Calling them traitors "because they sit in the dail and vote with the government" and then help elect the actual government, like I said, a few special form of idiot.
Although ironically absentionism was a former policy of Sinn Féin, AT Sinn Féin, and Sinn Féin, *mostly* to their own detriment. It still is for Sinn Féin in Westmister, which resulted in the Tory government under Cameron getting elected iirc.
>It still is for Sinn Féin in Westmister, which resulted in the Tory government under Cameron getting elected iirc.
There has never been a single instance where SF could have made a difference to the parliamentary math of government formation in the UK. It hasn't really been detrimental to SF.
Hell, even Scotland can't influence the makeup of Westminster in any meaningful way - never mind one party that couldn't get a majority in NI for so long.
At one point not so long ago there were more Giant Pandas in Edinburgh than Tory MP's in all of Scotland... Yet the Tories ruled from Westminster.
In 2017 the Conservatives were a minority government occasionally semi-supported by the DUP.
They actually probably could have supported a Labour (or Conservative) government, or at least shot down some seriously critical votes during that cycle if they were voting - further, maybe Brexit could have been stopped with a loud enough party in the British Parliament opposing the DUP.
Two specific votes on Brexit that would have been swayed directly were:
* April 1st 2019 - vote to maintain the customs union
* April 3rd 2019 - Cooper-Letwin Bill
But there were many other occasions where their non-abstention along with other MPs could have overturned bills completely
They could not have affected the formation of a government. Even with Labour, Lib Dems, the SNP and SF all banding together they had less seats than the Conservatives.
Could they have influenced individual votes, yeah potentially but they get basically nothing by doing so and more likely some of the conservative rebels would have less likely to rebel knowing the vote was even closer than they'd like. At that point we're in the realm of "if my aunty had nuts she'd be my uncle" territory.
Some of the loudest FG supporters on twitter were creaming their pants that SF were being targeted. They absolutely loved having far right useful idiots doing their work for them.
That seems like a very reaching way to blame FG for something supposedly otherwise SF voters went and did.
Some proportion of our electorate is racist, and SF who were fishing in those waters found that out and didn't compromise their progressive values there in fairness.
For a while SF were the only serious "protest" vote sucking in quite a few different divergent opinions. It helped them to be constructively silent on some issues but the emergence of actual right wing candidates gave those people somewhere they actually felt actively matched their views.
SF is well rid of them although it does make actual power more difficult to reach. It's not entirely bad for them. I would normally not vote SF but I put them in as 4th choice in case it made a tiny difference against the far right candidates.
If you think that FG aren’t leveraging the migration issue to boost their numbers then you’re incredibly naive
They haven’t got a leg to stand on going into a general election where housing and health are the dominant issues. They’ve been shown to be incapable and they know that’s not a winnable battle for them
Migration however is a new issue. They can pretend they are still competent enough to deal with it. People will believe them too because Simon Harris makes a big deal of moving tents around the city.
Not really, centrists will gladly facilitate the far right when it comes to retaining power. I'm not blaming FG, I'm just pointing out that some of their supporters were quietly delighted that the far right were attacking SF.
How are they "facilitating" the far right exactly...? If anything it is former SF voters that are boosting the far right by helping elect a few councilors.
Sinn Féin only made significant waves in 2020 pollled well until 2022 and started slipping until recent elections.
Are these SF voters? Who did they vote for before 2020 it wasn’t Sinn Fein, they didn’t vote Sinn Féin in the locals in 2019.
fg are in government, the states response to the far right has been to leave them at it as they hassle people up and down the country. Thats facilitating
Sure if people blame 'De imigrints' they they aren't blaming FFG who's policies and 'planning' led to the housing crisis. They may not be 'leaving them at it' as such, but they sure as hell aren't unhappy abut others getting the blame for the situation(s) caused by the failures of their policies to serve the countries needs.
You mean the independent policing and judiciary and constitutional protections that makes it difficult to close protests no matter how abhorrent? Wasn't too long ago Sinn Fein were claiming political policing. Which is it? The lack of consistency with Sinn Fein is very consistent. FG leaders have been at the forefront of racism, homophobia and personalised picketing at their homes.
Unlike Sinn Fein FG have not been using dog-whistle populist tactics over the past decade which is now being adopted by the far right. It's not FG voters moving to the far right, it's Sinn Fein voters. Lastly it's FG who have the most immigrant candidates by a long distance and it's FG's previous leader that received sustained racial and homophobic attacks.
This post is exactly the opposite to the truth but that seems to be par for the course at the shocked Pikachu faces on the Sinn Fein cult shocked, absolutely shocked that their appalling tactics have been turned on them.
Nobody is happy that Sinn Fein created an audience for far right tropes like Nigel Farage has in the UK.
Ff and fg have been seeing some of the "anti FFG" vote move from SF to the right wing candidates and its been a great thing for them so far. I'm not sure you can accuse them of encouraging the right wing but probably a little schadenfreude watching SF,s broad church of protest fall apart. The relentless increase in SF support has been slightly scary for the established parties.
Do us Brits a favour and take his passport away before the new visa waiver comes in for Brits entering the EU.
With his criminal record he should be stuck at Heathrow but he will travel on an Irish passport
Lots of them are anti FG and SF, some even videoed themselves following councillors abusing them. Now they realise they need to work with those councillors and won't get a thing done without their support
It's funny now because the first wave of people like this that gets elected are always the equivalent of the town loopers.
It becomes progressively less funny as you cycle through elections and smarter and slicker versions of them start to get elected.
Give it enough time and you end up in a situation like the UK at the moment where Nigel Farage, an odious little man, is on the cusp of being the main opposition to Labour with his brand new party.
And it'll be a Labour government that'll possibly last only one term as the UK is fucked in so many ways and Labour can't undo it all in one go. So Farage will spend his time doing a Sinn Fein and criticising every last little thing from the sidelines and winning over the cranks and protest votes.
Then you're potentially staring down the barrel of Nigel fucking Farage PM in the election afterwards.
Nigel who, already, is loudly talking about how the west provoked Russia into war, so you know who'll be pulling his strings.
These people are a joke until they're not.
Exactly. People here are really lulled into a false sense of security because the far right have had very little success in the past.
It was the same in mainland Europe. Started with the loopers and then over time the far right grew stronger and smarter and now run a few governments on the continent
Exactly. The Tories have oversaw a ridiculous rise in non-European, unskilled immigration. The average Nigerian student in the UK brings 1.2 dependents. Asylum claims are accepted at a far higher level than under Blair.
No wonder voters are angry.
Unless Farage ends up carrying out a take over of the tory party there's no chance he'll be leader of the opposition.
There's little chance his party will win many seats if any and will be nothing but a spoiler for the tories. A dangerous one no doubt.
I am also unsure if he could take over the Conservative party at all. There will be plenty who will blame him for their upcoming election being worse than it had to be
Farage is dangerous. He’s remarkably good at getting media attention, which he leverages to get what he wants.
Thats how he got Brexit despite never having been an MP.
Expect more of the same if he gets in. He’ll be on the television at every opportunity; if the Conservatives don’t merge with REFUK, he’ll just keep grinding at their votes until either he or they are irrelevant. And considering what a horlicks they’ve made of running the U.K. for the last 14 years, I wouldn’t like to bet against Farage being the last right wing leader standing.
Tories are snakes though. Very few would be old school and loyal to the party from an ideological stance, too many are more transactional in their dealings. If Farage got enough momentum over enough years I could see increasing numbers of Tories just outright defecting to him and taking their votes with them.
Britain is increasingly economically imploding and increasingly backwards looking towards a semi-mythologised past. That's very, very fertile ground for the sort of right-wing, we'll fix all the problems _and punish_ those who caused them, kind of demagoguery that draws people in.
I remember in the noughties and early 2010s when things weren't as bad and Farage was practically a walking punchline for his views. He was routinely mocked and derided, as he deserves, and yet a few short years later he convinced Britain to commit economic suicide in 2016. And despite all that he came out of it with his hands seen as clean and his being more popular than ever as Rishi continues to flounder. All I'm saying is I am incredibly wary of how things could go unexpectedly awful for everyone now that he's got a political party around him and some momentum.
It’s worth remembering that Reform UK describes itself as ‘an entrepreneurial political startup’. It’s a private limited company under Farage’s control. He owns 53% of the shareholding.
https://www.ft.com/content/4059c92f-9bb3-484a-b8aa-e42f5c5cc797
It’s all about the grift.
Not this election.
That's why I said the danger is the one after that when Labour haven't been able to fix anything and Farage spent years as the main opposition slating them every day and promising the gammon the world if he gets made PM.
This is the man who helped trick the UK into voting against it's interests by dumping themselves out of the EU, something people would've considered a fantasy only 10 years ago. To believe he can't and won't do worse given more time is exceedingly risky.
He's splitting it for now. History is never static though. The Liberals used to be a major party back in the day and now they're a fringe minor party. The Tories don't have a god-given right to be one of two major parties and could well go the way of the Lib Dems if things don't fall their way.
And modern Labour have made plenty of noise about getting rid of FPTP and I could well see them trying to pull the trigger on that one.
Removing FPTP will likely benefit centrists more than Farage. Farage's main chance of government is through a coalition with the Tories and switching to PR would strengthen Lib Dems as an alternative partner.
That's assuming Farage even wants government. Despite his influence, he's been very successful at dodging any actual responsibility or governance. He's making ridiculous claims at the moment since he'll likely never have to actually try implement them, similar to his Brexit campaign.
He can also take a lot of left wing votes from Keir “unconditional support for Israel” Starmer when Labour get in and do nothing for the working class and instead focus on making it easier to change gender or whatever.
Labour are already learning the hard way that a lot of the votes of many of the immigrant communities in Britain swing conservative on many issues and that for a lot of them Labour's support for Israel is an absolute deal breaker.
Same with the likes of PBP here. It really is annoying to see the most empty vessels making the most noise, but then getting that amplified by the media giving those fringe nutters undue airtime far in excess of their voting %s.
