Seán Dorgan Fianna Fáil’s Progressive Kingmaker?

A hearty performance at November’s general election steadied the ship within the Soliders of Destiny as years of anti-Martin disquiet failed to amount to anything beyond internal grumbling. 

Heading into semi-retirement shortly, even a return from the grave appearance by Bertie for the presidential race coming is unlikely to deflate Martin’s departure on a high note in favour of Jack Chambers.

The five-point lead in this week’s Red C polling is far from the nadir of 2011 when FF’s very viability was in question following the calmatous Cowen years. 

Right-wing critics within FF have waited too long to wield the blade against the Martin leadership, which saw the party mutate from a catch-all populist party for Middle Ireland into something indistinguishable from the centrist wing of Labour.

Whereas FF ministers once had to assuage paranoia against the imposition of abortion from Brussels, Martin and his Cabinet now sign off on exclusion zones specifically targeting silent prayer outside clinics offering the procedure just last year.

Following in the footsteps of multiple European Christian Democratic parties, which have been hijacked, retrofitted and worn as a political skinsuit for liberal careerists, FF is very much different than the wreck of a party Martin inherited 14 years ago.

The genesis of Martin’s overhaul lies in the months before, during and after the 2011 election, which saw a whole generation of the party leadership depart. Making a conscious effort to break with the past, Martin was meticulous in the party shedding its ‘old boy’ imae through the careful selection of a female frontbench, often including county councillors rather than sitting TDs.

Brown envelopes were out, gender quotas and a new metrosexual outlooks were in. The grassroots, still with their heads spinning from the electoral hammering of 2011, nodded along obsequisly. 

Steadfast in this process was the now party general secretary and Bertie-era Seanad appointee Seán Dorgan. 

Effectively pensioning off an older generation of often more conservative FF backroommen, it was this ‘detoxification process’ in the eyes of Dorgan and the Martin leadership that set in motion the decade of hyper-liberalisation that we see the end product of today.

A Smurfit business school graduate rubbing shoulders with Ray McSharry, Dorgan’s rise to prominence came amid a wider centralisation of the party away from the grassroots cumann structure into a model favouring Áras De Valera.

Rather privately, the FF grassroots and county-council rank and file has been quite an embarrassment to party HQ with the 2010s seeing a new emphasis on female and LGBT candidates, often leading to in-house accusations of a ‘gay mafia’ operational at a senior level.

Hardly a paradigm for the hard right, nonetheless the Ahern years saw a broadbased coalition coalition pulling the lever for the party, spanning working-class Dubs, rural gombeens and nouveau riche developers, a far cry from the more sanitisied progressive vision envisioned by Martin and Dorgan.

Declaring FF as being a ‘centre left’ alternative to an apparently more pro-business FG, Dorgan is regarded as the man behind the throne in the waning months of the Martin leadership.

This process of scrubbing the party top brass was assisted by FF strategist Deirdre Gillane and deputy general secretary Pat McPartland,  with Martin himself adamant in completing the liberalisation process through his dauphin, Jack Chambers.

The Sean Gallagher and Peter Casey campaigns both portended the potential for the radicalisation of the FF grassroots given a halfway viable figure with various right-leaning Independents growing out of FF’s shift to the left. Likewise, Martin going against the party faithful and even a majority of his TDs on Repeal of the Eight emphasised a marked difference between HQ and a disgruntled grassroots.

An underscored moment in the Martin years came with the defection of MEP Brian Crowley because the party was becoming increasingly unmoored in its ideological direction, adding that FF was better suited to align with European conservative parties.

Another claim brought against Dogan specifically has been the neutering of the selection process for TD seats with the keenly despised gender quota system a mask favouring the simultaneous centralisation and liberalisation of the party.

While Martinites would defend the softening of the party’s image as being a necessary bridgehead to a new, more progressive future, opponents on the right of FF would argue that the party’s USP has been sold out in the Martin years. The slow ticking upwards in support for Independents or even Aontu are largely driven by FF grassroots alienated by the ideological trajectory of a party that has lost itself. 

Opting to run to the liberal centre rather than engage the 21st century as a national conservative party, one of Bertie’s visions towards the end of his premiership, despite being temporarily top of the pill with regards polling FF, is far from the days it could count on 40% of the electorate as a class coalition many others would die for.

Bertie’s second coming for the Áras could be a harbinger for a wider bellyache in FF one that could even see the party return to its populist ethos and try to steal the thunder on the migration question. 

Similarly, the chasms opened between FF’s central committee and a grassroots more in tune with national populism will potentially air more and more, come the time of Jack Chambers to take up the leadership mantle.

Try as Martin’s accolades might, any real future FF will be trying to fashion itself a place at the table for the post-liberal world, one where identity, national democracy and stern migration controls matter more than any gender quota ever would.