General Election 2020 Part 2

Tim_Riggins · February 27, 2020, 1:14pm

Well previously you said it was the two of them, now it’s 2011.

A quick glance of 2011 shows certainly that they failed in Health and that was largely based on reform. Health was not a headliner in 2016 again.

FG ceded control of Public Expenditure and Reform to Labour in 2011. This is not a defense; I think they were crazy to do it and just like in the last few years with FF confidence and supply agreement, failed to make sufficient stands on reform. The showdown and victory Bus Éireann had showed there were ways to have a stand off and deliver some reform.

Tim_Riggins · February 27, 2020, 1:17pm

FG argued the last one on the economy though (“keep the recovery going”) with as mentioned, limited headline promises on the public sector outside of that.

I think this time FG did campaign more broadly, the problem was that they were campaigning largely on Ireland 2040 and Rebuilding Ireland. Optically it was more of the same.

anon61878697 · February 27, 2020, 7:42pm

Looks like @TheUlteriorMotive lied

TheUlteriorMotive · February 27, 2020, 7:48pm

Rent free. There is an apocalyptic pandemic. Bigger picture.

Lazarus · February 27, 2020, 8:32pm

The 63 in Dublin will have a bit more company now by the looks of things

Raylan · February 27, 2020, 9:47pm

glasagusban · February 28, 2020, 9:23am

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil’s ‘I’m-all-right-Jack’ politics has fuelled the Sinn Féin juggernaut

anon61878697 · February 28, 2020, 9:31am

I think a list of who’s not reading here would be much shorter and manageable than who is.

Bandage · February 28, 2020, 10:13am

@TFK friends, could one of you copy and paste the Irish Times subscriber only article from today about both sides in the north being united in their disgust at FFG’s hypocrisy over SF?

Could one of you also copy and paste The Phoenix article about FFG attitudes hardening to SF post election when Mary Lou might have hoped or expected them to soften?

Tank · February 28, 2020, 1:46pm

Doing this on my mobile so the cut and paste won’t be “tidy”…

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Northern Ireland is united in annoyance at Republic’s ignorance on Sinn Féin
Unionists and nationalists cannot believe the breathtaking hypocrisy in the South at party’s surge
Chris Donnelly
about 12 hours ago
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Sinn Féin’s Eoin Ó Broin and Mary Lou McDonald: The party is the 21st-century face of a progressive Irish left. Photograph: Tom Honan
Sinn Féin’s Eoin Ó Broin and Mary Lou McDonald: The party is the 21st-century face of a progressive Irish left. Photograph: Tom Honan
It takes a lot to unite nationalists and unionists in the North on any political issue, but the genuine and widespread sense of annoyance at the southern political establishment’s response to the Sinn Féin surge has been something to behold.

Unionists, long conditioned to being preached to about the need to embrace powersharing and demonstrate maturity by moving beyond a fixation with the past, find themselves lining up with northern nationalists to cry foul at the breathtaking degree of hypocrisy that has characterised the reaction from a political class and commentariat yet to pick itself up after being floored by the electorate’s verdict three weeks ago.

Never mind that Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar made great play in calling for Sinn Féin to take their seats in Westminster and return to the Stormont Executive over the past few months and years. It now appears that Sinn Féin are to be deemed beyond the pale by both into perpetuity – though the inhabitants of that very pale clearly reached a different conclusion judging by Sinn Féin’s huge vote across the capital and Leinster.

Attitudes towards Sinn Féin and the North in general among many southern media voices and political figures betray a deep-rooted prejudice. The angry voices raging from the column inches in recent days would not be out of place in the infamous Sunday Independent editions of the 1990s, when demonising the Shinners, their voters and fellow travellers (including John Hume) was par for the course.

The sweeping ignorance of the North and its evolution over the past 25 years as a post-conflict society has meant the political development of Sinn Féin has not been fully appreciated.

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Republican struggle
The bloody and brutal civil war of 1922 and 1923 led directly to the creation of the political parties that would dominate the Republic for the century to come, and the leaderships of both parties remained firmly anchored in that tumultuous period for several generations. Fine Gael would have to await the tenure of James Dillon as leader from 1959 and, for Fianna Fáil, the onset of the Lynch era in 1966, for party leaders not directly linked with active military involvement in republican struggle.

In contrast, the leadership of Sinn Féin in 2020, a mere 22 years after the Belfast Agreement, represents a clean break with the conflict generation. Eoin Ó Broin, Pearse Doherty and Mary Lou McDonald are a formidable frontbench team, and few will be convinced that they are willing to take their lead on the significant policy challenges facing the southern Irish state by figures, “shadowy” or otherwise, not renowned for expertise on matters pertaining to housing, homelessness and health.

