Labour's Manifesto: Heartfelt Anger, Half-Built Scaffolding, and a Few Genuinely Interesting Ideas

Labour's manifesto lands with a thud that is equal parts frustration and ambition — the political equivalent of a door opened sharply in a quiet room. Its tone is unmistakable: this is a party trying to reintroduce itself, not as an accessory to government, but as a corrective to what it frames as drift, disorder and institutional neglect.

And yet, reading it end-to-end, you're left with two strong impressions that sit awkwardly together. First: there is something real in the emotion driving it. Second: much of the document feels like it's still in draft form — rhetorically, structurally, and in places, conceptually.

A Foreword from the Heart — But Not from an Editor's Desk

The opening message from Labour leader MRBRUCEISMAY22 is raw. It is also messy. It's the kind of foreword you can imagine being written late, fuelled by equal measures of anger and conviction, with the cursor blinking like a metronome beside phrases such as "chaotic Sinn Féin government" and "bring Ireland back UP!!".

Though, there's a human voice there — a leader trying to position himself as someone who has done the work (his IDF service is foregrounded repeatedly), contrasting that with a Taoiseach accused of "party politics" and indecision on the North. It's an old political device, but an effective one when the audience is tired, anxious, or simply bored of inactivity.

But the problem is that the piece reads less like a polished call to a brighter future and more like a long Discord message that accidentally became policy literature. Grammar wobbles, punctuation is erratic, and the rhetorical punches land inconsistently because the writing doesn't always control its own tempo. The sentiment is sincere; the presentation undermines it.

Justice: A Credible Diagnosis, One Alarming Prescription

The Justice section is where Labour is most clearly responding to a real and widely acknowledged complaint: inactivity. The manifesto keeps returning to the notion of abandoned institutions — courts quiet, processes stalled, oversight underpowered. In political terms, it's clever ground. Voters will forgive disagreement; they rarely forgive absence.

On policy, Labour proposes a "dedicated fast-track pathway to becoming a barrister", tied to a new Universities Act and a coordinated legal education track with universities, the Attorney General's office and the judiciary. Nearly every party now has some version of fast-tracking legal training — but Labour's attempt to integrate it into a universities framework is at least a distinctive angle.

Whether people actually want to attend a "Ro-Nation University" model (and whether that pipeline produces quality rather than quantity) is another matter. But it is, in principle, a concrete mechanism aimed at increasing capacity.

Then comes the line that stops you cold:

"Labour will introduce a monthly judicial review of the supreme court justices to ensure their decisions are fair, just, and align with the values of equality and social justice."

The proposal also seems oddly mismatched to Labour's own stated goal. If the problem is inactivity, the answer is resourcing, recruitment, procedure, and incentives — not a monthly values-audit of the Supreme Court. You don't fix silence by threatening the microphone.

To be fair, Labour also includes more orthodox, and arguably stronger, justice proposals: modernising the Public Order Act with an explicit civil liberties emphasis, encouraging individuals to challenge vague or unjust laws, and fully staffing the Garda Ombudsman. Those are sensible headings, particularly the encouragement of legal challenges — not as a performative "rights" slogan, but as a practical way of forcing legislators to write better laws and of generating court activity that actually trains new barristers in how the system works.

But that Supreme Court "review" idea hangs over the section like a shadow. If Labour clarifies nothing else between now and polling day, it should clarify that.

Foreign Affairs & the North: Big Themes, Missing Specifics

Labour's framing of foreign affairs is an attempt to reclaim seriousness: "steady diplomacy", "credibility restored", "principled and respected". It's the language of a party trying to sound like the adult in the room — a deliberate contrast with the foreword's fire.

The priorities are mostly unobjectionable: reduce violence, support peacebuilding, increase cooperation, engage international partners, maintain neutrality, protect territorial integrity, preserve relations with the UK. The issue is that much of it reads like scaffolding without a building attached. It is presented as policy, but functions as mood music.

And then there's the centrepiece that simply doesn't land:

"Stand firm on Ireland's place in the world through a referendum."

A referendum on what, precisely? Neutrality? Membership of an alliance? A specific treaty? A constitutional amendment? Labour promises a "clear, informed referendum", but a referendum cannot be clear unless its subject is. At present, it's a sentence that gestures toward democratic legitimacy without providing an actual decision to be made.

In a manifesto repeatedly critical of broken promises, it's an odd choice to include a pledge whose definition is still missing.

Defence: Administration-Heavy, with One Eye-Catching Outlier

The Defence section is steeped in the language of coordination: task forces, emergency planning offices, coordination centres, monthly meetings, joint training. Much of it is bureaucracy dressed as action. Councils and commissions can matter, but only if they are paired with operational commitments — timelines, staffing, capacity, and clear chains of command.

"Joint training and operations with international partners" is a familiar promise, and in this space it's often heard more than it's delivered. Even within the IDF, there's a fair question as to whether appetite remains for the same circular conversation.

One proposal does stand out, though: the "Ad Astra" Act to revive the Irish Space Agency. It's the kind of pledge that will delight some and bewilder others — a policy that signals imagination, but also risks looking like a flourish in a document that still hasn't properly defined its referendum.

If Labour wants voters to take that seriously, it needs to tie it to something measurable: activity, innovation, recruitment, national capability — why now, what would it do, and how does it relate to the stated defence priorities?

Communities: Cultural Confidence, Practical Headaches

Labour's Communities section is, in many ways, the most likeable part of the manifesto. It is proud without being cynical: Irish language, heritage, remembrance, public ritual, and rebuilding institutions that give the "server" its civic texture.

The proposal to establish TG4 as a substation of RTÉ, expand Oireachtas coverage, appoint a Language Commissioner, and create national festivals is coherent as a cultural programme — and it reflects a party that understands politics isn't only law and security, but the shared life around them.

But it also runs into a blunt practical reality: staffing and capacity. RTÉ coverage is already a stretch at the best of times. Expanding broadcasts, building a TG4 operation, reviving regular parliamentary coverage — all of that requires people, time, coordination and consistent scheduling. It's not enough to declare it.

The manifesto's best instincts here are institutional. Its weakness is that it treats institutional revival as if it can be willed into existence by announcement.

Labour's Pitch, in the End: "We Will Be Active"

Running through the document is one clear message: Labour wants to be the party of activity — of moving parts turning again. That is not a small promise in a political environment where inactivity has become its own form of scandal.

But manifestos aren't judged only on their intentions. They are judged on clarity, coherence, and whether the proposals strengthen institutions rather than merely occupying them.