Against the Delusion of Reform: Fine Gael Already Represent Their Core Values

There has been a lot of talk from dissenting voices in Fine Gael of late about returning to their ‘core values’, which are, as Mayo TD Michael Ring has it, law & order, promoting business, housing, and a mild social conservatism. While these have all been values of the party at some point in the past, they are arguably not their core values.

Looking at Fine Gael across its near century-old existence—from counter revolutionary tendencies to facilitating near-open borders—what remains consistent is their representation of those with ‘a stake in the game’, or, to be less abstract, the property and business-owning class.

Before you dismiss me as some NazBol type, I am a firm believer in private property rights, but less so in the promotion of property interests and rent seeking. Revolutions are troubling times for this class, while times of high inward migration are much the opposite.

As David McWilliams puts it in his book The Generation Game, released at the height of the celtic tiger, “Economics tells us that immigrants make landowners and employers richer and workers poorer.”

When commentators try to place Fine Gael, some argue that they are to the left and others argue they are to the right (and then there is the giga brain who concludes that they are of the centre). Conceiving of them in this sort of Political Compass-based way is quite limiting.

It is better to imagine the interests they represent. As representatives of those who wish to maintain and promote their stake in the game, naturally, their political agenda is to ensure the preservation of the game.

In political science terms, they are institutionally conservative. They have pandered to social conservatism and to social progressivism, to the economic left and to the economic right, but would never associate with the word ‘radical’, and probably not with ‘change’.

For example, they might campaign to promote social welfare, but they would never pose themselves as a threat to private ownership. In this light, their ‘core values’ are quite clear.

Perhaps then what is truly being suggested by dissenting voices in the party is not to change their core values, but to change their auxiliary values to better support their core values in these changing times. Perhaps they represent their core values already.