Varadkar is burning his former party to the ground in places like Mayo

LEO Varadkar's comments on rural Ireland hardly come as a surprise or anything random from the mouth of a Dublin elite. We’ve all met them, heard them before you see them and then muttered under our breath that Ross O’Carroll Kelly wasn’t fiction at all.

But Varadkar isn’t just some Leinster heino-mite bro. He’s an Iar-Taoiseach and is swiftly burning his former party to the ground.

It was almost masterful. Simon Harris, much like the aftermath of the presidential election, escaped the same level of national and press scrutiny compared to his counterpart from Cork.

That was Fianna Fáil’s own doing, of course, but there have been a few own-goals scored by Fine Gael in recent months that have not been as well highlighted and are owing to intense dissatisfaction regarding the party’s future in this county compared to the overall national picture.

Mayo has become a Connaught/Ulster outlier for Fine Gael, owing greatly to the electoral successes of former Taoiseach Enda Kenny and the political heavyweight that was former Minister Michael Ring.

Those titans of Irish politics are no longer in the arena and the party has seen a switch in its direction since 2016.

The socially liberal, fiscally conservative, and low tax party has failed to live up to its roots in recent times.

Much of the argument over the last few weeks was that it was the response of the big farmers. Is this not Fine Gael’s base?

Why are their concerns coupled into a Fianna Fáil leadership debacle, besides the point that there is a gang awaiting a putsch, but Harris similarly has not listened to his party’s grassroots, certainly not in the west of the country.

The by-elections already offer a free-hit for both. Nothing is expected of note for either of Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael in Dublin or in Galway, a remarkable sense considering this is Pascal Donohue’s seat.

There was a story in the Irish Daily Mail leading about his last act as Finance Minister that failed to grow heat on its leader Simon Harris. He has a commendable force-field compared to Michéal Martin when it comes to media furore.

It’s undeniable that as Tánaiste, Simon Harris is not only the leader of Fine Gael, Minister for Finance but is also Taoiseach in waiting. His brief is busy beyond belief. It would be understandable if he lost track of the grassroots, but the malaise within Fine Gael didn’t begin with him.

Leo Varadkar, a man who speaks at great length about his grá for County Mayo, could do with listening to people on the west coast.

No one in Mayo or any other rural county ever says they are ‘the real workers, the ones paying all the bills, we’re the ones feeding the country’.

What people in rural Ireland are saying is that we exist and won’t be talked down to.

There are intrinsic things that separate rural and urban Ireland, yet it’s the top down approach of urban based elites that sprung those protests and has led to intense voter dissatisfaction.

For one, in farms across rural Ireland, the AI man comes to give you more jobs; in urban Ireland, the AI man comes to take your job.

Fine Gael of a previous vintage were much better at getting the mood of the aspirant rural vote, the local businessman, dare I say the ambitious agri-contractor. Now that’s gone.

I’ve spoken to long-serving former canvassers of Fine Gael who have been vocal in their disgust towards the party. There is an indication that things will not go well for Fine Gael in Mayo.

It was Varadkar who begun to setting the malaise, and now he stands over the party like a bad smell, and will have lost many friends in this county in particular when it comes to their electoral hopes.

Varadkar, to his credit, is a bit like Trump. He says it like it is and parses through political correctness to bluntly assess that this is the way we think, this is the world made in our way, all to our benefit. You can howl and protest but it will get you nowhere.

In the past, Fine Gael had the likes of Charlie Flanagan, Michael Creed and Michael Ring to inform its leaders of the bell-weather rural feeling. Now it’s company men and women in rural constituencies who will need a real dig out from their party grandees to ensure their political salvation at the ballot box.

Perhaps then Fine Gael will see the importance of rural Ireland.