragmatism’ as their defining characteristic, something is preventing him and others from understanding that the strategy is not popular and that it is never going to be. The tactic he is adopting - familiar PR strategy - is to tackle a nasty problem head on, to turn a negative into a positive with as much effrontery as you can muster, clothed in the language of indignation, earnest protestation and seeming reasonableness. Thus is Finlay attempting to rehabilitate the idea of pragmatism as a benign political philosophy when of course it is nothing of the sort.

“For years Labour Party members seemed to value moral victories more than actual victories.”

Well that situation has surely been inverted. Does the US have a moral victory in Iraq? It certainly has a technical victory. But 655,000 Iraqis are dead and the country has been utterly destroyed. The principle is identical: technical victory, at any price. The US get the oil: Labour get to be in power.

In his column Finlay gives a big clue to Labour’s fears in this respect: he thinks we believe that ‘Labour has no right to aspire to power’. And he’s not wrong. What most of us want is for a party to be elected on the back of policies that we support –and that they will keep the promises they make to us - power because of principle – not the other way around. Finlay is irretrievably sold on the idea that in order to make a difference you have to be in power. And because that conviction has been the main driver of Labour’s policies since 1992 and beforehand, they have changed the face of Irish politics, to their own and our detriment. “Pragmatism” has made a mockery of what integrity there ever was in Irish politics and Labour are uniquely to blame for that – they killed off much of the voice of protest and of real opposition.

“More insidious, and more fundamental, has been the perception that for Labour, the pursuit of power always demanded a struggle with its conscience.”

So now it’s insidious to expect that people act according to their conscience! It’s precisely because we knew the others were dissemblers that it didn’t surprise us, and conversely because we expected better of Labour that we are so angry about what they have done. Fighting the good fight was always going to be tougher. The trick was never to loose sight of that fact - to stay the course. Let there be at least one big party who is prepared to take on the property developers, the vested interests and the self-servers whenever they are abusing our trust, whenever they are disadvantaging vulnerable people for their own greed.

Instead we have a life long Labour party member and adviser at the most senior level of the party, wishing people joy of their SSIAs, for instance - a disgusting and naked bribe at the expense of every vulnerable person in the land – most especially those people who work hard, earn little and have great difficulty making ends meet . Yet Labour let that go without a whimper - ‘Mercs and perks’ is exactly right. Where do people think the money is coming from – out of FF TD private bank accounts? Why do they imagine that folk are languishing on hospital trolleys and the roads are so crap? There is no ‘give away’ – it is the great ‘take away’ in fact. Taking from the poor to give to the already rich, the money is being raised in every unconscionable way possible – through the stealthy stripping of benefits- eg from those caring for people with disability - to soaring fuel and other taxes, so that people are strapped to heat their homes and pay for basic necessities. It’s pure theft. All that money which should be invested in public services is going into private pockets instead for no reason other than to secure victory for Fianna Fail. We have also seen Finlay vouching for Bertie Ahern’s bona fides when he was caught red-handed accepting unrepaid ‘loans’, among other things. Now we have him preparing the ground for the distinct possibility of another Labour/Fianna Fail coalition. No wonder he was being so nice about Bertie. But can Finlay dispel a repetition of the chorus of disapproval he met with last time round, this time round?

The Finlay/Spring hypothesis completely overlooks the real value to the country of a powerful and determined opposition. There is nothing Fianna Fail would fear more than a party that was prepared to really hold them to account. There is nothing the electorate would appreciate more either. There is no restraint on Fianna Fail any more. If only to be able to exert that desperately needed restraint – to bring the debate back to what matters to people, a strong opposition is vital – arguably even more important than wielding power itself. Certainly it is no less important within a system that is purportedly based on checks and balances. It is a sign of how far we have come from political integrity that someone like Finlay can make out that the opposite is the case. I’ve argued before that honesty is being redefined as stupidity and naivety. Now it is being described as an ‘insidious’ quality. How did we get to that? Is that what we really think? If your partner cheats on you is your concern about that stupid or naïve? Why should it be 'pragmatic' for politicians to cheat on us and to renege on their promises? Isnt pragmatism merely another word for lies when it is used like this? So here we are, 15 years later, and it seems as though Finlay still has the ear of the Labour Party leadership and is encouraging them down the same discredited path, yet again.