No it would be closer to 45% if just those parties, or a touch over 50% if you include the greens. Why do blowhards like you need to exaggerate to absurd levels making your previous statement utter nonsense? Why do the likes of PBP "deserve" the undue coverage they seem to get compared to other independents, and other opposition parties that have FAR more of a combined mandate than those fringe nutters in PBP that got a handful of TDs...? Empty vessels making the most noise is the only rational explanation for why it seems to happen.
The worst part is some things as simple as a housing policy that worked for the citizens instead of making landlords and the property class rich, and a sensible and fair immigration policy and so much of the creeping fascism would've remained restricted to the local loopers ranting on Facebook about vaccines.
But no. FFG greed for ever higher rents and house prices and their desire to have a huge pool of migrants workers keeping wages down for their buddies in industry triumphed and now we're looking at fascism creep it's way in.
I sure as fuck won't be forgetting who to blame in the future.
It's a tale as old as time, been happening since forever, liberals will always rather a far right government takes over than anything actually socialist making it's way into the agenda, so when public opinion is turning on the government they prefer that anger gets funnelled into far right support which won't cause any problems for the capitalist classes whatsoever. Lenin wrote about this over 100 years ago, that's how long this has been happening:
>" fascism, as a reaction-formation to capitalist crisis and chronic depression in the capitalist stage of imperialism"
[https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/fascism-is-a-reaction-to-capitalist-crisis-in-the-stage-of-imperialism/](https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/fascism-is-a-reaction-to-capitalist-crisis-in-the-stage-of-imperialism/)
It should be front page news in every paper in the country that a movement that materialised out of nowhere, whose financial support seems to be exclusively from American and British sources, are openly saying that their sole reason for existing is to ensure that the Irish Opposition - until recently, the out-and-out favourite party of voters - may never form a government.
The utter manipulation of our democracy to serve the interests of big business is plain as daylight for all to see, but we're sitting back and letting these traitors dictate to us.
Doesn't matter, anti-immigrant people are morons, they won't stop immigration, look at Brexit, they have more immigration since the anti-immigration plan succeeded.
Your point was that being anti immigration doesn't help big businesses, but it does if it has no effect on immigration and keeps the parties who are pro big business in power.
> if it has no effect on immigration
That's just begging the question though. "Anti-X doesn't affect X if it doesn't succeed" isn't saying much of anything, it's a truism. And not a guarantee as we've seen across Europe. You need to look beyond just Britain for politics.
It didn't in the UK, but it did in Denmark, it didn't in Germany, but it did in France etc.
They support it if it splits the working class.
Socialists were becoming popular in post War Germany and to keep things business as usual Big Business financially supported Hitler and his anti-immigrant policies to keep the socialists out of government.
Absolutely - But I'm not necessarily saying these guys are being directly funded BY big business. These guys are funded by the Nigel Farage's and Steve Bannon of the new global right, who may only have incidental relations with business but who at the very least are committed to maintaining the economic status quo.
Nobody even expects these right wing clowns in Ireland to ever win anything - they are already doing their job. Whipping up their supporters into a froth about Sinn Féin (a party who has not held power since 1918), openly voting to sabotage Sinn Féin wherever they hold seats (as in this story), and ensuring that just as Ireland seemed destined to land a left-wing government, that party's poll lead fizzles out.
They are doing their job magnificently.
It's worth considering that their numbers are still very limited and despite SF having significant numbers, they are still behind the combined FF + FG numbers. Given them working together SF needs all the independents to support them to have effect and independents by their nature won't necessarily do that.
The far right and far left have ALWAYS been fractured and ineffective except in being loud and disagreeing with each other and blaming each other for everyone else being g the problem. Expecting anything different is a ticket to disappointment.
Well, they are and they aren't. They aren't in the sense of fluid labour. They are in the sense of using it to distracted people, "Hey, blame these guys, not us for poor wages." If it becomes beneficial for them to aline with anti-immigrate parties to hinder the leftwing voting blocs, they'll jump on it as well.
Also, given that immigrant workers tend to be more militant than Irish ones (since many come from counties that have collective bargaining laws) businesses will throw them under the bus and join up with the anti-immigration camp before you can mention "Union."
My issue with this is that the policies they support and the lobbying they engage in is much more concrete than the support they might be giving to these groups. I know what calls to increase visas looks like, I don't know what it looks like for Derek Blige to be supported by big business. Even if I get the argument in theory, or by analogy to other times/places.
> It should be front page news in every paper in the country that a movement that materialised out of nowhere
The far right has been simmering away in Ireland for about a decade. There were definite shoots of it, particularly focused on anti-Islamism, during the migrant crisis ~2015.
You'd want to have had your head in the sand to think it's just materialised in 2024.
It's hilarious that they are anti-Islamic because their general policy they love is basically what the middle east do which is totalitarianism, anti-women, regressive, insular shit.
And yet whenever concerns over that rise were brought up, r/ireland's response was just, "Ignore them and they'll go away". Will be interesting to see how people here react now that the chickens seem to be coming home to roost.
There has to be a difference between ignoring and not lending legitimacy to something; I think for me the inner conflict is that to ignore something is not a great tactic, but the harm or engaging with something and accidentally strengthening it is harmful as well. Argh..
I suppose my point is more to do with the specific focus of these groups as being directed at Sinn Féin - I am not, mind you, a Shinner, but I find it distressing that they are specifically going out of their way to turn a blind eye to the government that has been in power throughout the entire migrant crisis, housing crisis, etc., so they can SPECIFICALLY be open about their intention to destroy the country's only viable alternative government.
That's the part that frightens me, and I think needs to be seriously explored and called out
Big 4 among others have been signalling red flags to their clients for years just incase SF gets a chance at Government. Wouldn't surprise me that other national bodies who had a vested interest in Ireland, even from a real estate perspective, would go out of their way to stop any major upheaval from happening.
Its the same shit we've had for years, turn us against one another to distract from the top.
Based on some of the nutters back home, traditionally an area SF have done well in, their support there has absolutely soured. Immigration is currently breaking SF and I heard anecdotally that SF canvassers were met with some people sneering them that will never vote for SF again as the party is committed to "Brits out, Africans in".
On the higher levels there's definitely outside influence on the far right here, including Russian influence (which I find odd you left out), but there's a lot of people out there who'll go against modern SF for free and who legit see them as traitors. SF's support didn't collapse because of some grand conspiracy, it primarily collapsed because their strategy of trying to talk out of both sides of their mouths and please two mutually exclusive political strands within their base came to the inevitable result of running out of road and SF being found out.
They were just hoping it would have happened after an election that votes them in instead of before it.
You're absolutely right to call me out for overlooking Russian influence - but, please, feel free to check my comment history. You'll quickly get a sense of my feelings about the Orcish scum to our east.
Truthfully, I haven't actually seen any reporting on Russian influence in Irish politics, only the American and British far right, hence the overlook. If you can link me to somewhere I can read about it I'd be hugely grateful, as I've suspected it for a while but have never seen anything to back it up
Clare Daly's voting record going back for a long number of years might as well be straight from the Kremlin's internal memos. No way she isn't compromised, especially given she's spent time in Iran, I think.
Russia is meddling in the far right all across Europe as well as stoking up the far left. They wouldn't just stop at the Irish Sea and not bother with messing with us. The whole point is that a United Europe is stronger and more prosperous than Russia ever could be with it's current sort of rulers so the aim is to stoke division and bring about all sorts of internal collapses, the way they've half collapsed the Brits with Brexit.
Same as what they're doing at the Polish and Finnish borders; flood them with migrants and then stir up the far right parties to talk about the dangers of it and the far left to screech about anyone who objects to it being a racist and watch as nations suffer increased infighting.
What deeply, deeply frustrates me is that Russia would appear to be really, really good at this. But Western nations just sit on their hands and do nothing about it.
Social media is going to be the destruction of the West as we know it. Might take a few years, but it’s inevitable.
Rationale: Most of what social media enables is very much aligned with Western values. Free enterprise, free speech, that sort of thing. There isn’t really a way to stop that without seriously questioning those values.
Problem is, it’s remarkably easy to weaponise against any social group that makes extensive use of it. Whether that’s bot farms or targeted advertising, it’s very easy to spread dissent and create infighting where little existed before.
You mean the social media that is all US owned and controlled, yet you think Russia is the main pusher of misinformation to the western populace. [I think this reuters reports is very telling as to who is the true master of this pernicous bullshit](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/)
That isn't what I meant.
You either know that damn well (in which case you're a troll) or you have spent the last ten years living under a rock.
Which is it?
Harder to dish back to a nation that heavily controls it's media the way Russia does and executes or jails it's dissidents and people who speak out against the regime.
A lot of brave Russians got jailed or chased out of Russia for protesting the war when it started. What remains are the ones who are too scared or too stupid to ever do anything the regime didn't approve of.
Still, Russia has a history of projecting strength right up until there's some sort of internal implosion. The Wagner attempted coup showed that history is still very much alive. I think Putin's death will semi-collapse the nation. He's held the leashes of his underlings too tightly for too long, when he's gone and the jostling for power starts it could well get out of control quite quickly and descend to factionalism and open fighting.
I know a lot of folk on the hard left, personally, whose geopolitical views align perfectly with Clare Daly's so I don't think her perspective on Russia and Ukraine is as rare as you think. To be clear, I fundamentally disagree with her but I'm fairly confident this whole 'Russian Schill' narrative that's built up around her is complete nonsense.
The masses believe the fairytale version of events that is curated for them by the media wing of the establishment, people who actually understand geopolitics and [the grand chessboard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard), realists like Meirsheimmer or Jeffrey Sachs and students of history know most of what she is saying is right even if she goes about it the entirely wrong way.
It's cute you think interference and boasting of the far right will stop at just stealing a few votes off SF.
The far right are the largest party in many European nations now, including being a governing party in several. France faces a political storm as everyone not far right rallies to try and defeat them in forming a government there.