The IRA is long gone, as anyone living in the traditional republican heartlands of the North will testify
People aren’t stupid. The IRA is long gone, as anyone living in the traditional republican heartlands of the North will testify. Modern Sinn Féin is about winning and exercising political power, North and South, with a clear game plan to kickstart planning and preparation for Irish unity alongside proving its worth in any prospective coalition government involving the party in the future.

This is nothing new. Sinn Féin ministers have served in the Stormont Executive throughout this century, making and taking decisions which have been at times unpopular as well as controversial, provoking criticisms from one-time allies and enemies alike.

Compromise deals
Before the Renewable Heating Incentive crisis precipitated the collapse of Stormont in 2017, possibly the most contentious decision taken by a Northern Ireland executive minister was when the then Sinn Féin minister for health, Bairbre de Brun, chose Enniskillen over Omagh as the site for the regional acute hospital in 2002. It was a lose/lose scenario for the minister, one instantly recognisable as such to any politician having held a health post in any administration. The point is that Sinn Féin ultimately did not baulk at taking the tough decision and, over a period of several election cycles, rode out the storm in Tyrone.

The party’s ministers have taken many challenging decisions and hammered out compromise deals with the DUP and other parties
In the intervening years, the party’s ministers have taken many challenging decisions and hammered out compromise deals with the DUP and other parties in the all-party Executive which gives the lie to the idea that Sinn Féin is either not serious about governing or not capable of finding a way of working effectively in a coalition government that will involve compromise on pre-election positions as articulated. Indeed, any serious southern observers of northern politics will know that Stormont’s collapse for three years was primarily due to the republican party losing the confidence of the broad nationalist base in the North due to its tendency to turn the other cheek in the face of DUP aggression as it vainly pursued a policy of keeping the Stormont show on the road at all costs.

Dismissing Sinn Féin as merely a populist party, an Irish Syriza, is a fundamental mistake and misreading of the reasons for the party’s advance. Sinn Féin is the 21st-century face of a progressive Irish left and, through its all-Ireland and Republican roots, is demonstrably better-placed to prove resilient in that space as a credible competitor for the hearts and minds of the Irish electorate than Labour could ever manage.

Chris Donnelly is a primary school principal and a former Sinn Féin member and election candidate. He writes regularly about politics in Northern Ireland

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Tank · February 28, 2020, 1:49pm

MARY LOU MCDONALD might have expected or hoped that the Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael hysteria surrounding Sinn Féin would subside post election. Instead it has, if anything, ramped up with any and every syllable uttered by a Shinner presented by a willing media as threats to the state. Why are these quarters still in full-on battle mode?

Modern government formation is difficult, but Goldhawk cannot remember any less popular government coming to power than the likely FF/FG-dominated coalition (with a few fig leaves) now in gestation. The canard that a vote for change can be dismissed because SF won just 25% of the vote ignores the fact that over half of the electorate voted against the ‘old’ parties. And the latter know there will be a backlash if or when they declare their rather pale-coloured rainbow coalition. The withdrawal of the Social Democrats has damaged the desired picture of a ‘broad’ FF/FG/Greens/Soc Dem coalition, to one almost entirely dominated by Ireland’s good ol’ boys, giving the Greens anxiety attacks.

Strangely, the media has not persisted with its intense election campaign scrutiny of party polls – unlike its continued focus on SF – and there was little or no coverage elsewhere of an unnerving Irish Daily Mail-commissioned poll from Amárach Research last week. The 1,000-plus respondents were asked who they would vote for if another election was called, with 35% saying SF (up 10.5); FF 17% (down 5.2) and FG 18% (down 2.9). These are devastating figures and explain a lot about the current fear campaign against SF.

Irish Times and Sunday Independent political analysts are also aware of the dangers and the IT declared recently that the coalition would be greeted with “white hot” fury in and outside Leinster House. Political editor Pat Leahy predicted that parliamentary norms would triumph (unlike those dreadful meetings away from the D2 bubble) and that the crisis would pass in time. The Sindo also referred to FF and FG’s intent to agree a coalition deal quickly so that SF would not have time to organise public opposition.

FF/FG’s election campaigns did not persuade the voters of their ability to solve the housing and other crises. Presentation by a new/old government that this programme is what they now intend to implement is hardly persuasive. Given also the uniquely unpopular appeal of the new, would-be government parties, the Provo-scare tactics are seen as necessary to push back against discontent among the effectively disenfranchised younger, poorer and now distinctly angrier population. Thus SF meetings are being likened to Nuremberg-type rallies and described as subversive, anti-parliamentary behaviour. The actual content of speeches made at these meetings – the pension age, housing, low pay etc – are buried underneath a welter of fear-inducing rhetoric about Trump populism and so on.

Trouble is, this strategy did not work during the general election either and a new government led by already rejected politicians will hardly enjoy a honeymoon period. And one of them, most likely Micheál Martin, even risks being left at the altar rails before this mutual Faustian pact is signed.

Harry Burton - Care Taker Taoiseach

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General Election 2020 Part 2

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