Dominic McGrath | Contributing Writer
Independence. The battle cry of this small island, north and south, for so long. Now, at least in the south, the battle cry is one of Independents. No longer, it seems, are voters beholden to the traditional political parties, their sheen of inevitability and dull reliability having faded in the last few years. The Dail is quickly becoming home to a voice of dissent, discordant, disorganised, but a voice that is reflecting, and perhaps widening a gulf between traditional party politics and the people of Ireland. To mutate a phrase from a short story I recently read by Colin Barrett, the independents do not number many here, but it is fair to say they have the run of the place.
There is a difference between rabble making and democratic politics, and our new Independent TDs cannot simply exist to cause a nuisance to the machinery of government.
ADVERTISEMENT
Where do the good students of Trinity fit into this new political equation? Or do we even have an input in this increasingly lopsided political model?
Our USI March for Education was a success. It illustrated that the students of Trinity hadn’t lost the art of rabble making. In a similar way the Independents haven’t sat quiet, and have been hotfooting it around local constituencies and beyond to attack the government. However, there is a difference between rabble making and democratic politics, and our new Independent TDs cannot simply exist to cause a nuisance to the machinery of government. To engage with this behemoth of a machine, they need to learn how to utilise it for their own benefit. Thus far, the Independents have learnt how to wield the media, and how to rebuke the government using it. However, a cacophony of voices will not bring about the change Ireland deserves. In my mind, an interesting model is the SNP in Scotland, a party that united a movement towards independence that twenty years ago was fragmented, lacked credibility and in need of severe rehabilitation.
On a recent episode of Inside Politics by the Irish Times, a newly elected Independent TD spouted his aspirations for politics, and how he hoped to forge a new path in what he saw as the crooked bureaucratic wilderness in which the State operates. Listening to him, I admit to being impressed by his seemingly sincere desire for change, and it was refreshing to hear an outsider on the inside talking so candidly in the media about the dire state of Irish politics and its need for reform.
We cannot shrug off the flaws in our system by exchanging pious sentiments in the door frames of local constituencies. In a similar way, the newly elected Independents cannot just be the ‘enemy within’. They must be a cogent form of opposition.
However, this fog soon cleared, and I felt only frustration. This was a speech riddled with euphemism and aphorism, coming from a man whose hands have not yet been even slightly dampened by the flood of issues that beset our democratic bodies. No wonder the skin of our democratic body grows cracked and chafed, when it has had to face an economic storm as severe as our own.
This isn’t to forgive our politicians for their mistakes, or to leave them immune to attack by pointing to the giants of institutions standing on the shoulders of our dwarf Ministers. But we cannot shrug off the flaws in our system by exchanging pious sentiments in the door frames of local constituencies. In a similar way, the newly elected Independents cannot just be the ‘enemy within’. They must be a cogent form of opposition.
A recently elected Socialist Party TD announced that he was elected to break laws, not to make them. This belligerence to government is appreciated. It wouldn’t be a new wave or movement if the Independents curtsied and bowed when they entered the Dail. But they mustn’t confuse insubordination with reckless inertia. One might also whisper that in the ear of a certain Sinn Fein TD.
The voter push was admittedly apolitical, but it captured how effective campaigns become when disparate bodies unite behind a common cause.
In the same way, the students of Trinity must engage with politics. We cannot look to the new breed of Independent politician as the future image of our political system, or convince ourselves that a plurality of individual political bravado, on the left and the right, can inspire a country to social and political change. The recent push for voter registration was a wonderful example of a co-ordinated effort to force students to engage with an issue of paramount importance to how our society sees itself, and I’m sure it reinvigorated the debate among many students. This push was admittedly apolitical, but it captured how effective campaigns become when disparate bodies unite behind a common cause.
However, if we look to the political parties of Trinity, we see groups that refuse to respond to the whole scale revulsion towards political parties that the people of Ireland clearly feel. Our current student parties have been reduced to that guy (or girl) who still gushes about the benefits of vinyl when the rest of the world are on Spotify. They have failed to see that their vehicles for success are no longer congruent with their worthy ambitions. In Trinity, at least, I see very little appetite for any party of any ideology or stripe. What we need is not to embrace the independent route, but to achieve a movement towards true political independence.
Yes, students are apathetic to organised politics, and yes students seem to have regressed to an amorphous body that show no political loyalty or cohesion. But this really doesn’t differentiate them from most of the current electorate, young and old, in Ireland. You don’t have to strain your ear to hear every day discussions that reflect a desire for change. Yet this change doesn’t have to come in the form of Independents, riding like knights into battle with the establishment. What we need is a new party, with a new image, founded by a generation untainted by the “greasy till” our economy had become in the excesses of the Celtic Tiger.
The solution is not to change the leopard’s spots, but to find a new mascot in the political jungle. Ireland is in a position where a young, fresh faced party of earnest students and young people could succeed.
Marketing executives often talk about re-branding. It is a difficult proposition for anyone with a vested interest in politics to stomach. Even the least staunch ideologue in the Dail would have trouble with the idea of dismissing the heritage and legacy of their party to win more votes. Yet this can happen organically, parties are malleable, government ministers change. A younger generation emerge with a more progressive outlook, and more refreshing insight into the political system. Unfortunately, this evolution is often stymied by the party system that looks increasingly malignant in a small country like Ireland, sapping the positive fresh faced image that our current crop of Ministers would love to imitate, meaning that the enthusiasm young politicians share is tainted by the prejudice attached to nearly all of our current parties.
The solution is not to change the leopard’s spots, but to find a new mascot in the political jungle. Historically, new political parties have often fallen flat when faced with the electorate. However, Ireland is in a position where a young, fresh faced party of earnest students and young people could succeed. A party that would provide a new forum to both voters and wannabe politicians who feel unable to invest in our political parties.
No one cares what James Connolly Youth or any other quasi-revolutionary group are talking about. They’re bait for the Piranha. But the majority of people in Ireland have shown that they want to engage with grass roots movements that spring from genuine discontentment and passion for change. Surely Trinity students are not just intrepid enough, but intelligent enough, to brave the quagmire of our political system to sow the seeds of a student led political party, one that will hopefully fill the void between the divisions of the Independents, and the dreariness of our political parties. This isn’t a call to arms or a trite comment on our political system. We need a party that strikes a balance between pragmatism and a real desire to grapple with our political system to bring about change. If our Independents are not galvanised into a coherent entity, then the energy and appetite the Irish people are displaying will go wasted.
We need a party with a vision that is congruent with the majority of the Irish people, but one that is not so obtuse as to impede access to our political system. This isn’t a call to arms, this is a call to coalesce.
Correction: 23:06, January 14, 2015
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that a recently elected independent candidate had said that he was elected to break laws and not to make them. In fact, it was Socialist Party TD Paul Murphy who said this to an Irish Water worker last month.
