How Ireland’s ambitious PM Leo Varadkar squandered his popularity

Evoking the Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp’s farewell speech, Leo Varadkar stood outside Government Buildings in Dublin and insisted politicians were human beings with limitations, adding: “We give it everything until we can’t any more.”

In a shock announcement, Varadkar said serving as taoiseach had been the honour of his life and that part of leadership was knowing when to pass on the baton.

His admission that he was no longer the best person for the job was quite the contrast from his ambitious rise to the top post in 2017 when he was just 38 – the youngest premier in Irish history. At the time Varadkar was seen as a vote-getter, popular with young people – he was Ireland’s first openly gay prime minister and its first from a minority, his family hailing from India. But his party, Fine Gael, has been in power for 13 years and its popularity has waned under his leadership, culminating in a crushing double referendum defeat on March 8. Those defeats for ill-timed and unwanted efforts to modernise definitions of family and care in the Irish constitution were laid firmly at the feet of Varadkar, their architect.

During his tenure the Irish economy has performed well but a housing crisis, constant problems in health services and rising anger about immigration have led to a sense that success has been squandered. Varadkar referred in his farewell speech to the 100,000 Ukrainians taken in as a success of his term. But the government’s poor handling of immigration has also been criticised for enabling the rise of a hard-right faction for the first time.

He was also criticised for his handling of a knife attack at a Dublin school by an Algerian man, which sparked riots last November. He insisted that crime and immigration should not be linked, adding: “There are people born and bred in Ireland who commit terrible crimes every day, including murders.”

Disquiet led to questions about whether he was out of touch. Perhaps in reference to this trend, Varadkar said some would be shocked by his resignation but others would cope “just fine”. His term in office will be synonymous with efforts to liberalise Ireland. While health minister he came out as gay, before heralding the Yes vote in the marriage equality referendum in May 2015 as “more like a social revolution”.

He campaigned for a Yes vote in the 2018 referendum to allow access to abortion. On that occasion 66 per cent voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment barring the procedure. This brought him into conflict with more conservative elements of Ireland, which still account for a substantial minority.

His personal popularity has waned and he has been accused of failings in his leadership of Fine Gael. Almost a third of the parliamentary party will not stand at the next election. That sense of a party and government in free fall culminated in the recent referendum defeats.

It has coincided with the rise of Sinn Fein, with the republican party on course to be the largest in the parliament for the first time. It seems inevitable the coalition government with Fianna Fail and the Green Party will run its full term until March next year to give a new leader a chance to stamp their authority.

The leaders of the other coalition parties, Micheal Martin of Fianna Fail and the Greens’ Eamon Ryan, have said they will support a new Fine Gael leader’s election as prime minister and hence serve a full term.

The focus will now switch to Varadkar’s successor. The favourites are Paschal Donohoe, 49, the finance minister, Simon Harris, 37, the higher education minister, and Simon Coveney, 51, deputy leader.

Varadkar will stay on as prime minister until a new leader is appointed on Saturday, April 6. The party will need to build support for the local and European elections in June.

Varadkar said he believed the re-election of the current coalition government would be the best result for the country. “After careful consideration … I believe that a new taoiseach and a new leader will be better placed than me to achieve that,” he said.

The polls would suggest the public agreed.

The Times