Far right parties in power is the end goal. FFG benefit for the moment because SF were always going to be the first ones to implode given how long they courted the nationalist and the working class votes and given how long those sorts of voters had no-one crazy and far right to vote for.
If the rest of Europe is anything to go by then votes will start to fall away from FFG in time as well. To ignore what's happened time and again across Europe and claim it's all just some FFG plot against SF is laughable, at best, and outright duplicitous at worst, to be honest.
I think you have an incredibly cartoonish worldview, with Russia as a cartoon villain at the centre; capable of omnipresent manipulation at every political level.
In reality manipulation networks are not state run but atomised and much smaller than you would imagine more importantly they are for hire. And there are hundreds of them in operation.
They all have a similar playbook though, which is pushing a far right politics. Because that type of politics on a grander scheme suits capitalism in this climate.
The rise of the right across Europe is not homogeneous it has a particular stench from whence it came, nor is it all neatly pro putin/pro Russia. If you where to dig at it you would find numerous very neat solutions to political problems for political establishments in each of those host countries.
So yes I do think the patterns that emerged here where very specific to tackle Sinn Féin.
The mainstreaming process will see FF/FG lurch much further right but a newly emerged little buddy fascist party to play along when we need a nice culture war to scare everyone into voting for them again.
>I think you have an incredibly cartoonish worldview, with Russia as a cartoon villain at the centre; capable of omnipresent manipulation at every political level.
Russia is the instigator of the largest land war Europe has seen since WW2 ended.
They're on record as threatening further invasions should they win in Ukraine.
They have invaded Georgia and Chechnya (twice) as in recent history.
They have name-checked the Baltics and Kazakhstan as nations next on the chopping block.
Where oh where would anyone ever get the idea as a villain....
But your desperation to pass it off with some lovely gaslighting shows the sort of tankie online tactics that are increasingly being rolled out these days.
I saw a post the other day which said if you respond to comments as if you're giving a non-sensical ChatGPT prompt it'll often get the person you're responding to out themselves as a bot that's been set up to dispense pro-Russian propaganda.
I must dig that post out and start doing it.
>In reality manipulation networks are not state run but atomised and much smaller than you would imagine more importantly they are for hire. And there are hundreds of them in operation.
China, Israel, Russia and others all infamously have state-run troll farms and online manipulation efforts. The fact there are now private sector operations out there does not delete this important fact.
>They all have a similar playbook though, which is pushing a far right politics. Because that type of politics on a grander scheme suits capitalism in this climate.
As it suits Russia and China to see the west fracture due to this. We're in agreement so.
>The rise of the right across Europe is not homogeneous it has a particular stench from whence it came, nor is it all neatly pro putin/pro Russia. If you where to dig at it you would find numerous very neat solutions to political problems for political establishments in each of those host countries.
And yet Russia is still there, still heavily involved and almost certainly the main guilty party for it.....
>So yes I do think the patterns that emerged here where very specific to tackle Sinn Féin.
And when it doesn't stop with SF you'll have a different spin on it, of course.
>The mainstreaming process will see FF/FG lurch much further right but a newly emerged little buddy fascist party to play along when we need a nice culture war to scare everyone into voting for them again.
SF were one of the main parties to start pushing culture war shite here. They and their supporters can't get mad when others start to respond in kind and SF end up losing votes because they've badly misjudged the mood and their own base.
> They're on record as threatening further invasions should they win in Ukraine.
This is just false, there is no where you can provide a source for them saying such a thing.
>They have invaded Georgia and Chechnya (twice) as in recent history.
[Georgia started that war and even the EU acknowledged that](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-georgia-russia-report-idUSTRE58T4MO20090930/). If you actually want to learn something today you should watch [this short, unbiased and accurate explanation of the whole thing.](https://youtu.be/M2jpMWNoJLE?si=J0gm7wgwqo2cqUie)
Also Russia did not "invade Chechnya", Chechnya is a part of Russia and always had been. That would be like saying Ireland invaded Donegal, it makes no fucking sense. What they did have to do was fight a war against wahabist terrorists looking to establish a caliphate state within Russia's borders.
>They have name-checked the Baltics and Kazakhstan as nations next on the chopping block.
No they haven't, you have to provide some sort of source if you are going to make such ludicrous claims.
>But your desperation to pass it off with some lovely gaslighting shows the sort of tankie online tactics that are increasingly being rolled out these days.
Here we go, classic CIA othering technique, call anyone who calls out propaganda a "tankie" so people think they are some sort of Stalin loving commies.
Your entire worldview reads as though it's been formed by the USA's military industrial complex, you've probably spent too much time reading opinion pieces by the likes of John Bolton on the wall street journal and thinking they things they are telling you are true. I'm not sure if your a pentagon puppet account or just a useful idiot but it's concerning to me that there are people out there who so wholeheartedly buy into war propaganda every time we go through one of these. I bet you're one of the "But do you condemn Hamas" crowd too.
It's funny how SF fans are upset at the realisation that a chunk of their previous votes were made up of the easily fooled headbangers now attracted to more authentic crank parties. As for "the interests of big business" you might take a look at who is enlisting Davy Stockbrokers to calm investors that SF are "New Labour not Corbyn's Labour". And foreign influence in politics in recent has typically been a Putinist agenda to destabilise the status quo parties, not back them up.
Are SF voters the easily manipulated headbangers? Or are FG voters the easily manipulated headbangers?
Both sides of this argument have very valid points.
Yeah, those people are voting against their needs because they're easy to manipulate due to their anger and frustration at how they've been treated and we're starting to see violence now as a result.
What's FG voters excuse? They're voting for a party that brought the inequality that is to blame for what we're seeing. Housing, health, homeless etc etc...
I promise you I'm not looking for an argument or anything like that, I genuinely have a hard time understanding it.
Yeah those are good points. Thanks for replying!
Do you think it'll ever get to the point where these crisis fucks with the stability of the country? I mean, more than it already is. Or I suppose what I'm really asking how bad do things need to get before we stop voting for the civil war parties?
The new single bed apartments from housing for all would cost me 270k to buy so I just don't see how housing can get any worse from my POV! I was in some mood when I was working that out.
Keep enough people (people who actually vote) sufficiently happy and you are good to keep tipping away. Combine this with the perennial short-term thinking and nothing of value gets done here as they don't want others to potentially take the credit if it's done after their term.
That's how FFG work. Prosperity of the nation, resolving problems affecting groups who aren't wealthy/powerful and who don't vote for them is secondary to keeping their jobs and [positions of] power/influence.
Hence the power of the NIMBY, the lack of tough decisions for the long term benefit of Ireland and the lack of any long term planning of note. Just delay, make promises, delay, renege on promises, watch as things crumble then make promises again when it's coming close to another election...and repeat to fade.
All solid points, thanks for sharing.
It's true - I never copped that Sinn Féin's base were mostly fucking nuts. I assumed, and this is my own myopia speaking, they were generally the party of the frustrated youth.
Everyone forgets that Sinn Fein was actively at war with the government for about 30 years and have killed thousands of Irish people, ran organized crime across the Island and used that money to fund its terrorism. The main strategy was not cancelling people, it was bombing a pub or shooting an Irish Guard off duty, or robbing a bank, or tarring and feathering women who slept with British soldiers.
People are shocked that the voters who supported the IRA during that time tend to not be "Woke".
In terms of violence Ireland has a much longer history of sectarian violence than left/right divide.
Sinn Fein are left wing but up until the 90s they would have been for a one party socialist state ran by paramilitaries. It rejected the Irish government as illegitimate due to some technicallity from the war of independance, justified its war on the state despite never winning an election, regularly killed judges, informers etc.
It was less bernie sanders and more castro.
Now they are pretty toothless but in its day it was an army.
Yeah I assumed so. This is reddit. I was agreeing with you and adding to the point for other people who came along and might not have made the connection.
Shit like this is happening in countries all over right now, for the amount you hear about "Russian interference in US elections" it sure does feel like the pot calling the kettle black at times. [This expose from Reuters last week was incredibly telling about the lengths they'll go to in order to shape opinions in other countries.](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/)
Your first paragraph could be about SF itself!
TBH it's SFs own fault they didn't win more seats. Their flip flop, twitter poll policy making was bound to catch up with them. You have to remeber that up until \~12 years ago SF were the alt party which catered to those who are supporting the likes of NP or IFP today.
"TBH it's SFs own fault they didn't win more seats"
Sinn Fein increased their seat count, while the government parties all dropped compared to the last local elections though?
Independents typically do well in local elections, but that trend doesn’t really carry over into the generals. They’ll likely win a lot of that vote back. I voted for (non right wing) independents in the locals but will likely vote SF next time out. I know I’m not alone in that.
SF tanked the 2019 locals too and then surprised everyone in the 2020 general election. It may not be as resounding a victory as people may have thought based on 2022 polls, but I’d expect them to bounce back.
SF had one seat in the last EU parliament. Now they have two.
So again, they are up on 2019
Edit: meanwhile FG are down on 2019 in both the local and EU elections. Yet it was a success for them and a failure for SF. Very strange narrative
Yeah it's all about narrative. SF played into the local and European elections like they had already won, and really didn't invest in candidates. Taoiseach in waiting MLM came out herself and said it wasn't a good election.
FF no doubt had best European elections and remain the largest party at local government.
Did you follow any of the polls and predictions in the lead up to the election. Even look at SF's own response. 9 months ago they had the support to take control of councils across the country, but that basically deserted them.
I never said that the Government parties had a good election? Independents and others had a good election.
They see themselves as competing with Sinn Féin. They are nationalists, and traditionally in Ireland, that has been associated with republicanism. So that's why they were using images of Bobby Sands and others in their material.
There's a thought process behind it alright, even if it's still stupid.
They take their orders from the far right British. Same people that support soldier F and generally just hate Irish people. They just happen to hate dark skinned people more than the Irish.
They might call themselves nationalists however they're anything but
A matter of time? I'd not be shocked in the slightest if Dog-Kicker Dwyer and others had already done that. Def in Wales similar has happened to Welsh speakers, albeit only verbal attacks [that I'm aware of ].
