Leo Varadkar to step down as Irish prime minister

[WhereYouLeftIt]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/03/20/leo-varadkar-step-down-irish-prime-minister/

https://archive.ph/AyM2B

"Mr Varadkar, 45, will step down after suffering defeat in a referendum held to remove sexist language about women’s duties in the home from the Irish Constitution."

There's been a lot said about the No/No vote, when the political class took ot for granted there'd be a Yes/Yes. I wonder if his resignation is going to turn out to be part of a wider shake-out?

...and it probably goes without saying, I'm delighted he's gone.

@MarieDeGournay it's not based on the media report about the club , it's from people I know who mix in his circle in Dublin . I have no issues with his sexuality- I was delighted a gay non white man was Taoiseach but it doesn't make him above reproach .

You mean the Belgian capital rather than the passé Dublin nightclub I take it ? 😂 Neither would surprise me tbh.

😂 was sick down the steps there once

https://twitter.com/Niall_Boylan/status/1770863824075141455?t=slpGbCPltUu3g54x11-Qvg&s=19
I think this sums up how a lot of people are feeling. I can't see it changing with Simon Harris at the helm.

They'd be foolish to disregard Boylan, his poll on the referendums was more accurate than anything the official pollsters produced.

We were queueing to get in there one Xmas fadó. Every so often the bouncer would let one person out and one person in.

Jaysus , can you imagine what it's like inside the kip? Asked one of my friends. Half an hour later we were having a relaxed pint in a nice pub. Cheaper too!

I love how the media are studiously down-playing the role of the referendum - and therefore identity politics - in his downfall.

How many politicians is that now?
Leo
Penny Mordaunt (bid to be Tory leader)
Nicola Sturgeon
Sanna Marin (Finnish PM)
Arguably Jacinda Arden

All of them lost due, at least in part, to their stance on identity politics, and to pushing gender ideology. But the media still maintain there is nothing to see here. How many more will it take?

There is a significant disconnect between what voters want, and what progressive politicians want to offer. Varadkar’s downfall is symptomatic of this disconnect; with the referendum, the expectation was that voters should do as they were told, without considering what the voters might actually think.

(There’s a strong parallel with the recent constitutional referendum in Australia; voters were just expected to vote in favour, to the point that the groups campaigning in favour barely presented a coherent message.)

At the heart of this, I think, is a conflation of “popular” and “populist” in the minds of politicians, journalists, and others. There’s a notion that giving the voters what they want, in terms of housing, education, employment, is actually a bad thing, and that the role of the political classes is to educate the populace in how they ought to be thinking.

Agreed @MissLucyEyelesbarrow and @Solrock
I feel ever more like the politicians look down their noses at us dirty voters as they ascend the heavenly staircase of virtue. It's really satisfying to see them fall back down to earth. Sooner or later a clever one will figure out how to listen to the voters........

Yes this so true. Completely out of touch with the majority of the people. The same arrogance we've seen so often of politicians preaching to the country telling them the correct way to think. Well the referendum was a F U moment and I'm glad he is going.

And Brexit is another example, of course. Not just the referendum itself, but the decision of the Major government not to have a referendum on Maastricht (unlike many other EU countries).

I'm 100% Remain, but I sympathise with the way that Brexit-voters felt patronised and slandered for their views.

@MarieDeGournay totally agree with you, some of the stuff I've seen on social media even within the last few weeks have been sick, people have the right to criticise him all they want as a politician, but his personal life should be off limits

Also there is much more distrust of Governments. In Ireland voters were told this new wording and change in the constitution would be progressive and right and just but there was no genuine substance to it. So voters could not understand just how it was supposed to improve their lives (it doesn't as far as I can see).

@Liv999 and @MarieDeGournay
I get where you're both coming from, a few years ago I would have totally agreed, but now I feel less comfortable agreeing because it seems now that behaviour that was way over the line is to be celebrated now.
Two guys in a club I agree with you.