Finlay himself is proof that his own thesis is groundless. Here is a man who, in a very particular way, has had an extraordinary degree of influence on Irish politics - and it had nothing to do with being elected. Most importantly, he was in a position to affect outcomes. Moreover, the most powerful people in our society, the corporations national and international wield more power over politics than any government party ever has. Power is not the issue - it is influence which is key - and Labour's obsession with power is preventing from exploring effective and legitimate avenues of influence - a massive oversight in their ethos. But the sad fact is that, appealing and seductive though their philosophy is to some, it has proved to be rather shallow in the final analysis. Pragmatism is no substitute for principle. Finlay has not succeeded in inventing a new morality – one devoid of the hard choices along the tough road that has to be trod if truth, fairness and integrity are your objectives. But because people have allowed themselves to be taken in by the idea that there was an easier way to go about it we are now reaping the consequences – the cracks and crevices are apparent everywhere. Labour have a lot to answer for.

Finlay chastises us for not being nice to Labour – for not giving them the same latitude as Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. It’s undeniably the case that he has a point where the media are concerned: the vast majority are daily printing news which is no more than the propaganda gospel according St Fianna Fail. It’s true that gullible folk continue to lap it up, while others again actually don’t give a damn about the fundamental dishonesty of Fianna Fail. He quotes a former colleague who said

“If newspapers wrote harsh things about Fianna Fail, the papers would be burned at the cumann meetings and the reporters hunted out of town. If they wrote harsh things about Fine Gael, members of the party would write long, worthy and dull letters to the editors explaining how the newspapers had got it wrong and how Fine Gael was only there for your own good. And if the newspapers wrote harsh things about the Labour Party, party members would swallow it all and immediately propose a motion of no confidence in the party leader.”

It is true the other parties are routinely savaged in a way that would be unthinkable (and seriously detrimental, career-wise) if it were Fianna Fail or Fine Gael being written about. It’s difficult to be brave in the face of that, for sure. Well maybe the new alternative/electronic media represent an opportunity for people who prefer to do politics the right way round? There is no reason why it should not, if people like Finlay would the thrall he and his party are in, in respect of the mainstream. But aside from all of that, it is interesting to note that this is the point he kicks off with: the fact of allowing media hostility to determine policy rather than what is good for the country. If you kow tow like Labour to a tied media then you end up with, well exactly what we have got: Fianna Fail ad nauseum because there is no alternative.

It’s a sad fact of life that a lot of people in the country think and behave exactly like Fianna Fail and therefore no coincidence that they get elected. As a post-colonial society a lot of people have yet to evolve out of the pettiness and venality which is one of the consequences of long term oppression and fear of poverty. A lot of money has been added into that poisonous little pot with ever more horrific consequences for our society. There are some truly nasty people out there wielding unprecedented influence through vulgar excesses of economic power, like bullies in a playground. That instinct for greed combined with sly subversion of public administration – of the very processes designed to protect people and to make our society fair - while understandable in the context of a violently occupied country, are lethal when there is no need or justification for them. It’s like shooting yourself in your own head. By failing to recognise this, Fianna Fail and the sly greed that they exclusively represent are the new oppressors and they have shown they are prepared to be violent against us too. Ironically, the civil service structure which the British left behind had more integrity and decency to it than Fianna Fail as a party are even capable of comprehending – and they have done their best to thrash what was handed to them on a plate. They have always resented and undermined the need for integrity. Where is the party that is truly opposed to all of this? It’s certainly not Labour. In other countries, at this stage of an election campaign, the opposition are at their most vociferous. In Ireland they are at their most docile.

I was first alerted to Finlay’s preoccupation with ‘pragmatism’ when I wrote an article about him and his work for the disability lobby. It was not long after the disgraceful Disability Act of 2005 had been signed into law by President McAleese. He had argued fiercely in the Examiner for her not to do that on the grounds of the Act’s unconstitutionality. We had a pleasant meeting and I offered to show him the interview before it was published on Indymedia. He generously waved the offer away. By way of an introduction to the piece, I made reference to the obvious anomaly between his position on the disability legislation and the thrust of his political philosophy. It wasn’t necessarily flattering to be reminded of that but it was certainly no more than anyone with a genuine commitment to the disability issue could honestly fail to make in the context of who he is. The rest of the article, 90% of it, was appreciative of pretty much everything else he had to say.

I have no idea whether he believed I was going to write an outright hagiography but I was dismayed when I finally sent him the already published article, to find myself on the receiving end of a series of furious emails in which he took extraordinary exception to my having used the word ‘pragmatic’ about him and Labour. I gave the example of how Declan Breen was treated for the crime of speaking his mind in public on a point of principle. At the time, it seemed an unremarkable, self-evident observation to me. But Finlay claimed it was a deep insult and accused me of having an ‘agenda’. The sole object of my concern was the disability legislation and its impact on people, in fact. Fergus Finlay was an interesting subject for an interview as much because of his public role in political life as for his personal involvement in the issue of disability – which has been considerable. Where previously he had said he would be willing to help me in any way he could in my efforts to highlight the iniquity of the disability legislation and to see what could be done about having it repealed, he now told me that he could not envisage working with me ever again. Even allowing for the possibility that he was annoyed for a good reason, his reaction was disproportionate to say the least. I sometimes wonder if he concocted his indignation at the point where I asked him to commit to acting on his promise. Could he ever have had any real intention of publicly supporting an issue that would have put him at odds with Fianna Fail in a very significant way?

