Small Earthquake in Ireland - Not Many (in Britain) Notice

I have barely seen any mention, in the last week, of the extraordinary and significant election results in both parts of Ireland last week. I can understand why we are preoccupied with our own, and I can see that the supposed growth in the ‘Far Right’ on the Continent is of interest(though I suspect this is largely because British liberals want to pretend that UKIP and the French Front National are part of the same movement, when they just aren’t).

 

But in Ireland we saw the arrival of Sinn Fein, the Provisional IRA’s apologists, as a front-rank party in the Republic of Ireland, as well as in Northern Ireland.

 

In terms of first preference votes (both parts of Ireland use transferable votes) , Sinn Fein was very close to the two traditional parties which have dominated the South since the 1930s,  Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.

 

Sinn Fein scored 323,300 first preferences, while Fine Gael achieved 369,120 and Fianna Fail won 369,545. None of the other parties, including the once-powerful Labour Party, got into six figures.

 

But there’s also the question of the direction in which things are moving. Fianna Fail, currently in opposition and so expecting to benefit from the unpopularity of the Fine-Gael –Labour coalition, actually suffered a 1.8% drop in Euro-votes compared with the previous Euro poll (it did better in local government polls).

 

Fine Gael dropped by almost seven per cent. Labour dropped by almost nine per cent.

 

Sinn Fein’s first-preference vote increased by more than eight per cent.  Gerry Adams’s party, which had previously had no Euro MPs in the south,  won three seats (more than a quarter of Ireland’s total Strasbourg delegation of 11, reduced from 12 since the accession of Croatia to the EU).

 

Given these results, which included a very high Sinn Fein poll in Dublin itself, it surely cannot be long before Sinn Fein is either the main opposition, or taking part in government in coalition. There are already reports of a split in Fianna Fail, the party Sinn Fein may one day replace as the major force in Irish politics. Some Fianna Fail politicians are beginning to talk of a possible coalition with Sinn Fein when Ireland next has a domestic general election in 2016.  

 

In Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein easily topped the poll in first preference votes, with 158,813 first preference votes to 131,163 for the Democratic Unionists. Its share was actually slightly down on 2009, but not significantly.

 

If you add up the first preferences for Sinn Fein and its constitutional rival, the SDLP, you get (I think) 241,407. If you add the DUP, the old UUP and Traditional Unionist Voice (who got a respectable 75,806, by the way) you get 290,407.  UKIP got 24,584, a far-from-derisory turnout . The Tories, who maintain a token presence in Northern Ireland, which Labour do not, scored a pathetic 4,144. Quite what votes like these would mean were there a referendum on transferring Northern Ireland to Dublin rule, it is very hard to say. But such a vote (which I used to think would take place in 2016, centenary of the Easter Rising) is, I think, now postponed till 2022, centenary of the Free State. The economy is still too bad in the South for Sinn Fein to be sure of winning, and the demographics may have some way to go, too.