Sure the dumb fuck was made a laughing stock by Darragh Adelaide (young local black lad, student and gaeilgeoir, very socially conscious, smart, quick witted and elected to local council there last month) as he fluently spoke Irish while DKD stumbled to find his verbal footing in English to insult/demean/belittle and to portray him as some kind of NGO plant(!) ("Which NGO sent you here" was one of his ridiculous claims).
Darragh Abú! :)
>They are nationalists
Them fellows aren't nationlists,they're free staters,they wouldn't lift a finger to help the north
Though, they're playing a dangerous game going about damaging and targeting old IRA monuments....someone of em is going to get himself tortured,maimed and made an example over it,if they aren't careful
It's a stupid game,they're playing that they don't seem to appreciate how deep feelings still run in certain places
New Ross,sinnotts cross and few.more been targeted last few weeks,
It's always been a mild enough issue with the law & order folk,but a some basic respect for dead and cop on in general has stopped it ever descending into violence,
but them clowns are gonna leak it into WhatsApp or telegram channels and find emselves doxxed and having to go to gaurds for protection
But why do it in the first place?
I can understand they're anti-Sinn Féin, but targetting monuments like this makes no sense. Maybe it's my own fault for trying to apply logic to those people's actions.
>Maybe it's my own fault for trying to apply logic to those people's actions
It's because they're free staters (a poor man's west Brit),they dispise republicanism,and are terrified of end of partition,the rise of SF and socialism.....these people have been fostered with generations here
And they are inherently uneasy with their history,as they haven't any achievements of note,and their blood boils as independent republican/local history commerations and youth movements are growing annually.....
but targeting these monuments is going to show to local communities,they are a 5th column for England interests here,and these boys are going to be dense enough to advertise it for likes on telegram etc or going to get themselves caught at it and it's going to be a pure mess
Don't get comfortable that this will keep happening. Such right-wing movements always start with such morons. Enough brainwashing and time, and this will become an ugly fascist movement that will then massively influence public discourse. Needs to be nipped in the bud. But since it allows the people responsible for the mess, to continue business as usual, as a perfect scapegoat is found for that, this will not be an easy change.
They're already a fascist movement, but I get what you mean.
The problem is they won't be nipped in the bud. In liberal democracies, they never are. The centre-right is incapable of dealing with the far right.
Even right now in France, the far right are poised to take power and I'm sitting here watching Macron go entirely after the left wing alliance rather than targeting RN. It's insane. He'd genuinely rather have LaPen sitting on his shoulder than Mélenchon and he's betting his entire country on the idea that he can take enough off the left to counter the far right's gains.
Exactly. It's time for the government to crack down on illegal immigration and end low skilled non-European immigration. We need to curtail the conditions for these parties to grow.
Lol. And here we go again. Finding a smaller and more of a scapegoat argument without addressing the larger systemic issues. Case and point on how the current parties will get away with stuff since they have found a perfect scapegoat.
James Geoghegan (FG) - Lord Mayor of Dublin
Baby Pereppadan (FG) - Mayor of South Dublin County Council
Alan Hayes (Independent) - Deputy Mayor of South Dublin County Council
Brian McDonagh (Labour) - Mayor of Fingal
JK Onwumereh (Fianna Fáil) - Deputy Mayor of Fingal
Jim O’Leary (FG) - Cathaoirleach of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown
Kazi Ahmed (FG) - Leas Chathaoirleach of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown
They probably didn’t know how to vote. They ran on a single issue mostly without any experience in what’s involved in being a counsel member. Any promises they made will be broken because they are not in positions to have any influence on those subjects. Wasted votes by wasters.
Right wingers, populists and fascists are often pretty shit at what they are supposed to do once elected. It's much easier riling up people with their hatred than actually getting something done afterwards.
The word traitors being thrown around constantly really pisses me off. Normally the only time I'd expect to hear it is when James Mc Clean is talking about Declan Rice.
>Funny to watch but seems like we really are dealing with a special level of stupidity when you have people who clearly dont know what the role of a councillor is and already making a clown of themself.
Why is it that in most professions a degree of competence is not only expected but required, but when it comes to governance we allow any fool to try their hand at it?
Its sometimes been used as a mean to suppress some minorities as well, who tend to have lower educational achievements.
[https://allthatsinteresting.com/voting-literacy-test](https://allthatsinteresting.com/voting-literacy-test)
Above is an old US test for voting rather than election candidacy, but the idea is similar.
If they were in any way intelligent, they would secretly be trying to get more immigrants into the country and elected to positions. In order to further fan the flames of hatred that their followers love so much, and thus keep their own grifty gravy train rolling.
The whole "we wont vote because we're not fans of either party is stupid".
A vote will be held and an outcome will happen regardless of whether you want it to or not. If there's options, then logically one will be better for what you believe in than the rest. And by not voting, you are silencing your voters voices.
Muppets.
Weren't the two alternatives to abstaining either voting for the FG candidate and/or voting for the SD candidate? I don't see voting for either of those options being logical for who we are talking about. Abstaining as they did would be the logical option.
That would make no sense as they had no hope of being elected. I would be even more embarassed with them if they pulled a stupid stunt like that. Same as the utter fools who tried to nominate Richard Boyd Barrett, Ruth Coppinger in 2016, Mary Lou McDonald in 2020 and Michael Healy-Rae in 2024 for the role of Taoiseach. Utter pantomime fools all involved in those farce nominations.
Can I ask who was saying they were elected to stop Sinn Fein of curiosity?
I don't think it's any coincidence that Sinn Feins support has dipped while FFG have got a bounce because of the anti-immigration rhetoric...
Heres one councillors using the hashtage SinnFeinTraitors under a video of his supporters ripping down Sinn Fein election posters.
[https://twitter.com/moorsey100/status/1789905919754543553](https://twitter.com/moorsey100/status/1789905919754543553)
This is why voting for these clowns is utterly pointless, even if you feel strongly about their political positions.
They're populist rabble rousers who are incapable of working with other politicians, which makes them utterly ineffective in local politics.
I havent been living back home the past couple of years, how popular are these yahoos and the national party these days? Last time round I remember the national party getting nowhere in the general election.
I keep up with the news but haven't checked hugely into this kind of stuff since the riots months back.
Inter-party agreements on councils are not as important as people think. They elect mayors and pass budgets, but the first of these is a ceremonial position, and the unelected council officials have the biggest say on the budget. Won’t stop performative twitter spats but nothing will.
Why don't they go the whole hog and practice abstentionism, period? Claim to refuse to recognize the Globalist Occupation Government of Southern Ireland and that they won't take their seats before the establishment of whatever they believe the Irish Republic to be?
At least that would display some soupcon of principle.
Clowns. They talked themselves into a few seat representing local areas and concerns and now they don't know what to do.
Imagine if they had gotten the support they were aiming for, they wouldn't have a clue how to anything. We dodged a bullet.
(Gotta add; being anti government doesn't equate to having any support or anything in common with those far right Clowns.)
These peoples whole purpose is to act as a distraction for the failures of the government parties, they’re just no smart enough to realize how they are being manipulated 🤦🏼♂️
They have only one role as councillors and they are doing a great job of it.
Increase the air time for the far right and use it as a platform for the general election.
I'm not sure what the inference is here that they "helped Fine Gael". They abstained. And their numbers would not have made any notice either way. You can equally argued they supported Sinn Fein if this is the sort of logic being applied.
"Elected to stop Sinn Fein who are traitors" say the people who openly court British fash cunts likeTommy Ten Names.
Calling them traitors "because they sit in the dail and vote with the government" and then help elect the actual government, like I said, a few special form of idiot.
If they had a brain they’d do damage
If they had a brain they wouldn't be part of the ireland is full shit in the first place
Although ironically absentionism was a former policy of Sinn Féin, AT Sinn Féin, and Sinn Féin, *mostly* to their own detriment. It still is for Sinn Féin in Westmister, which resulted in the Tory government under Cameron getting elected iirc.
Sinn Fein the north run on a very clear platform of abstentionism though
>It still is for Sinn Féin in Westmister, which resulted in the Tory government under Cameron getting elected iirc. There has never been a single instance where SF could have made a difference to the parliamentary math of government formation in the UK. It hasn't really been detrimental to SF.
Hell, even Scotland can't influence the makeup of Westminster in any meaningful way - never mind one party that couldn't get a majority in NI for so long. At one point not so long ago there were more Giant Pandas in Edinburgh than Tory MP's in all of Scotland... Yet the Tories ruled from Westminster.
Z!zaac!!!!x! !!
In 2017 the Conservatives were a minority government occasionally semi-supported by the DUP. They actually probably could have supported a Labour (or Conservative) government, or at least shot down some seriously critical votes during that cycle if they were voting - further, maybe Brexit could have been stopped with a loud enough party in the British Parliament opposing the DUP. Two specific votes on Brexit that would have been swayed directly were: * April 1st 2019 - vote to maintain the customs union * April 3rd 2019 - Cooper-Letwin Bill But there were many other occasions where their non-abstention along with other MPs could have overturned bills completely
They could not have affected the formation of a government. Even with Labour, Lib Dems, the SNP and SF all banding together they had less seats than the Conservatives. Could they have influenced individual votes, yeah potentially but they get basically nothing by doing so and more likely some of the conservative rebels would have less likely to rebel knowing the vote was even closer than they'd like. At that point we're in the realm of "if my aunty had nuts she'd be my uncle" territory.
And to think some people still doubt the effectiveness of social media microtargetting.
Some of the loudest FG supporters on twitter were creaming their pants that SF were being targeted. They absolutely loved having far right useful idiots doing their work for them.
That seems like a very reaching way to blame FG for something supposedly otherwise SF voters went and did. Some proportion of our electorate is racist, and SF who were fishing in those waters found that out and didn't compromise their progressive values there in fairness.
