Can Leo Varadkar defy the odds to win another term as Taoiseach?

Back in October, Boris Johnson and the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar met for ‘last-ditch’ Brexit talks at a hotel on the Wirral. After nine years in power and having lost control of parliament, the Tories were in disarray. Few thought Johnson could win concessions on the Irish backstop — that perennial stumbling block, the key to securing a new withdrawal agreement with Brussels. ‘It will be very difficult,’ said Varadkar, as the Merseyside ‘wedding venue’ summit began. Yet Johnson wooed the Irish delegation, got his concessions, struck a fresh EU exit deal — and went on to clinch a dramatic general election victory.

Three months on, the tables have turned. For Varadkar’s Fine Gael party has also been in power for nine years and, having lost control of the Dáil, or Irish parliament, must now face the electoral music too. On Tuesday, the Taoiseach was forced to call a general election. Until very recently, he said he wanted to go to the polls in late spring or early summer. His position in the Dáil became untenable and an election inevitable. It will take place on 8 February.

With the UK’s EU departure imminent, and all hope of a second referendum gone, Varadkar has changed his tune. ‘We’re going to beef up and deepen co-operation between Britain and Ireland after Brexit,’ he said in Belfast this week, meeting with Johnson to mark, after a three-year hiatus, the restoration of power-sharing at Stormont.

Yet it is far from clear whether Varadkar will match Johnson’s achievement and regain power. In fact, he is odds-on to lose. Opinion polls have the centre-right Fine Gael just marginally ahead of Fianna Fáil, the centre-left main opposition party led by Micheál Martin. But recent local elections have seen Martin’s party make headway in Dublin, reversing a decade-long trend in the capital.