General Irish politics discussion thread

But Bagge ran with this system (with the backing of Rory Stewart), to specifically unseat Liz Truss.

I'd say it has to be at least a -5 for Alan English to be as excited as he seems..

Here it is, down to 18%

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/poll-sinn-fein-fall-to-their-lowest-level-of-support-since-2020/a1258518581.html

Maybe someone with a sub can fill in the details?

After the election? I reckon she'll step down of her own accord if SF aren't in government. Very hard to see them get to the next level under her leadership if it doesn't happen this time…

Very hard to read anything substantial into the Greens' fortunes from that 4% though. Aontu are also on 4% but they have pretty much no chance of winning more than one seat…

Not sure we can take that as read. Greens becoming increasingly estranged from the other two parties since the recent election campaign, prospective leader Roderick talking up an alliance with Labour & Soc Dems.

 Green Party chair Pauline O’Reilly told the Irish Daily Mail that a spate of political attacks on their candidates from Coalition colleagues had ‘eroded trust’ and it is now ‘very difficult’ to see how they could share power again in a future government.

Don't think Mayo is a good choice to illustrate the supposed struggles of the government parties. With SF slumping in the polls FF & FG have a more than decent chance of taking 4/5 seats, especially if Michael Ring runs again. Even 3 would be a good result in terms of accumulating the numbers to form another government…

It is very hard now to see the possible make up of next goverment?

Not looking hard to me. If the results of the latest opinion poll are borne out in the GE, and transfer patterns from the recent elections are maintained, FFG should have a good tilt at a overal majority. If they come say 5 or 6 seats short, they will likely have multiple options for making up the numbers…

You seem to want it each and every way.

If the UK had some sort of PR system, there would have been a huge block of votes on the right, who would have made it a condition of Brexit and migration for any formation of government. That would mean any centre right/Tory government would have had to compromise with them for power.

The UK do not have nor has had any far-right party in power.

The National Front are on the cusp in France, AFD is rising in Germany, Gert Wilders has power in Holland with PVV, Meloni has power in Italy, Orban has power in Hungary, in Austria the FPO are on course to be the lead party in Austria.

These are actually far-right/populist right-wing governments and parties.

One Nation Tory is not that.

I'm curious which extremist governments in 20th Century Europe you think would have been prevented by FPTP voting?

I'm assuming you're primarily alluding to the Nazis? Didn't Herman Goering argue that with FPTP voting, they would've taken every seat in the Reichstag? None of the 1932 elections gave the Nazi party a majority, and the March 1933 election was by no means a fair election. I'd imagine the Nazi Party would've held a massive majority government much sooner with FPTP.

The term for that is, shifting the Overton Window. The classic example is Trump saying outrageous things, that a week later are taken as normal, because something more outrageous has taken its place.