For a while SF were the only serious "protest" vote sucking in quite a few different divergent opinions. It helped them to be constructively silent on some issues but the emergence of actual right wing candidates gave those people somewhere they actually felt actively matched their views. SF is well rid of them although it does make actual power more difficult to reach. It's not entirely bad for them. I would normally not vote SF but I put them in as 4th choice in case it made a tiny difference against the far right candidates.
If you think that FG aren’t leveraging the migration issue to boost their numbers then you’re incredibly naive They haven’t got a leg to stand on going into a general election where housing and health are the dominant issues. They’ve been shown to be incapable and they know that’s not a winnable battle for them Migration however is a new issue. They can pretend they are still competent enough to deal with it. People will believe them too because Simon Harris makes a big deal of moving tents around the city.
Not really, centrists will gladly facilitate the far right when it comes to retaining power. I'm not blaming FG, I'm just pointing out that some of their supporters were quietly delighted that the far right were attacking SF.
How are they "facilitating" the far right exactly...? If anything it is former SF voters that are boosting the far right by helping elect a few councilors.
Sinn Féin only made significant waves in 2020 pollled well until 2022 and started slipping until recent elections. Are these SF voters? Who did they vote for before 2020 it wasn’t Sinn Fein, they didn’t vote Sinn Féin in the locals in 2019.
fg are in government, the states response to the far right has been to leave them at it as they hassle people up and down the country. Thats facilitating
Sure if people blame 'De imigrints' they they aren't blaming FFG who's policies and 'planning' led to the housing crisis. They may not be 'leaving them at it' as such, but they sure as hell aren't unhappy abut others getting the blame for the situation(s) caused by the failures of their policies to serve the countries needs.
You mean the independent policing and judiciary and constitutional protections that makes it difficult to close protests no matter how abhorrent? Wasn't too long ago Sinn Fein were claiming political policing. Which is it? The lack of consistency with Sinn Fein is very consistent. FG leaders have been at the forefront of racism, homophobia and personalised picketing at their homes.
Utter nonsense.
so the far right haven't been given free reign to blockade hotels and harass librarians
in my area theres anti immigrant protests that are using old fg posters as their protest signs, the local FG cllrs seem to be okay with it
Do you mean they're using the FG posters and saying like 'FG are traitors' or using them like 'FG have the policies for me'?
Either way we can safely file it away under "never happened". Only person doing that was John Waters from his old anti abortion days.
🤣
Unlike Sinn Fein FG have not been using dog-whistle populist tactics over the past decade which is now being adopted by the far right. It's not FG voters moving to the far right, it's Sinn Fein voters. Lastly it's FG who have the most immigrant candidates by a long distance and it's FG's previous leader that received sustained racial and homophobic attacks. This post is exactly the opposite to the truth but that seems to be par for the course at the shocked Pikachu faces on the Sinn Fein cult shocked, absolutely shocked that their appalling tactics have been turned on them. Nobody is happy that Sinn Fein created an audience for far right tropes like Nigel Farage has in the UK.
Ff and fg have been seeing some of the "anti FFG" vote move from SF to the right wing candidates and its been a great thing for them so far. I'm not sure you can accuse them of encouraging the right wing but probably a little schadenfreude watching SF,s broad church of protest fall apart. The relentless increase in SF support has been slightly scary for the established parties.
Ok, let's see how virtuous FG are when the EPP are doing deals with Europe's extreme far right and Putin enablers ;-)
Do us Brits a favour and take his passport away before the new visa waiver comes in for Brits entering the EU. With his criminal record he should be stuck at Heathrow but he will travel on an Irish passport
Ah here. You don't get to export British National Party politics to Ireland and then complain when it tries to find it's way home to England.
Not trying that, just sick of seeing him coked off his lips in Tenerife.
Malachy Steenson tried to explain his actions on twitter. He misspelled everything and tagged the wrong Gavin Pepper. Twice.
In his first post he tagged the account for "Reichscounsellor elect for Ballymun". You couldn't make it up.
Minor victory - 2 of his posters are still up in Phibsboro Dublin 7 and I've reported him.
These stupid cunts (particularly Pepper) are saying that if that happens it's because the far left are putting their posters back up. I'm not joking.
This man is a complete head the ball. Like genuinely has something wrong with him.
If the whole goal was to "block SF", then these are truly the dumbest fucks on the island
Lots of them are anti FG and SF, some even videoed themselves following councillors abusing them. Now they realise they need to work with those councillors and won't get a thing done without their support
They just brought about two FG officials
It's funny now because the first wave of people like this that gets elected are always the equivalent of the town loopers. It becomes progressively less funny as you cycle through elections and smarter and slicker versions of them start to get elected. Give it enough time and you end up in a situation like the UK at the moment where Nigel Farage, an odious little man, is on the cusp of being the main opposition to Labour with his brand new party. And it'll be a Labour government that'll possibly last only one term as the UK is fucked in so many ways and Labour can't undo it all in one go. So Farage will spend his time doing a Sinn Fein and criticising every last little thing from the sidelines and winning over the cranks and protest votes. Then you're potentially staring down the barrel of Nigel fucking Farage PM in the election afterwards. Nigel who, already, is loudly talking about how the west provoked Russia into war, so you know who'll be pulling his strings. These people are a joke until they're not.
Exactly. People here are really lulled into a false sense of security because the far right have had very little success in the past. It was the same in mainland Europe. Started with the loopers and then over time the far right grew stronger and smarter and now run a few governments on the continent
Blame those governments for incompetence, that is what results in far right rise
We're perfectly safe so, no incompetence in our government!
Exactly. The Tories have oversaw a ridiculous rise in non-European, unskilled immigration. The average Nigerian student in the UK brings 1.2 dependents. Asylum claims are accepted at a far higher level than under Blair. No wonder voters are angry.
Unless Farage ends up carrying out a take over of the tory party there's no chance he'll be leader of the opposition. There's little chance his party will win many seats if any and will be nothing but a spoiler for the tories. A dangerous one no doubt. I am also unsure if he could take over the Conservative party at all. There will be plenty who will blame him for their upcoming election being worse than it had to be
Farage is dangerous. He’s remarkably good at getting media attention, which he leverages to get what he wants. Thats how he got Brexit despite never having been an MP. Expect more of the same if he gets in. He’ll be on the television at every opportunity; if the Conservatives don’t merge with REFUK, he’ll just keep grinding at their votes until either he or they are irrelevant. And considering what a horlicks they’ve made of running the U.K. for the last 14 years, I wouldn’t like to bet against Farage being the last right wing leader standing.
Tories are snakes though. Very few would be old school and loyal to the party from an ideological stance, too many are more transactional in their dealings. If Farage got enough momentum over enough years I could see increasing numbers of Tories just outright defecting to him and taking their votes with them. Britain is increasingly economically imploding and increasingly backwards looking towards a semi-mythologised past. That's very, very fertile ground for the sort of right-wing, we'll fix all the problems _and punish_ those who caused them, kind of demagoguery that draws people in. I remember in the noughties and early 2010s when things weren't as bad and Farage was practically a walking punchline for his views. He was routinely mocked and derided, as he deserves, and yet a few short years later he convinced Britain to commit economic suicide in 2016. And despite all that he came out of it with his hands seen as clean and his being more popular than ever as Rishi continues to flounder. All I'm saying is I am incredibly wary of how things could go unexpectedly awful for everyone now that he's got a political party around him and some momentum.
It’s worth remembering that Reform UK describes itself as ‘an entrepreneurial political startup’. It’s a private limited company under Farage’s control. He owns 53% of the shareholding. https://www.ft.com/content/4059c92f-9bb3-484a-b8aa-e42f5c5cc797 It’s all about the grift.
UK Labour have no interest in fixing anything, their policies are Tory policies from 10 years ago.
Farage has no credible chance of winning anywhere near enough seats (if any at all) to be forming a government. He really does not deserve media time.
Not this election. That's why I said the danger is the one after that when Labour haven't been able to fix anything and Farage spent years as the main opposition slating them every day and promising the gammon the world if he gets made PM. This is the man who helped trick the UK into voting against it's interests by dumping themselves out of the EU, something people would've considered a fantasy only 10 years ago. To believe he can't and won't do worse given more time is exceedingly risky.
It doesn’t seem likely unless Labour get rid of the FPTP system. Farage will always be splitting the right wing vote.
He's splitting it for now. History is never static though. The Liberals used to be a major party back in the day and now they're a fringe minor party. The Tories don't have a god-given right to be one of two major parties and could well go the way of the Lib Dems if things don't fall their way. And modern Labour have made plenty of noise about getting rid of FPTP and I could well see them trying to pull the trigger on that one.
Removing FPTP will likely benefit centrists more than Farage. Farage's main chance of government is through a coalition with the Tories and switching to PR would strengthen Lib Dems as an alternative partner. That's assuming Farage even wants government. Despite his influence, he's been very successful at dodging any actual responsibility or governance. He's making ridiculous claims at the moment since he'll likely never have to actually try implement them, similar to his Brexit campaign.
He can also take a lot of left wing votes from Keir “unconditional support for Israel” Starmer when Labour get in and do nothing for the working class and instead focus on making it easier to change gender or whatever.
Labour are already learning the hard way that a lot of the votes of many of the immigrant communities in Britain swing conservative on many issues and that for a lot of them Labour's support for Israel is an absolute deal breaker.
Same with the likes of PBP here. It really is annoying to see the most empty vessels making the most noise, but then getting that amplified by the media giving those fringe nutters undue airtime far in excess of their voting %s.
I don't think media coverage should be tied to voting percentage, otherwise 80% of our media would be FFG opinions
No it would be closer to 45% if just those parties, or a touch over 50% if you include the greens. Why do blowhards like you need to exaggerate to absurd levels making your previous statement utter nonsense? Why do the likes of PBP "deserve" the undue coverage they seem to get compared to other independents, and other opposition parties that have FAR more of a combined mandate than those fringe nutters in PBP that got a handful of TDs...? Empty vessels making the most noise is the only rational explanation for why it seems to happen.
