In the end, Leo lost touch with the voters

After weeks of mounting pressure and internal party tensions, Leo Varadkar has suddenly resigned as leader of Fine Gael and Taoiseach. His swift resignation concludes one of recent memory's most dramatic, consequential, and sometimes controversial premierships.

Varadkar assumed the role of Taoiseach in June 2017 amid much fanfare and universal enthusiasm. He was Ireland's youngest leader since the birth of the State and the first gay man to hold the position. His meteoric rise through Fine Gael's ranks was fuelled by a self-assured persona and an overflowing confidence that some perceived as arrogance.

From the outset, Varadkar portrayed himself as a socially progressive leader focused on transforming Ireland into a modern, outward-looking society with a globalised economy. He backed pro-choice legislation, thus ending the country's constitutional ban on abortion. He enthusiastically courted multinational corporations and their investments through an aggressive tax incentivisation policy.

This socially liberal, economically conservative fusion made him a darling among Ireland's urban middle classes and business elite. But it also opened up deepening fissures with more conservative, rural communities that felt left behind by the Celtic Tiger's uneven revival.

Varadkar's slick, media-savvy persona earned him plenty of detractors who viewed him as all style and little substance. His penchant for trotting out cringeworthy slang and cinematic quotes did little to dispel this perception. At times, he seemed more interested in serving up sound bites than substantive policy.

Still, few could question his work ethic or self-belief. The son of an Indian immigrant, he seemed to embody the aspirational spirit of a newly cosmopolitan Ireland. Progressives hailed his election as Taoiseach as a symbolically powerful milestone.

But outward symbols of change belie some deeper systemic issues that ultimately hobbled Varadkar's administration. Chief among them was an intractable housing and homelessness crisis that rapidly worsened during his tenure. Despite campaign rhetoric about prioritising the issue, his government failed to implement comprehensive solutions beyond piecemeal policies that did little to address the root causes.

The housing debacle formed the unstable core of Varadkar's woes, eroding faith in his stewardship of the economy and social services more broadly. A cascade of difficulties engulfed his party, including healthcare staffing shortages, rising costs and wait times, and an open-ended immigration policy. Meanwhile, giveaways and tax loopholes for corporations funnelled potential billions of dollars out of the public coffers.

Varadkar remained outwardly calm and resolute in the face of escalating chaos. But over time, the sheen of his youthful bravado wore thin and impatience crept in. He found himself testy and confrontational during recent media interviews, losing his once-vaunted grip on positive PR messaging.

Internal dissent and infighting may have also weakened his leadership. After a deft response to navigating Ireland's complex position, he needed help finding his footing post-Brexit. Policy drift and a lack of political cohesiveness compounded the impression of a rudderless premiership.

As his poll numbers tanked, rivals inside Fine Gael doubtless began sharpening their knives for a leadership challenge after the Local and European elections. Grassroots supporters had abandoned him in droves, repelled by his seemingly out-of-touch indifference to their localised concerns.

The most significant blow to Varadkar's premiership came from the stunning defeat at the ballot box over the recent controversial dual referendum campaign he spearheaded. This loss punctured his aura of political infallibility and revealed deepening fissures between his government and large swaths of the Irish electorate.

The referendum setback came as voters resoundingly rejected Varadkar's proposal to remove references in the Irish Constitution to a woman's place being "in the home" and language about the traditional family unit being the societal bedrock.

His government had pitched this constitutional amendment as a necessary modernisation to align the document with contemporary progressive values around gender equality and evolving household structures. Varadkar insisted Ireland's charter needed to be scrubbed of antiquated ideas that no longer reflected the nation's reality. Disparaging the authors of the Constitution as mainly men, who were born in the 19th century and thus outdated, was a statement anathema to devout Republicans.

In the lead-up to the vote, the Taoiseach was bullish that it would easily pass, brushing aside objections with his trademark self-assurance. Perhaps he expected urban liberals who formed his base to follow his socially progressive call to action. He may have also calculated that subsections of conservative and older voters could be won over by messaging that framed it as mere semantic housekeeping.

Instead, a vast coalition spanning the political spectrum - from liberal feminists to Catholic conservatives - coalesced in vehement opposition to the constitutional changes.

On the other flank, religious groups and rural communities viewed tampering with the document's language around the family unit as an affront to traditional social mores and values. Some theorists even spun insinuations that it was a nefarious ploy to persecute traditional nuclear households.

In the end, when the lopsided tallies rolled in, it became clear that the referendum had united Irish society in defiance of Varadkar's agenda like little else before. Over 68% voted to keep the existing constitutional language intact - a bruising rejection of the Taoiseach's signature initiative.

The fallout mushroomed as Varadkar's veneer of political sure-handedness took an immediate battering. In the aftermath, he lashed out defensively, blaming "misinformation campaigns" for misleading the public on the nuances of the changes.

But for many voters, the resounding rejection reflected how Varadkar had become disconnected from the electorate's prevailing sentiments and values - too eager to push contentious symbolic changes without substantive policies to back them up.

Where he had once been able to surf the zeitgeist with proposals like the abortion referendum, the constitutional rebuke laid bare his diminishing facility for reading the national mood and calibrating accordingly. His decisiveness had curdled into rash overconfidence.

The seismic damage from the referendum repudiation created an opening for Varadkar's political rivals to capitalise. It fundamentally recast his self-styled image as a progressive visionary into that of an out-of-touch social engineer detached from pragmatic realities.

Crucially, the blunder also alienated his support base. Moderate liberals felt he'd overreached, and conservatives saw it as confirmation of their worst suspicions about his liberal East Coast elitism.

No longer could Varadkar so quickly camouflage his shortcomings by trumpeting a symbolic victory. Having firmly planted his feet on the constitutional battleground of his own choosing, his aura of youth and change ultimately crumpled there. The defeats marked the pivotal moment of decline in his political career. But the swiftness of the demise surprised even the most seasoned political punters.

The timing could not be worse, as Fine Gael faces a cliffhanger battle to avoid conceding to Sinn Féin's ascendant Republican socialists. Varadkar's days at the helm were numbered after the referendum defeats, and no glorious PR reinvention tour of the US, replete with accented international profiling, was going to restore credibility.

So, how will history judge Leo Varadkar's two terms as Taoiseach? That remains to be written. But one senses his premiership may ultimately be remembered as a brilliant flame that started burning white hot before fizzling amidst the cold realities of governing a rapidly changing but stubborn Ireland.

For all his youthful vigour, and seeming grasp on the national zeitgeist, Varadkar failed to heal the festering divides pulling apart Irish society. Muddled priorities squandered his tantalising potential: hurried progressivism, a diluted Republicanism, and a stubborn tendency to lionise entrepreneurial wealth over the common good.

Ultimately, his most outstanding achievement may have been shattering glass ceilings and expanding the boundaries of what's possible for a 21st-century Irish leader. But that star is fast fading.