By RICHARD GALLAGHER

Several months after watching the general election in the UK, Irish people’s attention now turns to their own general election. Across the water we saw many talking points arise in the aftermath of the election. Among which was the SNP’s total domination of Scottish politics and Labour’s disastrous performance. The most shocking talking point however, was the absurdity of a nation collectively punishing the Liberal Democrats for colluding with the Conservatives by voting for the Conservatives.

Regardless of your opinion of the Liberal Democrats performance in government, you have to admit the British electorate’s actions didn’t make much sense.

This got me thinking as to whether the curse of the minority party will strike again when it comes to the Irish general election. Will the Irish people punish the Labour Party for colluding with Fine Gael by voting for Fine Gael?

Regardless of your opinion of the Labour Party’s performance in government as well, you have to admit this doesn’t make much sense either.

The Liberal Democrats were absolutely annihilated after the general election in the UK with a high profile list of casualties making the obliteration even more harrowing. In total, they only retained 8 MPs from the 57 they had after the 2010 general election. In Ireland, the Labour Party could be decimated after the general election also as according to a recent opinion poll by the Sunday Times, only 6% of Irish voters would be in favour of giving the Labour Party a first preference vote.

This would mark a significant loss of seats from the 37 they hold currently and this emphasises one of many parallels between the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats as Irish people appear to have turned on the Labour Party with the same venom as the British electorate rejected the Liberal Democrats.

As well as this, if the history of Irish politics is anything to go by, the Labour Party’s decimation seems a very real possibility as the Progressive Democrats and the Greens will attest.

No doubt some within the Labour Party would hope that the resounding success of the recent same-sex marriage referendum would rub off on the party who instigated it. Some would also hope that the success of an economy that seems to have come out the other side of a recession would mean that the party is viewed as more economically responsible than before. However the vociferous voice of the water-charges and anti-austerity protestors is likely to drown out any praise the party can expect.

Similarly, the Liberal Democrats expected praise for their part in turning around the economy and anchoring the Conservative Party in the centre ground. What they got was uncompromising rejection by an electorate that saw them as unprincipled.

The lesson learned from examining the parallels in both political landscapes is to never underestimate how bad an idea it is for a centre-left party to go into a coalition, as a minority party, with a centre-right party. It is especially a terrible idea if you have the intention of coming out the other side with any promises kept or principles intact as it seems a long time ago now that Eamon Gilmore was surfing on a crest of a wave that actually had people thinking, albeit more than a little optimistically, that he had a chance of becoming Taoiseach. But then, “Clegg-mania” seems a long time ago as well.

The media in the UK continue to be concerned with the sorry state that their Labour Party is in. However, if the British Labour Party are in trouble, I hate to think what position their Irish namesake are in.

If this is to be the end of the Labour Party as a force in Irish politics, I believe a Labour Party that has included many of this country’s greatest political minds within their ranks and pushed through many progressive policies should be mourned.

But in saying this, my concern is less with the health of the Labour Party and more with the health of Ireland’s progressive left.

To say there is no connection between the health of The Labour Party and the health of Ireland’s progressive left would be incorrect because the fate of progressive Ireland is far too valuable to be put solely in the hands of what has been proved in the past to be an unelectable cocktail of Sinn Féin and the independents.

The irony is that as well intentioned as many of the government’s detractors are, they are simply strengthening the hand that feeds them austerity. Weakening the Labour Party will likely strengthen Fine Gael, or at the very least strengthen the Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil axis of conservatism that has ruled Ireland since the inception of the state.

Critics of the Labour Party’s decisions whilst in government tend to be split into two groups. You can choose to believe they are unprincipled or you can choose to take advantage of the unique perspective we have been afforded, of viewing two minority parties who have made similar mistakes and share the same fate, and conclude from these coincidences that their fate was predetermined.

Either way, the detractors may very well need a healthy Labour Party more than anyone as events in the UK continue to prove. The outcome of the general election proved that weakening the Liberal Democrats served to strengthen the Conservative Party and not Labour as many expected.

This strengthening of the Tories has given them a mandate to carry out more cuts and if this is mirrored in Ireland with a strengthening of the position of a possible Fine Gael / Fianna Fáil coalition then it could be of grave concern to Ireland’s most vulnerable.

Of course, some will argue that the austerity cannot get any worse, but then again, that’s what many commentators in the UK thought.

As well as this, for a country that now has a generation of people with a loud left-wing voice as seen in the recent same-sex marriage referendum and in a recent poll by the Sunday Times that suggested 76% of the population would be in favour of changing the current abortion laws, it is a shame we continue to be denied a government that reflects this.

With the likely demise of the Labour Party it doesn’t look like we will have one anytime soon either and for this we will only have ourselves to blame. We will not have the luxury of saying that we didn’t see it coming.