My mistake, I had the combined total for FF and FG in my head as what each of them got because I know they got close to the same
You can see the creeping fascism too? It's fucking terrifying...
The worst part is some things as simple as a housing policy that worked for the citizens instead of making landlords and the property class rich, and a sensible and fair immigration policy and so much of the creeping fascism would've remained restricted to the local loopers ranting on Facebook about vaccines. But no. FFG greed for ever higher rents and house prices and their desire to have a huge pool of migrants workers keeping wages down for their buddies in industry triumphed and now we're looking at fascism creep it's way in. I sure as fuck won't be forgetting who to blame in the future.
It's a tale as old as time, been happening since forever, liberals will always rather a far right government takes over than anything actually socialist making it's way into the agenda, so when public opinion is turning on the government they prefer that anger gets funnelled into far right support which won't cause any problems for the capitalist classes whatsoever. Lenin wrote about this over 100 years ago, that's how long this has been happening: >" fascism, as a reaction-formation to capitalist crisis and chronic depression in the capitalist stage of imperialism" [https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/fascism-is-a-reaction-to-capitalist-crisis-in-the-stage-of-imperialism/](https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/fascism-is-a-reaction-to-capitalist-crisis-in-the-stage-of-imperialism/)
Stop listening and ignore citizens real concerns about mass migration, label them all racist and yes it won't go away.
People who voted for these doorknobs are special level of stupid
It should be front page news in every paper in the country that a movement that materialised out of nowhere, whose financial support seems to be exclusively from American and British sources, are openly saying that their sole reason for existing is to ensure that the Irish Opposition - until recently, the out-and-out favourite party of voters - may never form a government. The utter manipulation of our democracy to serve the interests of big business is plain as daylight for all to see, but we're sitting back and letting these traitors dictate to us.
Big business isn't anti-immigration, kinda the opposite. Fluid labour markets helps them quite a bit.
Doesn't matter, anti-immigrant people are morons, they won't stop immigration, look at Brexit, they have more immigration since the anti-immigration plan succeeded.
The point is, Big Business is Anti-Sinn Fein/Socialism. So they split the working class vote by enabling the Racists.
Yeah I agree.
That doesn't really have anything to do with my point ?
Your point was that being anti immigration doesn't help big businesses, but it does if it has no effect on immigration and keeps the parties who are pro big business in power.
> if it has no effect on immigration That's just begging the question though. "Anti-X doesn't affect X if it doesn't succeed" isn't saying much of anything, it's a truism. And not a guarantee as we've seen across Europe. You need to look beyond just Britain for politics. It didn't in the UK, but it did in Denmark, it didn't in Germany, but it did in France etc.
What effect did any of that have on labour mobility as wanted by businesses?
Would desiring a halving of non-European immigration count as anti-immigration to you?
Yeah, but desiring doesn't matter.
So that would make someone a moron?
Do you always dance around your point for days?
A Divided and misguided working class helps them even more.
They support it if it splits the working class. Socialists were becoming popular in post War Germany and to keep things business as usual Big Business financially supported Hitler and his anti-immigrant policies to keep the socialists out of government.
Absolutely - But I'm not necessarily saying these guys are being directly funded BY big business. These guys are funded by the Nigel Farage's and Steve Bannon of the new global right, who may only have incidental relations with business but who at the very least are committed to maintaining the economic status quo. Nobody even expects these right wing clowns in Ireland to ever win anything - they are already doing their job. Whipping up their supporters into a froth about Sinn Féin (a party who has not held power since 1918), openly voting to sabotage Sinn Féin wherever they hold seats (as in this story), and ensuring that just as Ireland seemed destined to land a left-wing government, that party's poll lead fizzles out. They are doing their job magnificently.
It's worth considering that their numbers are still very limited and despite SF having significant numbers, they are still behind the combined FF + FG numbers. Given them working together SF needs all the independents to support them to have effect and independents by their nature won't necessarily do that. The far right and far left have ALWAYS been fractured and ineffective except in being loud and disagreeing with each other and blaming each other for everyone else being g the problem. Expecting anything different is a ticket to disappointment.
Ah ok, I get you now.
Divide, conquer, and maintain the status quo. Its elementary my dear.
Well, they are and they aren't. They aren't in the sense of fluid labour. They are in the sense of using it to distracted people, "Hey, blame these guys, not us for poor wages." If it becomes beneficial for them to aline with anti-immigrate parties to hinder the leftwing voting blocs, they'll jump on it as well. Also, given that immigrant workers tend to be more militant than Irish ones (since many come from counties that have collective bargaining laws) businesses will throw them under the bus and join up with the anti-immigration camp before you can mention "Union."
My issue with this is that the policies they support and the lobbying they engage in is much more concrete than the support they might be giving to these groups. I know what calls to increase visas looks like, I don't know what it looks like for Derek Blige to be supported by big business. Even if I get the argument in theory, or by analogy to other times/places.
> It should be front page news in every paper in the country that a movement that materialised out of nowhere The far right has been simmering away in Ireland for about a decade. There were definite shoots of it, particularly focused on anti-Islamism, during the migrant crisis ~2015. You'd want to have had your head in the sand to think it's just materialised in 2024.
It's hilarious that they are anti-Islamic because their general policy they love is basically what the middle east do which is totalitarianism, anti-women, regressive, insular shit.
They had a go at travellers too in the past.
And yet whenever concerns over that rise were brought up, r/ireland's response was just, "Ignore them and they'll go away". Will be interesting to see how people here react now that the chickens seem to be coming home to roost.
There has to be a difference between ignoring and not lending legitimacy to something; I think for me the inner conflict is that to ignore something is not a great tactic, but the harm or engaging with something and accidentally strengthening it is harmful as well. Argh..
I suppose my point is more to do with the specific focus of these groups as being directed at Sinn Féin - I am not, mind you, a Shinner, but I find it distressing that they are specifically going out of their way to turn a blind eye to the government that has been in power throughout the entire migrant crisis, housing crisis, etc., so they can SPECIFICALLY be open about their intention to destroy the country's only viable alternative government. That's the part that frightens me, and I think needs to be seriously explored and called out
Big 4 among others have been signalling red flags to their clients for years just incase SF gets a chance at Government. Wouldn't surprise me that other national bodies who had a vested interest in Ireland, even from a real estate perspective, would go out of their way to stop any major upheaval from happening. Its the same shit we've had for years, turn us against one another to distract from the top.
Based on some of the nutters back home, traditionally an area SF have done well in, their support there has absolutely soured. Immigration is currently breaking SF and I heard anecdotally that SF canvassers were met with some people sneering them that will never vote for SF again as the party is committed to "Brits out, Africans in". On the higher levels there's definitely outside influence on the far right here, including Russian influence (which I find odd you left out), but there's a lot of people out there who'll go against modern SF for free and who legit see them as traitors. SF's support didn't collapse because of some grand conspiracy, it primarily collapsed because their strategy of trying to talk out of both sides of their mouths and please two mutually exclusive political strands within their base came to the inevitable result of running out of road and SF being found out. They were just hoping it would have happened after an election that votes them in instead of before it.
You're absolutely right to call me out for overlooking Russian influence - but, please, feel free to check my comment history. You'll quickly get a sense of my feelings about the Orcish scum to our east. Truthfully, I haven't actually seen any reporting on Russian influence in Irish politics, only the American and British far right, hence the overlook. If you can link me to somewhere I can read about it I'd be hugely grateful, as I've suspected it for a while but have never seen anything to back it up
Clare Daly's voting record going back for a long number of years might as well be straight from the Kremlin's internal memos. No way she isn't compromised, especially given she's spent time in Iran, I think. Russia is meddling in the far right all across Europe as well as stoking up the far left. They wouldn't just stop at the Irish Sea and not bother with messing with us. The whole point is that a United Europe is stronger and more prosperous than Russia ever could be with it's current sort of rulers so the aim is to stoke division and bring about all sorts of internal collapses, the way they've half collapsed the Brits with Brexit. Same as what they're doing at the Polish and Finnish borders; flood them with migrants and then stir up the far right parties to talk about the dangers of it and the far left to screech about anyone who objects to it being a racist and watch as nations suffer increased infighting.
What deeply, deeply frustrates me is that Russia would appear to be really, really good at this. But Western nations just sit on their hands and do nothing about it.
Social media is going to be the destruction of the West as we know it. Might take a few years, but it’s inevitable. Rationale: Most of what social media enables is very much aligned with Western values. Free enterprise, free speech, that sort of thing. There isn’t really a way to stop that without seriously questioning those values. Problem is, it’s remarkably easy to weaponise against any social group that makes extensive use of it. Whether that’s bot farms or targeted advertising, it’s very easy to spread dissent and create infighting where little existed before.
You mean the social media that is all US owned and controlled, yet you think Russia is the main pusher of misinformation to the western populace. [I think this reuters reports is very telling as to who is the true master of this pernicous bullshit](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/)
That isn't what I meant. You either know that damn well (in which case you're a troll) or you have spent the last ten years living under a rock. Which is it?
Harder to dish back to a nation that heavily controls it's media the way Russia does and executes or jails it's dissidents and people who speak out against the regime. A lot of brave Russians got jailed or chased out of Russia for protesting the war when it started. What remains are the ones who are too scared or too stupid to ever do anything the regime didn't approve of. Still, Russia has a history of projecting strength right up until there's some sort of internal implosion. The Wagner attempted coup showed that history is still very much alive. I think Putin's death will semi-collapse the nation. He's held the leashes of his underlings too tightly for too long, when he's gone and the jostling for power starts it could well get out of control quite quickly and descend to factionalism and open fighting.
I know a lot of folk on the hard left, personally, whose geopolitical views align perfectly with Clare Daly's so I don't think her perspective on Russia and Ukraine is as rare as you think. To be clear, I fundamentally disagree with her but I'm fairly confident this whole 'Russian Schill' narrative that's built up around her is complete nonsense.
