Sir, – Joan Burton's plans for co-operation with Fine Gael in the approaching general election represent a shortsighted attitude to her party's fortunes and indeed Irish politics as a whole ("Fine Gael and Labour to limit election co-operation to vote transfer pact", September 8th). An electoral pact of any sort between Labour and its senior Coalition partner can only emphasise further the increasingly apparent similarities between the two, which is only likely to condemn Labour to political irrelevance in the long term.
Such attempts at pre-emptive compromise and negotiation, of a variety that normally only emerges after the votes have been cast, limit even further the tragically narrow breadth of mainstream political debate in Ireland.
This proves a worrying development for Irish democracy because of the way in which it confines voters, reducing the number of viable and distinct political choices available.
Ms Burton has ultimately failed, as did her predecessor, to develop a unique and ideologically distinctive policy position for Labour. Beyond that, any movement toward a joint electoral platform seeks to capitalise on the increasing uncertainty regarding the outcome of the election, as is evident in the comments of Brendan Howlin ("Labour and FG can provide State with vital stability", says Howlin, September 7th).
Many polls indicate that Independent candidates may enjoy more support than any of the parties, raising serious questions as to the ability of the next Dáil to form a coherent government. Labour and Fine Gael seek to inflate their support by presenting themselves as the only alternative to ungovernable chaos, a narrative that cynically debases our politics by transforming it into a system of “election by numbers”.
This attempt to avoid rigorous analysis of policy and ideological debate in the forthcoming election campaigns ultimately seeks to obscure the entrenched neoliberal consensus that lies at the heart of the governing echelons of the Irish political establishment. – Yours, etc,
CHRISTOPHER
McMAHON,
Castleknock,
Dublin 15.