In the national interest?

More attention, I think, needs to be paid to the fact of how long it took to form a government after the last election. All the pundits and just about anyone with the slightest political nous were predicting long before the election counts were final that the only realistic option – other than another general election – was a minority led Fine Gael one propped up by Fianna Fáil support. That is what we now have. Yet of the 70 days between when the polls closed and when the new Taoiseach was elected by the Dáil, more time was spent in pursuit of the formation of a grand coalition between the two major parties, supposedly in the national interest.

Why was this, when anyone with a lick of sense knew that such an arrangement was just never going to happen? My own observation was that the media seemed to be very keen on the idea and promoted in heavily both in print and on the airwaves. I am not alone in my thinking. Eoghan Harris, writing in the Irish Independent, called it a ‘fantasy’ driven by the media. Given that this idea would have seen Fianna Fáil back in government and the largely liberal media in this country generally have little but contempt for that party one might be excused for wondering exactly why the media expended so much effort in trying coax, tempt, or bludgeon them into this grand coalition and Mr. Harris did speculate as to why they did. But I have suggestions of my own as to what prompted all the media pressure.

The first relates to the fact that Fianna Fáil, while not fully conservative on all matters, is the nearest thing Ireland has to a mainstream political party along those lines; and the media in Ireland is nakedly liberal. They would dearly love to see the party wiped out once and for all. They thought the mistakes made by the party during the boom years followed by a dramatic decline in support might have accomplished that. However, the electorate, to the dismay of the media, were more forgiving than they had hoped for as was shown by Fianna Fáil’s resurgence at the polls during the last election.

I suspect the media hoped it could pressurise the party into this grand coalition with the ceaseless mantra that to do so was in in the ‘national interest’. This, of course, would have been political suicide for the party. It would have torn itself apart trying to come to terms with what many members would have seen as being a betrayal of what Fianna Fáil has stood for since its inception. And then, come the next election, what was left would likely have gone the way of every other small party in government over recent years: one term in office followed by annihilation at the polls next time out.

We have a long history of this. It was the fate suffered by, among others, the Workers Party, the Green Party, and the Progressive Democrats. Labour was the most recent victim of what might be termed ‘the incredible shrinking supporting partner in government’ syndrome. Ireland’s media has been frothing at the mouth at the sight of FF making such a powerful political comeback; a few years of them in government would be a small price to pay as long as it helped to nail down the lid of their coffin.

But that would have been simply an added bonus, the icing on the cake so to speak. The most important reason was that the large majority enjoyed by the last coalition produced a government that was curiously subject to allowing itself to be influenced by the media – especially on controversial social issues. We’ve had a lot of liberal policy changes introduced into this country during the time of the last government, and the media played a large part not only in beginning the campaigns to have these changes, but making sure they ended in the passing of the legislation needed to make them a reality.

There was, for example, the 31^st Amendment to the Constitution, which reduced the rights of parents claiming to do so in the interests of children’s rights, whose only apparent effect was to give greater rights to the state to interfere with traditional family rights. There was the so-called  ‘Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill’, which claimed to allow for abortion only when the life of the mother was threatened, but which actually provides for the death of the child up to nine-months gestation on the grounds of suicidal ideation – despite the accepted fact that abortion is in no way a treatment in cases where a mother is threatening self-harm. And most recently there was the referendum to allow for same-sex marriage, something that went to the top of the government agenda on the basis of a media pressure despite no prior public perception that it was a pressing issue.

As noted above, the impetus for these changes was largely media driven. So it’s not hard to suspect that having had so much success with the formula last time out, the media would be keen to see a government with a big majority in place again – a government that didn’t need to worry too much about debating controversial issues in the Dáil, and a government capable of using the whip and the guillotine to ram legislation home with as little discussion as possible. All done, of course, in the national interest, and the media’s idea of what is in the national interest is further ‘progressive’ social change. The end of denominational schools is one of their pet projects, and one that is even dearer to their hearts is to pave the way for abortion on demand in this country by repealing the Eighth Amendment.

That the attempt to pressure the parties into forging a grand coalition has failed might on the surface seem to be something of a victory for those who still hold to traditional values in this country. After all, it means that it will be harder for the media to influence government than last time out. But it is not as simple as that. The media will continue to push the agenda of the liberal elite. There will be an endless stream of articles directly attacking what is left of traditional values in this country. There will be myriad ‘casual’ asides dropped into opinion pieces whose ostensible focus is entirely unrelated. A poisoned phrase dropped in here and there along the lines of ‘religion is oppressive’, ‘denominational schools are discriminatory’, ‘abortion is a human right’. This constant drip-drip of almost subliminal campaigning must be fought, for this is the campaign strategy of the lie repeated often enough appearing to be the truth. We have to challenge every such reference, overt and covert, where we find them and not let ourselves be worn down by the seeming endlessness of it all. To do so would be to concede the field, because battles like this never end. What we are called to do is soldier on; because refusing to yield, refusing to let traditional values be trodden underfoot – that is what is truly in the national interest.