Could Fine Gael be pushed to the right?

Anti-immigration is traditionally a left wing view and freedom of movement is traditiinally a right wing view.

At the height of socialism in 50s to 80s there was very little diversity/immigration in any of the socialist states. In contrast "right wing" countries like the UK and USA were very diverse and encouraged immigration.

You could argue that FG are currently to the right on immigration.

Far left is normally mono cultural. Far right tends to be more along the lines of people being allowed to live how they want.

Not true. Think about when socialism was at its peak. Where would you rather live,

New York or Moscow

London or Beijing

West Berlin or East Berlin

History tells us that socialism is very bad for minorities and more right leaning countries respect minority rights.

Combine natiionalism and socialism - as what happened in Germany in the 30s/40s and you get death camps for miniorities.

You've heard the expression "....if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck etc etc....."

The word Nazi means national socialist (i.e. racist socialist) Nazi Getmany had all the characteristics of a socialist state i.e. the State controls the people, people are cogs in the machinery of the State, no free speach, conformity, a ruling socialist party, minorities or anyone different targeted, heavily policed - big into military/secret police etc., human life devalued. distrust of foreigners etc etc.

Socialist States are great at saying things and doing the opposite e.g. the GDR was neither democratic nor a replublic. The biggest violators of human rights tend to be socialist.

Communism is just a more extreme form of socialism. Nazi is just a racist form of socialism. All are on the left of the political spectrum.

On the right of the spectrum, the State serves the people. On the left, the people serve the State. While Ireland is socially liberal and very much to the right on individual rights, immigrstion and business (open economy encoursging immigration) it has a lot of charactetistics of a left leaning State e.g. punative personal taxation (we spend a huge % of our working week earning money for the state), wealth redistribution, high dependency on the state by many sectors of society.

Having seen Emer Higgins and the Limerick County TD (name escapes me, the one who can't define his own malinformation policy) seperate reaction videos, I dont think we'll be seeing any shift or lessons learned from FG

I never said any were far right, but all were firmly to the right of the spectrum. A far right government would have very little government interference in peoples lives and no welfare. None of these countries were that far right.

Government control is a charactetistic of the left. Hungary is not right wing - Government trying to bring back the USSR!!!

"West Berlin or East Berlin"

I think West Berlin was in the hands of the SPD under Wille Brandt for most of that time. (SPD a socialist party)

So very true.

Scholz's SPD was far to the right of Willy Brandt's SPD.

Willy Brandt's SPD was far to the right of the original SPD - which was what the Communist party called themselves at the beginning of the 20th century.

Pretty much all parties that get into power move to the right. Two of the main reasons are financial considerations, and the power-hungry attaching themselves to a vehicle that can satisfy their ambitions.

You are describing an authoritarian regime, and attaching the word socialist to it.

There have been authoritarian regimes of the right and the left, I mentioned Franco's Spain, I could have mentioned Salazar's Portugal, Pilsudski's Poland, Pinochet's Chile and a host of others, which were all fascist regimes similar to Mussolini's Italy - and to Hitler's Germany in its initial phase before it went ballistic.

None of the regimes I have mentioned were in the slightest way socialist. The rulers always depended on the big corporations and the banks for their support; it was a two-way process, a symbiotic process where the regime and big business fed off each other.

Fine Gael grew out of a movement - the Blue Shirts - and arose when a couple of other groups including Cumann na nGaedhal - coalesced with them to form Fine Gael. It was a fairly hard-right party, the party of the business class, big farmers, the professional classes and the remaining unionists south of the border. At times it was quite unhappy with democracy and free speech - and big into "law & order" and control. In recent years it has moved away from that image although from time to time we still see the iron fist behind the glove.

Another main policy of FG has been the use of emigration as a form of social control - in the 50s, 80s and againwhen they came to power after the 2008 crash. This is at variance with FF (who I have no time for) who have presided over ending emigration and the return of emigrants.

If FG ever gained a majority in the Dáil, I have no doubt that we would see hard right policies put in place, but I can't see that majority happening.