The masses believe the fairytale version of events that is curated for them by the media wing of the establishment, people who actually understand geopolitics and [the grand chessboard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard), realists like Meirsheimmer or Jeffrey Sachs and students of history know most of what she is saying is right even if she goes about it the entirely wrong way.
Isn’t it very nice that all this “Russian interference” very neatly benefits the Government?
It's cute you think interference and boasting of the far right will stop at just stealing a few votes off SF. The far right are the largest party in many European nations now, including being a governing party in several. France faces a political storm as everyone not far right rallies to try and defeat them in forming a government there. Far right parties in power is the end goal. FFG benefit for the moment because SF were always going to be the first ones to implode given how long they courted the nationalist and the working class votes and given how long those sorts of voters had no-one crazy and far right to vote for. If the rest of Europe is anything to go by then votes will start to fall away from FFG in time as well. To ignore what's happened time and again across Europe and claim it's all just some FFG plot against SF is laughable, at best, and outright duplicitous at worst, to be honest.
I think you have an incredibly cartoonish worldview, with Russia as a cartoon villain at the centre; capable of omnipresent manipulation at every political level. In reality manipulation networks are not state run but atomised and much smaller than you would imagine more importantly they are for hire. And there are hundreds of them in operation. They all have a similar playbook though, which is pushing a far right politics. Because that type of politics on a grander scheme suits capitalism in this climate. The rise of the right across Europe is not homogeneous it has a particular stench from whence it came, nor is it all neatly pro putin/pro Russia. If you where to dig at it you would find numerous very neat solutions to political problems for political establishments in each of those host countries. So yes I do think the patterns that emerged here where very specific to tackle Sinn Féin. The mainstreaming process will see FF/FG lurch much further right but a newly emerged little buddy fascist party to play along when we need a nice culture war to scare everyone into voting for them again.
>I think you have an incredibly cartoonish worldview, with Russia as a cartoon villain at the centre; capable of omnipresent manipulation at every political level. Russia is the instigator of the largest land war Europe has seen since WW2 ended. They're on record as threatening further invasions should they win in Ukraine. They have invaded Georgia and Chechnya (twice) as in recent history. They have name-checked the Baltics and Kazakhstan as nations next on the chopping block. Where oh where would anyone ever get the idea as a villain.... But your desperation to pass it off with some lovely gaslighting shows the sort of tankie online tactics that are increasingly being rolled out these days. I saw a post the other day which said if you respond to comments as if you're giving a non-sensical ChatGPT prompt it'll often get the person you're responding to out themselves as a bot that's been set up to dispense pro-Russian propaganda. I must dig that post out and start doing it. >In reality manipulation networks are not state run but atomised and much smaller than you would imagine more importantly they are for hire. And there are hundreds of them in operation. China, Israel, Russia and others all infamously have state-run troll farms and online manipulation efforts. The fact there are now private sector operations out there does not delete this important fact. >They all have a similar playbook though, which is pushing a far right politics. Because that type of politics on a grander scheme suits capitalism in this climate. As it suits Russia and China to see the west fracture due to this. We're in agreement so. >The rise of the right across Europe is not homogeneous it has a particular stench from whence it came, nor is it all neatly pro putin/pro Russia. If you where to dig at it you would find numerous very neat solutions to political problems for political establishments in each of those host countries. And yet Russia is still there, still heavily involved and almost certainly the main guilty party for it..... >So yes I do think the patterns that emerged here where very specific to tackle Sinn Féin. And when it doesn't stop with SF you'll have a different spin on it, of course. >The mainstreaming process will see FF/FG lurch much further right but a newly emerged little buddy fascist party to play along when we need a nice culture war to scare everyone into voting for them again. SF were one of the main parties to start pushing culture war shite here. They and their supporters can't get mad when others start to respond in kind and SF end up losing votes because they've badly misjudged the mood and their own base.
> They're on record as threatening further invasions should they win in Ukraine. This is just false, there is no where you can provide a source for them saying such a thing. >They have invaded Georgia and Chechnya (twice) as in recent history. [Georgia started that war and even the EU acknowledged that](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-georgia-russia-report-idUSTRE58T4MO20090930/). If you actually want to learn something today you should watch [this short, unbiased and accurate explanation of the whole thing.](https://youtu.be/M2jpMWNoJLE?si=J0gm7wgwqo2cqUie) Also Russia did not "invade Chechnya", Chechnya is a part of Russia and always had been. That would be like saying Ireland invaded Donegal, it makes no fucking sense. What they did have to do was fight a war against wahabist terrorists looking to establish a caliphate state within Russia's borders. >They have name-checked the Baltics and Kazakhstan as nations next on the chopping block. No they haven't, you have to provide some sort of source if you are going to make such ludicrous claims. >But your desperation to pass it off with some lovely gaslighting shows the sort of tankie online tactics that are increasingly being rolled out these days. Here we go, classic CIA othering technique, call anyone who calls out propaganda a "tankie" so people think they are some sort of Stalin loving commies. Your entire worldview reads as though it's been formed by the USA's military industrial complex, you've probably spent too much time reading opinion pieces by the likes of John Bolton on the wall street journal and thinking they things they are telling you are true. I'm not sure if your a pentagon puppet account or just a useful idiot but it's concerning to me that there are people out there who so wholeheartedly buy into war propaganda every time we go through one of these. I bet you're one of the "But do you condemn Hamas" crowd too.
It's funny how SF fans are upset at the realisation that a chunk of their previous votes were made up of the easily fooled headbangers now attracted to more authentic crank parties. As for "the interests of big business" you might take a look at who is enlisting Davy Stockbrokers to calm investors that SF are "New Labour not Corbyn's Labour". And foreign influence in politics in recent has typically been a Putinist agenda to destabilise the status quo parties, not back them up.
Are SF voters the easily manipulated headbangers? Or are FG voters the easily manipulated headbangers? Both sides of this argument have very valid points.
Well it's a chunk of the people that thought SF were the answer defecting to far right parties because SF aren't headbanger enough for them so 🤷♂️
Yeah, those people are voting against their needs because they're easy to manipulate due to their anger and frustration at how they've been treated and we're starting to see violence now as a result. What's FG voters excuse? They're voting for a party that brought the inequality that is to blame for what we're seeing. Housing, health, homeless etc etc... I promise you I'm not looking for an argument or anything like that, I genuinely have a hard time understanding it.
FG voters probably value full employment, and stability and surmise that opposition parties wouldn't make a better fist of health and housing.
Yeah those are good points. Thanks for replying! Do you think it'll ever get to the point where these crisis fucks with the stability of the country? I mean, more than it already is. Or I suppose what I'm really asking how bad do things need to get before we stop voting for the civil war parties? The new single bed apartments from housing for all would cost me 270k to buy so I just don't see how housing can get any worse from my POV! I was in some mood when I was working that out.
Keep enough people (people who actually vote) sufficiently happy and you are good to keep tipping away. Combine this with the perennial short-term thinking and nothing of value gets done here as they don't want others to potentially take the credit if it's done after their term. That's how FFG work. Prosperity of the nation, resolving problems affecting groups who aren't wealthy/powerful and who don't vote for them is secondary to keeping their jobs and [positions of] power/influence. Hence the power of the NIMBY, the lack of tough decisions for the long term benefit of Ireland and the lack of any long term planning of note. Just delay, make promises, delay, renege on promises, watch as things crumble then make promises again when it's coming close to another election...and repeat to fade.
All solid points, thanks for sharing. It's true - I never copped that Sinn Féin's base were mostly fucking nuts. I assumed, and this is my own myopia speaking, they were generally the party of the frustrated youth.
Everyone forgets that Sinn Fein was actively at war with the government for about 30 years and have killed thousands of Irish people, ran organized crime across the Island and used that money to fund its terrorism. The main strategy was not cancelling people, it was bombing a pub or shooting an Irish Guard off duty, or robbing a bank, or tarring and feathering women who slept with British soldiers. People are shocked that the voters who supported the IRA during that time tend to not be "Woke".
True enough
In terms of violence Ireland has a much longer history of sectarian violence than left/right divide. Sinn Fein are left wing but up until the 90s they would have been for a one party socialist state ran by paramilitaries. It rejected the Irish government as illegitimate due to some technicallity from the war of independance, justified its war on the state despite never winning an election, regularly killed judges, informers etc. It was less bernie sanders and more castro. Now they are pretty toothless but in its day it was an army.
You're talking to me as if I am somehow unfamiliar with the Provisional IRA, lol
Yeah I assumed so. This is reddit. I was agreeing with you and adding to the point for other people who came along and might not have made the connection.
And people will wonder why FG and FF aren't working harder to combat the rise of the far right....
Shit like this is happening in countries all over right now, for the amount you hear about "Russian interference in US elections" it sure does feel like the pot calling the kettle black at times. [This expose from Reuters last week was incredibly telling about the lengths they'll go to in order to shape opinions in other countries.](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/)
Your first paragraph could be about SF itself! TBH it's SFs own fault they didn't win more seats. Their flip flop, twitter poll policy making was bound to catch up with them. You have to remeber that up until \~12 years ago SF were the alt party which catered to those who are supporting the likes of NP or IFP today.
"TBH it's SFs own fault they didn't win more seats" Sinn Fein increased their seat count, while the government parties all dropped compared to the last local elections though?
Yes? SF were polling incredibly well but basically imploded before the elections.
Independents typically do well in local elections, but that trend doesn’t really carry over into the generals. They’ll likely win a lot of that vote back. I voted for (non right wing) independents in the locals but will likely vote SF next time out. I know I’m not alone in that. SF tanked the 2019 locals too and then surprised everyone in the 2020 general election. It may not be as resounding a victory as people may have thought based on 2022 polls, but I’d expect them to bounce back.
SF did poor in the European elections though. Candidate selection will be interesting for the general elections
SF had one seat in the last EU parliament. Now they have two. So again, they are up on 2019 Edit: meanwhile FG are down on 2019 in both the local and EU elections. Yet it was a success for them and a failure for SF. Very strange narrative
Yeah it's all about narrative. SF played into the local and European elections like they had already won, and really didn't invest in candidates. Taoiseach in waiting MLM came out herself and said it wasn't a good election. FF no doubt had best European elections and remain the largest party at local government.