Eventually I realised I had inadvertently put my foot down right on the rawest of Finlay’s raw nerves. Here is a man who has staked his political career on the idea of pragmatism. He is anxious to prove that it has been a success and to prove all of his critics wrong. So anxious is he on that point that he is prepared to rebuke and even to shun those who dare to question whether it actually is a success – even the public at large are to be told off for their recalcitrance if they are not signing up to pragmatism in the necessary numbers.

“…I readily admit to having an interest in this subject. It really gets my hackles up when references are made to the ‘con job of 1992’ because I was there and there was no con job”

The subject of disability is perhaps one of the best there is to illustrate exactly where political pragmatism has actually got us. It also demonstrates the near hypnotic trance the opposition parties are in when it comes to Fianna Fail. They are mesmerised by them. Try as I might I could not get any of them to see that the issue was a potentially wide open goal in terms of the election and that moreover it gave them a brilliant opportunity to do the right thing, for once. There was widespread rage and disgust at what Fianna Fail had done – at the devious and ruthless way people had been treated: the faux consultation, the smooth words and broken promises – the carefully orchestrated division of the for once united lobby. Supported, it must be admitted not least by a handful of infuriatingly ‘pragmatic’ people strategically placed from within who refused to acknowledge what was happening. Every lobby has its quota of those – the guys who fetch up to speak at every seminar and conference, affable and charming – cosying up to all in sight, but carefully picking their way through the difficulties with the least inconvenience or disadvantage to themselves, so long as they and theirs are doing alright out of it. And a lot of people are doing very well out of disability, thank you very much. Fianna Fail are adept at picking people like this – placemen to keep the plebs in line – to quiet them down and to stifle all meaningful discussion of their problems. Nevertheless, the lobby is possibly the largest single voter grouping the country has, although you wouldn’t know it if you read the papers. There are more than 1.4 million people affected, as Indymedia readers are no doubt weary from having pointed out to them. The vast majority of this group are experiencing unnecessary and frequently shocking difficulty in their every day lives.

I had put a proposal to Finlay and a very prominent public figure with regard to resurrecting this issue in the run up to the general election. It would have required some effort and planning but there was plenty of time in which to mobilise the lobby. It was a simple and I hoped effective plan, the details of which I won’t go into here. Finlay knows well how to set about doing such a thing and the third person would have been invaluable given his exceptional degree of access to many influential people and places in Irish life. All we had to do was to do it. With the backing of a number of big disability groups there is no doubt this could at the very least have been made into a definitive election issue. But because I used the word ‘pragmatic’ in my piece about him, Finlay withdrew his support. The other person, who is also a close friend of Finlay’s dropped out of the picture despite having been enthusiastic prior to that. As a personal friend of Finlay’s he must have felt conflicted, I suppose. For all these reasons, I believe I can be forgiven now for my incredulity on reading about Fergus Finlay’s conversion to what he mystifyingly refers to as the ‘right’ to be pragmatic. We might have made some real difference to people with disability had I not inadvertently used the ‘p’ word about him.

And so it is with the Labour Party - in line with the whole lemming-like lot of the opposition parties, Joe Higgins and the Socialist Party possibly being the sole exception, they are ultimately committed to one policy and one policy alone: ‘nothing is non-negotiable’ – the exact expression used to me by another prominent TD - in the event of brokering a power sharing agreement. Nothing is sacred. How on earth can we know what we are actually voting for? Listen to the dissembling in this statement of Finlay’s:

“Dick Spring, though he campaigned vigorously against the outgoing Fianna Fail government and was strongly opposed to it, never categorically ruled out doing business with them.”

Jeez, Fergus! Is that really the best you can do? I mean, let's translate that: 'Well, we did say something very, very like it which would have made you believe it, but we didn't say it ‘categorically’.' What is that if not an outright con? This, surely, is the essence of pragmatic politics. But according to Finlay, it is our own stupid fault that so many of us were under the distinct impression that we had been sworn to that Labour would not ally themselves to Fianna Fail – that it would not happen - that we took them at their very convincing word. We clearly need understand a lot more about this word 'categorical' if we are not to be caught out by it again. When is something categorical and when is it not? Is that not what is really meant by the Labour Party’s ‘right to be pragmatic’? To be allowed to mislead us with impunity? Sure, we can vote Fianna Fail any time if that’s all we want.