Browne's disappointment is just not convincing

Vincent Browne claims that "Pat Rabbitte has been a disappointment as leader of the Labour Party, but a disappointment in a way we should have anticipated".  Browne believes that this is because Rabbitte emerged from the "Stickies", whose politics were essentially a "con job", based on secrecy and manipulation.  He's not entirely wrong about elements of the WP culture (I've dealt with this before here) but if he believes that culture to have been so contaminated, then he cannot credibly claim to be "disappointed". 

Combining a maximalist radical stance with utter cynicism about the possibilities of reform, Browne is a familiar figure among columnists whose criticism is anything but constructive.  The logic of his position would seem to indicate that we should simply give up. 

Office without that change of mindsets is powerless. Sure, some marginal improvements can be made, sure the system can be cleaned up a bit here and there. We can give back some teeth to the Freedom of Information Act, we can strengthen the anti-corruption laws, maybe improve the health system a bit and do a bit about illiteracy and maybe about housing. But the show will continue to be run by the big boys, and the big boys will hog a vastly disproportionate share of the wealth, will corner the prize bits of the educational and health systems, will continue to set the political agenda, rigged in their own interests - and in that latter task will be enthusiastically aided and abetted by media workers. Did you notice how gushingly media reporters and commentators were over the latest Government con-trick on the National Development Plan?

While Browne can develop a powerful critique of the present and recent past, we will never get any idea from him about how to advance to a more desirable future.  Apart from "campaigning on issues of unfairness and inequality, persuading people there is a gross injustice at the heart of society and that a fair society can come about only by a change in power-relations...", Browne has nothing to say about nothing to say about how to build a political movement based on conviction that has a chance of taking power in the medium term.  For him, politics is all about "persuasion" and "changing mindsets", nothing about the mechanisms to bring this about.  And of course not a mention of  how parties should organize and communicate.

Browne isn't alone in his clueless state.  There is very little strategic thinking within the mainstream European left on how to bring about shifts in the balance of social, economic and political forces that are structural in nature, likely to endure and that could create the conditions for further transformation.  Rabbitte is no more ill-equipped than any other leader of the European left and Brown's "disappointment" is simply cover to bash the ex-Stickies.  Regardless of what happens after the next election, progressive forces in Ireland, especially those of us in and around the Labour Party, need to begin a serious conversation about what our medium term goals should be and how we might conceivably arrive at them.