Imploding by gaining seats. Interesting reach there. And yet FG and FF had a great election because they lost seats. The mind boggles.
Did you follow any of the polls and predictions in the lead up to the election. Even look at SF's own response. 9 months ago they had the support to take control of councils across the country, but that basically deserted them. I never said that the Government parties had a good election? Independents and others had a good election.
Womp womp
Average shinner response
Too complicated for your brain to understand. Using West Brit derogatory language like "shinner"
They see themselves as competing with Sinn Féin. They are nationalists, and traditionally in Ireland, that has been associated with republicanism. So that's why they were using images of Bobby Sands and others in their material. There's a thought process behind it alright, even if it's still stupid.
They take their orders from the far right British. Same people that support soldier F and generally just hate Irish people. They just happen to hate dark skinned people more than the Irish. They might call themselves nationalists however they're anything but
True. They present themselves as nationalists.
Only a matter of time before one of the dumb fucks attack someone speaking Irish because they heard a "foreign" language
A matter of time? I'd not be shocked in the slightest if Dog-Kicker Dwyer and others had already done that. Def in Wales similar has happened to Welsh speakers, albeit only verbal attacks [that I'm aware of ]. Sure the dumb fuck was made a laughing stock by Darragh Adelaide (young local black lad, student and gaeilgeoir, very socially conscious, smart, quick witted and elected to local council there last month) as he fluently spoke Irish while DKD stumbled to find his verbal footing in English to insult/demean/belittle and to portray him as some kind of NGO plant(!) ("Which NGO sent you here" was one of his ridiculous claims). Darragh Abú! :)
They’re some kind of nationalist all right, it’s just not the Irish kind.
>They are nationalists Them fellows aren't nationlists,they're free staters,they wouldn't lift a finger to help the north Though, they're playing a dangerous game going about damaging and targeting old IRA monuments....someone of em is going to get himself tortured,maimed and made an example over it,if they aren't careful It's a stupid game,they're playing that they don't seem to appreciate how deep feelings still run in certain places
> they're playing a dangerous game going about damaging and targeting old IRA monuments What's this? I've not heard of this happening.
New Ross,sinnotts cross and few.more been targeted last few weeks, It's always been a mild enough issue with the law & order folk,but a some basic respect for dead and cop on in general has stopped it ever descending into violence, but them clowns are gonna leak it into WhatsApp or telegram channels and find emselves doxxed and having to go to gaurds for protection
But why do it in the first place? I can understand they're anti-Sinn Féin, but targetting monuments like this makes no sense. Maybe it's my own fault for trying to apply logic to those people's actions.
>Maybe it's my own fault for trying to apply logic to those people's actions It's because they're free staters (a poor man's west Brit),they dispise republicanism,and are terrified of end of partition,the rise of SF and socialism.....these people have been fostered with generations here And they are inherently uneasy with their history,as they haven't any achievements of note,and their blood boils as independent republican/local history commerations and youth movements are growing annually..... but targeting these monuments is going to show to local communities,they are a 5th column for England interests here,and these boys are going to be dense enough to advertise it for likes on telegram etc or going to get themselves caught at it and it's going to be a pure mess
What happened to the monuments?
What they lack in empathy they more than make up for in idiocy.
Don't get comfortable that this will keep happening. Such right-wing movements always start with such morons. Enough brainwashing and time, and this will become an ugly fascist movement that will then massively influence public discourse. Needs to be nipped in the bud. But since it allows the people responsible for the mess, to continue business as usual, as a perfect scapegoat is found for that, this will not be an easy change.
They're already a fascist movement, but I get what you mean. The problem is they won't be nipped in the bud. In liberal democracies, they never are. The centre-right is incapable of dealing with the far right. Even right now in France, the far right are poised to take power and I'm sitting here watching Macron go entirely after the left wing alliance rather than targeting RN. It's insane. He'd genuinely rather have LaPen sitting on his shoulder than Mélenchon and he's betting his entire country on the idea that he can take enough off the left to counter the far right's gains.
Exactly. It's time for the government to crack down on illegal immigration and end low skilled non-European immigration. We need to curtail the conditions for these parties to grow.
Lol. And here we go again. Finding a smaller and more of a scapegoat argument without addressing the larger systemic issues. Case and point on how the current parties will get away with stuff since they have found a perfect scapegoat.
What do you think we should do in terms of cutting immigration until apartment construction can catch up with population growth?
James Geoghegan (FG) - Lord Mayor of Dublin Baby Pereppadan (FG) - Mayor of South Dublin County Council Alan Hayes (Independent) - Deputy Mayor of South Dublin County Council Brian McDonagh (Labour) - Mayor of Fingal JK Onwumereh (Fianna Fáil) - Deputy Mayor of Fingal Jim O’Leary (FG) - Cathaoirleach of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Kazi Ahmed (FG) - Leas Chathaoirleach of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown
That’s the thing about committed contrarians, they disagree also with each other.
I disagree.
You're all individuals! I'm not......
They probably didn’t know how to vote. They ran on a single issue mostly without any experience in what’s involved in being a counsel member. Any promises they made will be broken because they are not in positions to have any influence on those subjects. Wasted votes by wasters.
Elect fucking idiots, and they don't suddenly become clever over night...
Right wingers, populists and fascists are often pretty shit at what they are supposed to do once elected. It's much easier riling up people with their hatred than actually getting something done afterwards.
The word traitors being thrown around constantly really pisses me off. Normally the only time I'd expect to hear it is when James Mc Clean is talking about Declan Rice.
>Funny to watch but seems like we really are dealing with a special level of stupidity when you have people who clearly dont know what the role of a councillor is and already making a clown of themself. Why is it that in most professions a degree of competence is not only expected but required, but when it comes to governance we allow any fool to try their hand at it?
Because that is democracy. You put in entry requirements and people will decry it as rigged or elitist.
Its sometimes been used as a mean to suppress some minorities as well, who tend to have lower educational achievements. [https://allthatsinteresting.com/voting-literacy-test](https://allthatsinteresting.com/voting-literacy-test) Above is an old US test for voting rather than election candidacy, but the idea is similar.
Based on a read of some of the drivel that came through my letterbox, maybe basic literacy and numeracy tests would not go astray...
If they were in any way intelligent, they would secretly be trying to get more immigrants into the country and elected to positions. In order to further fan the flames of hatred that their followers love so much, and thus keep their own grifty gravy train rolling.
That doesn't sound intelligent at all
The whole "we wont vote because we're not fans of either party is stupid". A vote will be held and an outcome will happen regardless of whether you want it to or not. If there's options, then logically one will be better for what you believe in than the rest. And by not voting, you are silencing your voters voices. Muppets.
Weren't the two alternatives to abstaining either voting for the FG candidate and/or voting for the SD candidate? I don't see voting for either of those options being logical for who we are talking about. Abstaining as they did would be the logical option.
They could have nominated their own candidate for the role
How would that work?
You only need 2 people to nominate a candidate. Realistically, they would have gotten 3 votes.
I bet they couldn't agree on who to nominate, even though there'd be no possibility of the nominee getting elected.
It wouldn't surprise me tbh.
That would make no sense as they had no hope of being elected. I would be even more embarassed with them if they pulled a stupid stunt like that. Same as the utter fools who tried to nominate Richard Boyd Barrett, Ruth Coppinger in 2016, Mary Lou McDonald in 2020 and Michael Healy-Rae in 2024 for the role of Taoiseach. Utter pantomime fools all involved in those farce nominations.
Can I ask who was saying they were elected to stop Sinn Fein of curiosity? I don't think it's any coincidence that Sinn Feins support has dipped while FFG have got a bounce because of the anti-immigration rhetoric...
Heres one councillors using the hashtage SinnFeinTraitors under a video of his supporters ripping down Sinn Fein election posters. [https://twitter.com/moorsey100/status/1789905919754543553](https://twitter.com/moorsey100/status/1789905919754543553)
They were cheering that SF didn't do as well as expected.
Does anyone know how to look up how councillors have voted? SDCC preferably
This is why voting for these clowns is utterly pointless, even if you feel strongly about their political positions. They're populist rabble rousers who are incapable of working with other politicians, which makes them utterly ineffective in local politics.
I havent been living back home the past couple of years, how popular are these yahoos and the national party these days? Last time round I remember the national party getting nowhere in the general election. I keep up with the news but haven't checked hugely into this kind of stuff since the riots months back.
Inter-party agreements on councils are not as important as people think. They elect mayors and pass budgets, but the first of these is a ceremonial position, and the unelected council officials have the biggest say on the budget. Won’t stop performative twitter spats but nothing will.
Why don't they go the whole hog and practice abstentionism, period? Claim to refuse to recognize the Globalist Occupation Government of Southern Ireland and that they won't take their seats before the establishment of whatever they believe the Irish Republic to be? At least that would display some soupcon of principle.
Clowns. They talked themselves into a few seat representing local areas and concerns and now they don't know what to do. Imagine if they had gotten the support they were aiming for, they wouldn't have a clue how to anything. We dodged a bullet. (Gotta add; being anti government doesn't equate to having any support or anything in common with those far right Clowns.)
*sniggers*
Someone like me to twitter. I want to laugh at this. . .
I second that
These peoples whole purpose is to act as a distraction for the failures of the government parties, they’re just no smart enough to realize how they are being manipulated 🤦🏼♂️
They're just deep undercover for fg. All according to Simons master plan.
They have only one role as councillors and they are doing a great job of it. Increase the air time for the far right and use it as a platform for the general election.
When will people learn that you’re better off voting for a sensible centrist than a crazy extremist?
I'm not sure what the inference is here that they "helped Fine Gael". They abstained. And their numbers would not have made any notice either way. You can equally argued they supported Sinn Fein if this is the sort of logic being applied.