Taoiseach Leo Varadkar assured that he would not call early elections and would remain at the head of Fine Gael, reports The Mirror.
Despite a motion proposed at the recent Young Fine Gael Summer School meeting, Mr Varadkar has been urged to resign if the party loses a local or general election.
It is understood that the youth group’s wing has proposed a motion for a debate “calling for the party leader to resign after the next local election if Fine Gael loses more than 10 per cent of seats won in 2019”, reports The Mirror.
Another motion suggested that Young Fine Gael should “call for the party leader to resign after the next election if Fine Gael does not win 10 additional seats,” reports The Mirror.
A spokesman for the Taoiseach said the conclusions were not up for debate.
Asked whether he thought the questions were fair, Mr Varadkar said it’d “depend on the circumstances at the time”, reports The Mirror.
“While a party’s standing in a national election or a national opinion poll can affect the results of local elections, it doesn’t necessarily follow through. [Fine Gael had] a very good local elections last time and the plan is to hold on to our 250 seats, which is going to be tough, but I think it’s possible and we’re going to work with our councillors to do exactly that,” he said, reports The Mirror.
“But one thing I would definitely say is that it’s a big mistake to think that local elections predict the outcome of general elections, even if it only comes six to eight months later. That’s what happened last time. A very bad day for Sinn Féin [in 2019] and yet they were the largest party within seven or eight months without changing their leader. “27pc for Fianna Fáil. Everyone was predicting that they would win the general election and they actually lost seats,” he added, reports The Mirror.
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