Labour’s Euro comeback and the coalition question; 30 minutes with Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

The European Parliament building is a maze that is one part Terry Gilliam, one part college campus.

It is incredibly easy to get lost in the labyrinth halls of the European Parliament – getting 10,000 steps a day is a doddle – but we were in town to conduct an interview with Labour MEP Aodhán Ó Ríordáin.

Ó Ríordáin has done just about everything a Dublin politician can do – councillor, TD, Senator, Minister Of State, and now MEP – so having organised the meeting with his office there was an unspoken anticipation that our interviewee would be on top of his game and keen to talk shop.

The Labour MEP was in Brussels for EU Commissioner hearings week, and we met in his 15th-floor office the afternoon after Donald Trump’s second term as American president was confirmed.

With rolling coverage on the BBC showing “that gobshite,” Ó Ríordáin was happy to talk about Labour’s unlikely comeback and the state of politics at home and in Europe.

Ó Ríordáin’s decision to run for Europe came after the events of last November.

He said that his campaign was a reaction to the Dublin riots, and the changing mood informed Labour’s campaign.

Ó Ríordáin’s candidacy saw him beat Senator Annie Hoey and Fingal councillor Rob O’Donoghue for the nomination, but he said that the campaign, as a whole, stemmed from the fallout of the riots.

“I was getting a bit frustrated that some of these elections, big set-piece moments were passing Labour by,” he explained, and pointed to Ivana Bacik’s 2021 by-election victory in Dublin Bay South as the beginning of Labour’s reversal of fortunes.

“I thought us winning a seat in Dublin, considering the riots and the rise of the far-right was important,” he said.

In two separate interviews (one sit-down, one group interview), Ó Ríordáin said that Labour “lost its self-confidence” as a result of their participation in the Fine Gael coalition of 2011-2016.

“When we speak about drug policy, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, climate change, it might be dismissed as ‘woke’ but they are very real to people’s lives. I identify with those issues and I make no apology for it.”

Our sit-down interview shifted to Sinn Féin, the party, many believe, has replaced Labour as the party of working-class values and leftism in Ireland.

Not quite, Ó Ríordáin insists.

“As soon as Sinn Féin began shifting to the right on immigration and Ukrainian immigration rights and their opposition to the Hate Speech bill it’s quite clear what they’re doing to do.”

“When people vote for me, they know what they’re getting and there’s a level of trust in that which I take very seriously,” and elaborated that his win has lifted Labour’s spirits in Dublin.

Sinn Féin’s decline in support in Dublin ( the September 2023 Irish Times poll had Sinn Féin on 34% with Labour on 3%, while the November 2024 stats have the figures at 18% to Labour’s 7% and the Social Democrats at 12%), has seemingly boosted Labour’s moods.

Naturally, as is the case with anything Labour-related, the question of potential coalition partners came up. 

Party leader Ivana Bacik stated in the run-up to the election, and indeed, during the Leaders Debate on RTÉ, that Labour would be willing to go into government should there be interest between their party, the Social Democrats and the Greens, with the party potentially negotiating as one bloc.

The follow-up question then becomes do they back Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael for another term, or back up Sinn Féin as they look to cobble together the seats needed for a majority. 

Ó Ríordáin expressed concern about Fine Gael’s European grouping, the European People’s Party, seeking the support of right-wing or far-right MEPs to get certain legislation passed, such as migration.

EU Commissioner Ursula Von Der Leyen has in recent weeks, negotiated with far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on securing a better deal for Europe on taking in refugees.

Von Der Leyen will need the support of the far-right and even some extreme-right MEPs in order to get her Commission picks over the line as well as support in parliament.

Ó Ríordáin, who joined fellow Dublin MEPs Lynn Boylan and Barry Andrews in voting against her in July’s confirmation vote, said it is likely that Fine Gael would try a similar approach in Ireland if the situation arose.

“We can see within Fine Gael on the backbenches there was some opposition to the Hate Speech Bill, and in recent weeks you’ve had the Taoiseach correlating homeless figures with the number of asylum seekers in a very unfortunate way and the former Taoiseach talking about the levels of immigration being too.”

“I felt that maybe, within Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, there were some learnings from their past to be better but when push came to shove, when they had to make a call between  a narrative that would keep racists and those suffering racist abuse, and they sided with the racists.”

“They can dispute that charge of mine but I think it holds up.”

And what of a prospective coalition with Sinn Féin, and the proposed bloc between them, the Social Democrats and the Greens?

“What we want are stronger public services, the state to be stronger, making childcare and GP free, we are happier when a society is equal,” he explained, starting to warm up.

“On that basis, we need to have a fair and transparent taxation system; we are in the teeth of a homeless crisis with over 4,400 homeless children and we have a row over inheritance tax.”

He said that in Irish politics, there is an anti-state, anti-politics, anti-public space narrative that Fine Gael and Sinn Féin both push.

“The two of them are so similar; they like to pretend they’re not.”

He explained that the two parties are “interchangeable” on the likes of carbon tax, the TV license, household tax or the USC.

“At what point does somebody go in the middle ‘you know, stuff has to be paid for?’”

Discussing the centre-left pact, which is favoured by Bacik and Green leader Roderic O’Gorman (Cian O’Callaghan for his part, said in the Leaders Debate that the Soc Dems would “speak to all parties”), Ó Ríordáin said a united front was necessary.

The interview, being carried out hours after Donald Trump’s second term was confirmed with BBC News on mute in the background, lent a charged edge to proceedings.

“I think it’s ridiculous when you see what’s happened today,” and gestures to BBC News coverage of Trump’s win “I mean look at this shite, you have the far-right on the march in Europe in Poland, Hungary, Austria, Italy, accommodation centres in Ireland being burned, the rhetoric of rural independents… and the centre-left parties in Ireland say it’s more important to emphasis the difference between us than to unite and have a common platform.”

“The climate is in absolute breakdown. Racists are on the march. But yeah, I have to go out and convince people that the Social Democrats, ourselves and the Greens are fundamentally different.”

The inclusion of the Social Democrats in a joint progressive bloc is crucial; current polling indicates a joint Labour-Social Democrats-Greens negotiating bloc would be worth at least 15 seats in government negotiations.

Ó Ríordáin has one question for their prospective coalition partners the Social Democrats – “are they serious?”

“If they want to spend the rest of their lives never making a decision and never having to get their hands dirty, that’s fine. That’s easy politics. I could do that for the rest of my life but I don’t find that particularly engaging.”

“When you see what the far-right are doing, the climate breakdown, racism on the rise, gay and trans rights being under threat, we can’t house our people; we engage in this self-indulgent competition between us when the opportunity is staring us in the face.”

He said he refused what he saw as a “binary choice” between “the political representatives of IBEC and the IRA” and that he “refused” to choose between the two.

“I don’t think people should be asked to choose between them; Fine Gael can just go run the place forever and the only other option is a bunch of people who have a romantic attachment to violent republicanism and populism.”

“Between those two there has to be a movement that people can cling to, something that can actually improve their lives; if in 30 years time all these big challenges are left untackled and unresolved, then that’s our fault – and I think people are waiting for us to solve it.”