Only coups, conflicts and clashes will put down Mary Lou McDonald's grand left coalition

“It will not even stop there. We know from other countries that as capitalism decays, the wealthy will use far-right and fascist gangs who use a spurious radical rhetoric to divert anger onto social scapegoats such as migrants, gay, or trans people. In the very final analysis, they will deploy the police and the army to move against elected left-wing governments, as they did in Chile when the first self-proclaimed Marxist president, Salvador Allende, was elected.”

It’s fantastically deluded, but also profoundly insulting to the gardaí and Defence Forces, which have upheld the institutions of the State in our 100-year-old democracy. Ironically, the only movement which tried to violently overthrow those institutions was the Provisional IRA, led by Sinn Féin, which People Before Profit now envisages leading this “left government”.

When Boyd Barrett was asked on RTÉ’s The Week In Politics if he seriously believed a left-wing government would be overthrown by a coup, he tried to laugh it off – and blamed the media. “No, first of all there is some very mischievous reporting about what we said...” he said, in reference to the word-for-word quoting of page 20 of his own document. It’s all a media conspiracy. Donald Trump would be proud.

Boyd Barrett went on to point to a “campaign” against Jeremy Corbyn and Podemos in Spain: “We are simply stating a historical fact.” When People Before Proofreading don’t take their own document seriously, it’s no wonder nobody else does either.

Besides, Sinn Féin can’t be trusted. Oh, no: “These right-wing parties represent the interests of the rich and privileged and so would only join a Sinn Féin led coalition to ‘house train’ the party into the practices of the Irish political establishment.” (page 13); “There is a contradiction at the heart of Sinn Féin.” (page 26); “Moreover, if Sinn Féin is adopting a moderate left strategy now, the chances are that it will succumb to capitalist pressure when in government.” (page 27).

Surely it wouldn’t be too long before Sinn Féin in government would be denounced by People Before Profit for betraying the people amid calls for a widespread grassroots movement to take to the streets in protest. The philosophy of ‘The Case for a Left Government’ seems to be based on the works of Homer. “You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.”

That’s Homer Simpson, who seems more apt than the ancient Greek writer. The only conclusion to be drawn is that a left government just won’t measure up for People Before Profit.

You’d feel sorry for the Shinners. Whatever about the seven tests the DUP have set on the Northern Ireland Protocol for going back in to Stormont, it’s nothing compared to the 700 tests of ideological purity People Before Profit will lay down in doomed coalition talks. In the meantime, Mary Lou McDonald’s opponents will have great fun throwing around the wacky policies of her prospective coalition partners – 20pc corporation tax, 65pc tax on high earners and widespread nationalisation of everything from private hospitals to energy companies.

Of course, that’s assuming there is a People Before Profit after the election as all their seats are prime Sinn Féin targets. Predictions of their decline must be part of a right-wing, corporate, capitalist, big business, establishment, elite agenda.

The challenge remains for Sinn Féin to find credible coalition partners to form a government. Under its new leader Holly Cairns, the tone has certainly changed in the Social Democrats from the fence-sitting after the last two general elections to actually wanting to go into power.

Cairns says she’ll talk to every party about entering government, achieving a mandate and implementing policies. Yet she is extremely negative about the possibility of doing business with Fine Gael, whose privatisation approach she says is “the opposite” to her party view on the provision of services. “It’s difficult to imagine how we could synch up in a programme for government,” she told The Tonight Show on Virgin Media.

Effectively ruling out Fine Gael effectively rules in Sinn Féin as the preferred coalition partner. After the next general election, a coalition will most likely be led by one of those parties. The Social Democrats can, perhaps, aspire to become for Sinn Féin what the Progressive Democrats were for Fianna Fáil. Again, that assumes the Social Democrats have sufficient numbers to pack a punch.

The party unquestionably owe a chunk of their gains last time to Sinn Féin transfers. Cairns herself can be partly included here, but she also drew support across a wide spectrum and benefited from an astonishingly awful Fine Gael campaign in her Cork South-West constituency, which is quite likely to be repeated. In the bygone days when Fine Gael actually had strategists, they would look at the utterances of the new Social Democrats leader and make a deliberate pitch to their base with a catch-cry of “Vote Holly, get Mary Lou”. But the days when Fine Gael had a clue who its potential voters were are in the past.

Then Fine Gael director of elections Phil Hogan’s appeal to disgruntled, disheartened and disbelieving Fianna Fáil voters to “lend us your vote” in the 2011 economic crash general election proved to be a profitable enterprise. It was also an acknowledgement the loyal supporters of the traditional foes had far more in common than with the emerging alternatives. The Confidence and Supply arrangement between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil preceded the logical step of the current Coalition government.

The natural follow-on would be a vote transfer pact, once Fianna Fáil realises they’re not getting second preferences anywhere else. The “left”, meanwhile, will continue to disappoint one another.