Political World
Gazing into the Christmas crystal ball to see who finds a Euro seat under the tree
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
It’s that time of year again when the Christmas lights are switched on in Shop Street, that Ryan Tubridy hosts the annual toy show on the Late Late…..and the Connacht Tribune political columnist turns his attention to, erm, next year’s European elections.
Because even the excitement of Christmas cannot overshadow our unbridled joy at finding ourselves in the new, beautifully named Midlands North-West. I, for one, really feel I belong in a logical constituency that takes in Laois, Kildare, Meath, Westmeath and County Louth (hello Gerry Adams – we’re all fellow constituents now).
It takes in counties from three different provinces – and it’s just as well that Clare has been taken away because then we would have had the truly ludicrous situation of all four provinces in the one constituency.
The constituency redraw is meaningless down to its silly name. The sense of a geographical entity is, well, nonexistent. It’s not partition. It’s a partition of a partition that’s been diced up and then spat out. It’s ridiculous.
The only constituency that still feels like one is Dublin. They’ve made a hames of South and East though, although it doesn’t seem as bad as the scrambled mess that is the northern half of the country.
And so we have a four-seater, with four sitting MEPs – Pat the Cope Gallagher; Jim Higgins; Marian Harkin; and Mairéad McGuinness – all likely to go again. There have been rumours that Fine Gael has been trying to get Higgins off the pitch but it looks like he’s going to dig his heels in.
And there is precedent for this. Twice in the recent past parties have tried to push out incumbents. Not only did they fail but the MEP they tried to ditch went on to retain the seat, for no other reason than the attempt to push them out garnered them a huge amount of publicity and sympathy.
The two victim-winners were Labour’s Bernie Malone in Dublin (Labour tried to impose Orla Guerin on her) and the An Spidéal man Seán Ó Neachtain who successfully resisted Fianna Fáil’s headquarters attempts to make him walk the plank and make way for Frank Fahey.
The election is still over six months away and not all candidates are known or declared. There is always an opportunity for strong independents in European elections – going back to the unassailable TJ Maher in Munster two decades and more ago.
Profile is also important. European elections are the Rose of Tralee of Irish politics. People vote on personality and superficial likeability rather than for ideology or politics. There are so many precedents of a well-known household name entering the field.
Look at Dana in the early 1990s and former GAA president Sean Kelly and TV personality Mairead McGuinness in more recent elections. No wonder Fianna Fáil (or was it Fine Gael) was trying to court Anne Doyle recently.
So what about the new constituency taking in the northern half of the country? Well if The Cope and Mairead McGuinness run, you can be sure they will both win seats. I’m not so sure of Jim Higgins – it would be a lot to get Fine Gael to win two seats out of four.
They did it in 2004 when McGuinness and Avril Doyle both won, but that was because their fight to the death struggle against each other raised their profiles so much that both were made electable.
There’s definitely an independent seat too but I sense Marian Harkin will have some competition for it this time around. Two Galway-based independents may stand. The first is Colm Keaveney, former chair of the Labour Party. He has a high profile but is it enough and is he popular or well-known enough to get enough votes across the constituency? I just think the odds are too long on him ousting Harkin.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
Academically, politics is described as a science. But in the real world, it’s more of an art – and one of the big decisions a Government has to make is to decide when to call an election.
Will they see out the full term, or will they go early – either to mitigate the damage they will ship, or to secure a victory before things go awry, or the economy takes a dip, or some kind of controversy erupts?
Timing is everything.
And there’s a bit of art to that – not to mention a lot of luck. If you call it early and win big, you’re a genius. If you call it early and lose, you are the political version of the village fool.
Charlie Haughey was a poor judge of the public mood. Twice he called snap elections and on both occasions they backfired. Haughey succeeded Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in late 1979 and did not – technically – have his own mandate. He tried to remedy that by calling an election in 1981. But it recoiled. Ray MacSharry warned him not to hold it during the H Block hunger strikes when republican prisoners were dying each day. He did not listen to the advice and found himself out of office.
After his return to power in 1987, Haughey tired of presiding over a minority government that kept on losing votes in the Oireachtas (the opposition won nine private members motions).
So he called a snap general election and it backfired. Fianna Fáil lost seats and had to broker a coalition deal with the Progressive Democrats and his long-standing political adversary Dessie O’Malley.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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World of Politics with Harry McGee
I was cycling down Mount Street in Dublin on Tuesday. It’s a wide esplanade that links the Grand Canal with Merrion Square. The street is a mixture of fine Georgian buildings and modern office blocks.
About half-way down is the office of the International Protection Office, which deals with asylum seekers who have arrived in the country.
Needless to say, the office has been overwhelmed in the past year. Besides an estimated 80,000 refugees who have arrived from Ukraine, there have been about 20,000 people from other parts of the world who have arrived into Dublin (mostly) claiming asylum.
The numbers peaked around Christmas, but they have been falling a little. In January, more than 1,300 people arrived seeking asylum but the numbers fell back to 831 and 858, in February and March respectively.
They are still huge numbers in a historical context.
So back to my cycle on Tuesday. I knew that some asylum seekers were camping outside the International Protection Office, but I was taken aback by how many. There were six tents lined up on the pavement directly outside. Then on the ramp that led down to the basement carpark on the side of the building, there were about another 20 tents.
It looked like what it was, a refugee camp in the middle of Dublin’s business district. If you pan out from Mount Street, you will find tents here and there in nearby streets and alleys. There were a good few tents in an alleyway off Sandwith Street about 500 metres away.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
God that was a dramatic and historic weekend in England, wasn’t it? So much excitement, so much change, so much hype, so much out with the old and in with the new, and what looks like the coronation of a new leader. Yes, the local elections in Britain were something else weren’t they!
Apologies for not going on about King Charles III but the contract I signed when I became a lifelong republican forbids me to discuss the topic!
I know the British local elections sound a bit boring by comparison, but the results were stunning.
The Conservatives lost nearly 1,000 seats, the British Labour Party gained almost 500 and both the Lib Dems (with 350 gains) and the Greens (gaining over 200) also had amazing days at the polls.
It was Labour’s best day since 2002 but its victory was only partial. The Greens and the Lib Dems actually made gains at the expense of Labour in more affluent areas, and in parts of Britain where there were high numbers of graduates.
It was in the Red Wall constituencies in the North of England where the Labour recovery was strongest. These are working class constituencies with pockets of deprivation where people voted for the Labour Party forever. But all of those constituencies voted for Brexit and then voted for the Tories in the next general election. Labour is now winning back some of those votes.
Local elections are classified as second-tier elections which essentially means – from a national perspective – they are not life-or-death affairs, and not everything turns on them. Of course, it’s really important to have good local representation. But they are not an amazing weather vane for who rules the country.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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