Best ever chance for Aontú to grow?

Packrat

Now, - to be clear, I don't support them nor won't vote for them in their current form.

Here's what I think from a strategy point of view:

Modify their raving positions on issues which aren't going to be reversed and on which they aren't going to win - like for example Abortion.

Big up on law and order, more cops etc, less immigration.

Make themselves more acceptable to voters looking for a more RW alternative to the parties who currently won't vote for them over their raving CC nonsense.

By doing the above they could possibly attract some reasonably strong first time candidates for the council elections and have a raft of sitting councilors for the Dail Elections.

Does Peadar and the party core (whoever they are) not have the brains to do this or are they too welded to the CC and don't really want to grow it into a real party?

Opinions anyone?

Atlantic Dawn

Their right to life policy would put a lot of people off.

Quitelife

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121500497#Comment_121500497

A lot of people don’t agree with Abortion either

cute geoge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121500497#Comment_121500497

I would not be so sure of that was it not roughly a 60/40 split in rural constituncies .With the RIGHT canidates they could hoover a share of the SF protest vote ,They would want to be getting their ducks in a row though

Packrat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121500497#Comment_121500497

Yes. I dealt with that in the OP.

They could just let that slide to the bottom of the small print surely...

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058327075/best-ever-chance-for-aontu-to-grow

Those raving positions are the foundation of the party and they would not exist without them. So none of this is going to happen

Without it, Toibín would go back to SF and the remains of the party would fight until they ceased to be.

This is like suggesting SF could give up on NI, the Greens on environmentalism FF could give up on planning corruption and so on. Impossibilities.

Aontu are a single issue party at the end of the day

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121500518#Comment_121500518

They might do but they weren't any significant majority around the referendum and the sky hasn't fallen: it's here, it's done and standing on a policy of rolling it back would be deeply unpopular. Like divorce, society and marriage hasn't suddenly dissolved despite the "hello divorce, goodbye mammy and daddy" warnings of the mostly religious.

It's well to say it might play well in rural communities, but I'd be slow to think it ranks that highly on those voters' minds either. Some polling would need to be given there to even hit at a desire to roll it back: haven't seen anyone decry the state of Ireland being down to abortion coming to pass and running on a platform to remove it would see more rejection than support.

As to the broad point? It's a one man show and I can't honestly see path towards being palatable here; a relatively open "Christian conservative" party won't get far in 2020+ Ireland.

JuliusCaesar

One man show and family support. Three Tobin siblings in the leadership. It's a niche market for the Catholic fundies, and that's a tiny section of the electorate.

Packrat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121502190#Comment_121502190

Ok, I wasn't aware of that family connection/involvement. They seem to have a good few potential council candidates on their website which I just looked at. If its that small/a family thing, they won't be for dropping the abortion stuff then as it's probably the reason d'etre of the 'party'

Brussels Sprout

The problem with Aontu and also the micro far-right parties who make Abortion a major plank of their reason d'etre is that most of the voters who voted against the 2018 referendum were older voters. Most of the those voters are already locked in to voting for FG or especially, FF. to paraphrase an old saying "There's no market in the gap". Furthermore, younger voters are overwhelmingly pro-choice so it really is an electoral dead-end.

Even beyond that if you were to drill down into the small numbers of voters who voted No on that issue and aren't already committed to voting for one of the establishment parties how many of them have Abortion as their most important issue? Probably not that many and they're likely all voting for Aontu already.

Exit poll data from the 2018 referendum:

Brussels Sprout

Another issue is that Peadar Toibin comes across as a competent, impressive politician. The same does not go for many of the candidates that they have ran. In the last general election they ran a radio presenter from a Religious radio station in Cork South Central. There's nothing wrong with that but during Covid she went off the deep end with regards to vaccine conspiracies and the like. I have noticed as well that a lot of people on twitter who have mentions of Aontu in their bios or Aontu logos as their avatars were pushing a lot of disinformation and conspiracy theories.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121502574#Comment_121502574

Makes the issue open and shut really, painting Aontú's stance as Quixotic: basic demographics are completely against them and unless they pivot will quickly become an irrelevance and yet another party for the rubbish. If the OP is to be taken seriously then the first thing to go is the abortion stance - cos otherwise it'll quickly become a red flag they can't evad.e

Furze99

The Shinners have the border as their raison d'etre. For Peadar, it's abortion.

Packrat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121502806#Comment_121502806

Whether I'm to be taken seriously or not, I can assure you I've no skin in the game nor have I or will I vote for them.

I'm just chewing the fat. I see lots of moaning that there's no political party on the right who are not objectionable weirdos and I was just wondering if people thought the likes of Aontu could become one. I doubt people would vote for the national party with their even worse set of policies.

The consensus seems to be No, Aontu are too much a single issue group and that abandoning that is something they just wouldn't do even if it were to result in growth and electoral success.

I suppose in any event if that were to happen then either FF or FG would pivot right and quickly eat their lunch.

Danzy

As SF become more establishment and achingly middle class stickie, it will open up a few more percent for them.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121503064#Comment_121503064

Less so than even a decade ago, and less again among many of the younger, right on types. SF is rapidly distancing itself from the army part of the movements history and in some cases there is a deep hostility to people who were army in the party now.