But what about a political public figure whose kink is stealing women's luggage at airports?
What if a politician wanted to wear the the most gigantic novelty breasts like the woodwork teacher?
What about a politician who was a drag queen who liked to perform in a very sexual way in front of kids?

There's a lot of behaviour now that is still far across the line for me, but seems to be stunning and brave to other people.
In the case of Varadkar I agree with you both, but it's no longer a blank cheque from me about politicians' private lives.

LV has changed his political beliefs so frequently it suggests a deep level of insincerity and opportunism. When he beat Coveney to be leader, he made no bones about it: he stood as the socially conservative candidate. He was the medic who was as opposed to abortion and same sex marriage. There was plenty of speculation at the time about his ‘unmarried’ status, and there were many people supporting gay rights, but LV wasn’t one of them. He subsequently came “ out’, and in a heart beat (no pun intended) ceased to support the anti abortion lobby and decided to support same sex marriage. I don’t believe he had a damascene conversion on these issues, he just went with the mood in the country.
He is not a leader in the sense of giving ‘leadership’ over difficult testing political issues, rather he lets others campaign and take risks and then he decides which option is most beneficial to his career.
Have you ever seen the first St Patrick’s Day meeting with Trump, and contrast it with Enda Kenny’s meeting the previous year? LV is hopelessly supine and fawning. LV will get a big job somewhere else and make tons of money.
He famously said that he was there for people who ‘get up early in the morning’. He’s at heart a middle class south Dublin chap, who is ambitious for himself and much less ambitious for his country.
Re his private life, he has a reputation for having a wandering eye and the snog fest in the nightclub was immature, inappropriate and shows poor judgment.
Harris will be the only candidate to replace him. Pascal didn’t want it (he’s eyeing the corporate world) and Coveneys glory days are behind him. Why did LV resign…..that’s the interesting question. Hes still young, he’s ambitious, power is highly addictive….

🤣🤣🤣 I do indeed. I'm on the west coast, with the sheeps and the cows, I have no knowledge of Dublin's places of debauchery 🤣

I was just thinking that yesterday - a few years ago we had Jacinda, Nicola and Leo all seemingly entrenched and going nowhere, despite being very unpopular with voters. And now they have all scarpered (jumped before they were pushed in my opinion).
Three leaders of small countries who were pushing progressive agendas that the majority of voters didn't ask for and don't want.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good narrative.

LV mentioned being gay publicly in January 2015 about 6 months before the marriage equality referendum.
He didn’t run against Coveney for FG leadership until 2 years later.

Yes, was just about to say this. LV came out publicly to Miriam O'Callaghan long before the leadership of FG (vs Smon Coveney) was at stake.

That was Jan 2015 and the marriage equality referendum was that May. The leadership battle was in 2017 as pp said.

I never saw any video of Varadkar snogging anyone, and I wouldn't be interested in seeing it anyway - so what? None of my business. One of our former Taoisigh carried on a well-known long-term ( but heterosexual) extramarital affair and the 'lickspittle press and chattering classes' ignored it, so the idea that LV got away with a snog because he's gay doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

From Boris Johnson asking 'Why isn’t he called Murphy like all the rest of them?'
to death threats from racists, homophobes and anti-vaxxers to fellow-politicians referring to 'choirboys' and 'fairies' - I can't recall that level of personal abuse for former Taoisigh, who were much more damaging to the country than LV.
Hopefully the next Taoiseach will be judged and criticized solely on his merits as a politician.

Minister Josepha Madigan resigning as well, and will not run in the next election - is there some scandal coming down the line, or could there be another reason they're all scarpering?

It just seems an unusual level of turnover for FG...

I think that after 13 years in government most of them want out rather than being back bench opposition TDs.

Well yes but ..video of CH snogging his gf would have torpedoed his career surely? We knew about it when I lived in London btw. Thanks to Private Eye. But nobody here had a clue.