Across the Arab world and beyond, ruling regimes are being humiliated. Parties in power for most of the time since the British were forced out now are being reduced to a rump. Dynasties where favoured sons expected to rule are now joining the unemployment ranks that their policies did so much to create.
While most of the world has been enthralled by the events in North Africa and beyond, a dramatic shift has also taken place in western Europe. The Dublin government has also fallen. In most of the coverage of the recent elections to the Irish Dail, a key fact was overlooked. This is the first European government to have been brought down because of its response to the economic crisis.
The parliamentary term for the Fianna Fail-Green coalition was not due to end until 2012. But four years of recession exacerbated and lengthened by enormous cuts in public spending led to plummeting opinion poll ratings. Even then, the government clung to power by simply refusing to call the necessary by-elections as seats became vacant. It only agreed to throw in the towel following a spectacular by-election loss of a safe seat to Sinn Fein – a contest that had necessitated a Supreme Court ruling before it could go ahead.
The ousting of the administration led by Brian Cowen has not led to a new government more likely to meet either voters’ wishes or their economic grievances. But the sea change in popular sentiment is evident. At the 2007 general election parties of the right – Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Progressive Democrats – registered 72 per cent of the vote. February 2011’s general election saw the right’s vote fall to 53 per cent. The parties of the left – Labour, Sinn Fein and smaller socialist parties – doubled their combined vote to one-third of the total. Many of the “independents” are also from the left, taking the total to well over 40 per cent. There is a widespread belief that the final outcome could have been even better. Labour had polled over 30 per cent for most of 2010, but fell rapidly after it joined an economic consensus for cuts with the government parties and Fine Gael.
During the election campaign, both Fine Gael and Labour promised voters a renegotiation of the terms of the deal with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, which extracts 85 billion euros from Irish taxpayers to bail out EU banks. First in the queue is Britain’s RBS, which is being bailed out on both sides of the Irish Sea. Other parties promised a unilateral repudiation of the deal. In all, parties and individuals promising at least renegotiation received 75 per cent of the vote – and they await any serious efforts at renegotiation from either Labour or Fine Gael.
Events in Ireland may again be a pointer to European-wide trends. The Dublin government was the first to adopt “austerity” measures and the first to be toppled. Historically, the then radical Fianna Fail was the first government to introduce Keynesian-style measures in response to the Great Depression of the 1930s. These policies laid the foundations for its future success. The wave of revolts and revolutions against the First World War also began in Ireland.
In Portugal, the government looks shaky, with the Social Democrats threatening to oppose further cuts in public spending, which could lead to the fall of the minority administration in Lisbon. Governing parties are losing ground across western Europe. In Germany Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat Union suffered a crushing defeat in the Hamburg regional elections and her coalition’s grip on power nationally looks increasingly tenuous. Likewise, Nicolas Sarkozy’s Union for a People’s Movement took a hammering in last year’s regional elections and pollsters predict further gains for the left in coming local elections. The are also likely to be gains too for the far right, boosted by Sarkozy’s own brand of racist populism, anti-Roma and anti-Muslim stunts. In Britain, the latest YouGov poll showed Labour having a narrow lead for the first time over the combined support for the coalition.
Oddly, it is at this time that David Miliband has claimed: “Left parties are losing elections more comprehensively than ever before”. In response to this mythical steamroller of the right, it is suggested the only option is to become more like it on immigration, tax and spending and the reduced role of the state.
If the right sets the agenda, the right will win. As Sarkozy is finding out, boost the racist agenda and the racists benefit. If Labour adopts Tory policies, that will only benefit the latter. The war in Iraq brought death to tens of thousands, and was a body blow to Labour’s popular support. Following David Cameron into the Libyan desert will not aid the Arab revolution one iota. And war fever is the best way to revive an unpopular Tory administration, as the Falklands War demonstrated.
There is no reason to recycle the failing Tory brand and try to pass it off as Labour. The Tories are in long-term decline. David Cameron’s vote is the lowest ever for a Conservative Prime Minister.
Governments of both left and right are falling because their policies are producing a decline in living standards for the majority of the population. Instead of copying a failing formula, Labour can build a winning coalition around a programme to increase incomes for the overwhelming majority.
Michael Burke is a former senior international economist with Citibank