That is going to be a challenge for the party across the north and south of Ireland.

Hermy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121504032#Comment_121504032

Often wondered about that too.

Prolife and Sinn Fein is a bit of an oxymoron.

archfi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121503511#Comment_121503511

Are Aontu right wing?

Xander10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121502190#Comment_121502190

They sound like a lighter version of the Burke Family

Widdensushi

They are associated with one topic,in a time when any nongovernment party is getting stronger they should reidientify or amalgamate to a party with an identity that doesn't immediately turn away 50 odd percent of the population

BlueSkyDreams

I think the OP is looking for the immigration policy of Aontu, but without the remaining policies of Aontu.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121508188#Comment_121508188

Peadar Tobin aid on the Tonight Show recently that there is no evidence whatsoever that non nationals are more likely to be involved in crime than Irish people. They are nowhere near as radical on immigration as some of their potential voters think. In the UK, they would be well to left of the Tories and Labour.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121508205#Comment_121508205

True, but still further right than our current govt :)

What is odd is that a party hasnt taken that centre right space, given how unhappy a lot of the population are with the immigration issue.

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121500518#Comment_121500518

Rural independents tend to be anti abortion but don't make a song and dance about it as they know well it would turn off their younger voters. A front and centre pro life party these days is on a hiding to nowhere. Their support is only going to shrink with natural wastage, hardcore pro lifers gradually dying off.

Tork

Renua never took off either. IIRC, Lucinda Creighton split from FG over abortion as well. Though to be fair, trying to establish a political party with Eddie Hobbs was a dumb move.

I think it would be like if the Burkes founded a political party… and I wouldn’t put it past them 😁

bogman_bass

The thing is that a vote for Peader is a vote for him, not the party.

he remains popular in Navan and if you win Navan you win Meath west.

in a way I feel sorry for him because he attracted in the the nuts to make a party and now they are pushing him further to the right than he probably wants to go.

There are two very divergent SF voters now. The liberal, young urban voter and the traditional “up the ‘RA” type.

There probably is an opening for a more traditional Republican voice but Antou are too strongly associated with one issue to be that voice now.

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121502593#Comment_121502593

Same thing happened them in Derry.

A well respected local GP did the same, bit of a conspiracy nut who I think was struck off because of her beliefs.

A female GP telling women what they can and can't do with their bodies also didn't sit well.

Seth Brundle

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ancapailldorcha

The problem with extremes is that nothing is more important than ideological purity. That rules out the kind of analysis and introspection that are required to make a compelling case to the public for their votes.

Abortion is settled. It's been settled for over 5 years now. There's no way anywhere near enough people want another referendum enough to vote for this party. If they were smarter, they'd move to the centre and talk about real issues like housing and healthcare. Canadian conservatives have made good progress with this. In the UK, the Tories have made immigration their sole issue and have plummeted in the polls.

Even sensible talk about hiring more medical staff and moderate reforms for more housing, especially social housing would go down well I would think. Most people are moderately conservative so it's a bit baffling that no real challenge to FF and FG has emerged yet.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121508742#Comment_121508742

The exact same thing happened with Renua. It's difficult to believe now but they started out as a respectable new party. They had 3 ex-FG TDs including the impressive Lucinda Creighton. They tried to thread the needle between maintaining their right to vote "their conscious" on abortion whilst also not alienating pro-choice voters who would have been attracted by their more libertarian style attitude to economics. This failed spectacularly and they all lost their seats in 2016. John Leahy, a county councilor took over as leader but the party was already doomed. When he quit in 2019 he said that he had tried to hold back the darker forces within the party and he fear what it would now become. That quickly came to pass when they ran a united campaign with the National party and the Irish Freedom Party in 2020. Today they no longer really exist. Apparently they were renamed as the Centre Party but details of them are hard to come by apart from an extremely generic website with absolutely no information about party leadership. They appear to have control over the Renua twitter page but hadn't tweeted since before this rebranding. Regardless, safe to say that Renua as it was originally envisaged is dead.

SharkMX

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121502574#Comment_121502574

I dont agree with abortion. I voted no. I have my reasons.

But clearly more people did. I see no reason to keep flogging it. Its done. The majority have what they want. Thems the rulkes. We all will get used to it.

I dont believe in god either, so thats nothing to do with my reasons, so not going don that rabbit hole.

Who are Aontu?

Geuze

https://aontu.ie/

They are a small, but growing, political party, with one TD currently.

Galwayguy35

TBH I think Peadar is a shinner at heart and if it wasn't for the abortion disagreement with MacDonald would still be in SF.

I know they are gone now but Renua IMO was more right leaning than Aontu and could have done quite well in the next election.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121511982#Comment_121511982

Is there any evidence that they are growing?

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121511982#Comment_121511982

Growing?

They lost every councillor they had in NIs elections this year. They aren't growing.

pixelburp

Growing? They've lost support if anything since September, according to Red C; but overall have never made any inroads on 1st preference votes worth a damn. They are political detritus when it comes to voter support.