Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin assesses Leo’s legacy and where we go from here.
A day after Leo Varadkar’s unexpected resignation, the hagiography around him is already being constructed. “Clear-eyed, decisive politician without the common touch”, reads Harry McGee’s headline in the Irish Times. His coalition partners have been out to thank and praise him, with Martin referencing the “continuity and stability” their relationship helped provide the Government and Ryan calling him an “energetic and committed leader”. But beyond the ranks of his Government partners and the establishment press, Varadkar won’t be remembered fondly by those who suffered under his rule.
Thatcherite
Varadkar set out his stall early on as a right-wing, anti-worker Thatcherite. It is clear that he leaned into these politics to rile up a right-wing Fine Gael base, but it’s equally clear that this wasn’t just for show – his genuine hatred for working class and poor people was evident throughout his rule. His claim to want to look after “people who get up early in the morning” never rang true for thousands upon thousands of low paid workers who, no matter how early they might get up and how many hours they might work, simply cannot earn enough to poke their heads above the poverty line. It never rang true for the health workers keeping our creaking health service going in dire conditions – these were met with ridiculous statements like Varadkar’s warning that more hospital beds ‘’can slow down staff”. Nor did it ring true for the Debenhams workers, who engaged in the longest strike in Irish history for redundancies they were owed, but who were shafted by the company and by the Government before ultimately having their strike broken by Gardaí.
While he claimed to stand up for these workers, Varadkar went on the attack against anyone on social welfare. Back in 2007, he told the Irish Times that his least favourite Christmas film was A Christmas Carol and that “Tiny Tim should get a job”. It was this Scrooge-like spirit that he brought into his time at the head of the Department of Social Protection with his “Welfare Cheats Cheat Us All” campaign. There was, of course, never any mention of the tax dodgers pocketing millions and billions out of the system of organised robbery that is the Irish tax haven. Meanwhile, people on social welfare have been hounded and harassed under a system that provides them with less than the bare minimum. Single mothers have described the “degrading” treatment they have been subject to, where social welfare inspectors “would visit their homes unannounced, opening wardrobes looking for men’s clothes, and questioning them about cars parked outside.”
Likewise, the housing crisis created by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, along with their Green Party and Labour Party props, is a stain on our society. Since this Government took power, homelessness has increased by a staggering 55%. About 290,000 people are considered to be among the hidden homeless. The Government has rolled out the red carpet for vulture funds and cuckoo funds and mounted a staunch defence of landlords, private developers and anyone who stands to make a profit from our housing misery. At the same time, they have refused to build social housing in anything like the quantities we need, instead going as far as to begin privatising public housing, to the benefit, once again, of major investment funds.
Varadkar has been in the thick of this defence of housing profiteers, through the policies of his Government, his snide comments that “lots of us” can simply get money from our parents to help buy a house, and his opposition to proper rent controls on the grounds that “one person’s rent is another one’s income”.
Leo the Liberal?
While his right-wing economic outlook is clear for most to see, there will be some who demand we recognise his contribution to the social liberalisation of Ireland – the gay Taoiseach who brought us the referendum to repeal the 8th amendment. The reality is very different, as a cursory look at Varadkar’s record will reveal.
Varadkar started out as a staunch conservative on these social issues. Speaking on the Civil Partnership Bill in 2010, he said:
“Every child has a mother and father, and every child has a right to a mother and a father, and as much as possible the State should try and vindicate that right. And the right of that child to a mother and father is much more important than the right of two men to have a family or two women to have a family.”
Likewise, Varadkar was opposed to abortion, but as the movement for Repeal was coming to a fever pitch, he tested the wind. He began to shift to accommodate the shifting ground, eventually granting the referendum and finally jumping on board and calling for the removal of the 8th amendment in 2018.
The day of the results, he had himself photographed looking out at the crowds outside Dublin Castle, and said that “a quiet revolution” had taken place.
For people who had fought for the removal of the 8th amendment for decades, who had seen thousands go to England, who had lived through the X case, the death of Savita Halapanavaar, and finally the energy explosion of the movement into an unstoppable tidal wave, this was anything but quiet.
Leo and Mícheál: NATO’s Good Boys
It is impossible to separate Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil’s pro-corporate, tax-haven driven policies from their attempts in recent years to do away with what’s left of Ireland’s neutrality and back US and EU imperialism to the hilt. Having signed Ireland up to PESCO in his first stint as Taoiseach, committing Ireland to increased military spending and cooperation with EU military projects, Varadkar, along with Mícheál Martin, used Russia’s imperialist invasion of Ukraine to push for increased Irish cooperation with NATO. Their stage-managed Consultative Forums on Neutrality attempted, unsuccessfully, to shift public opinion when it comes to the public’s support for neutrality. However, public opinion has not prevented them from continuing their attack, attending meetings with NATO and providing military aid to the NATO effort in Ukraine.
The explosion of the global Palestine solidarity movement has put them under pressure, but since October 7th, Varadkar and his Government have not taken one concrete action to help the people of Palestine. While the movement has forced him to call for a ceasefire and to refer to the support of Irish people for Palestine in a speech in the United States, he has stubbornly refused to implement sanctions on Israel, to expel the Israeli Ambassador, to join South Africa’s genocide case at the International Court of Justice, or to boycott the White House on St Patrick’s Day – all of the main demands being put for months now by the movement. Instead, last week he told us that “Biden’s heart is in the right place”, even as he recognised that the US President was going to continue arming Israel to the hilt.
The Next Tory
Leo Varadkar is such a detestable character that it is unsurprising that people have been rejoicing in his departure. But even as people celebrate, what appears to be a coronation for the next Tory, Simon Harris, is well under way. All three Government parties are saying there will be no General Election. Instead, the next Taoiseach will be chosen by the Fine Gael membership and parliamentary party, as this coalition limps towards the end of its term.
And as hateful as Varadkar is, he didn’t do the damage on his own. This is Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil’s Ireland, with a smattering of cycle lanes and lettuce from the Green Party. The Taoiseach will change and the coalition will continue, perhaps for a few more months, perhaps for the last year of the term. But none of them – Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, or the Green Party – can provide a way out of the crises facing our society. What is needed is to build on the kind of revolutionary energy that is present right now in Palestine solidarity movement in order to bring about radical change, put neoliberals like Varadkar in the dustbin of history, and build a society that looks after all who live in it.
