Irish Election are pleased to announce our collection of Irish 
Rabitte is Labour’s Sticky Wicket
Read more about: Fine Gael, Irish Election, Labour Party, Sinn Féin, Wexford
John Dwyer, the Sinn Féin candidate for Wexford, has an interesting election poster.
At the moment only Fine Gael and the PDs have put billboards up in the town, and both are calling for your no.1, reminding us how great they are as people and as public representatives. The Fine Gaelers all wear suits, while Colm O’Gorman for the PDs is, quite literally, having a laugh.
To date, Labour has not put up any posters or billboards for their sole candidate, Brendan Howlin, but they have started door-to-door canvassing.
The Sinn Fein poster, however, has none of the laughing suits or permatans of Fine Gael’s Kehoe, Twomey or D’Arcy, nor the tickle-tickle cuddly blokeness of O’Gorman.
At its top, before the name of the candidate or before any statement of how great they are as people, there are printed just three words.
Join Sinn Féin.
No number ones, no permatans, no suits and no giggles. Just join us.
It caught my eye a couple of days back, and reminded me that while the left-wing of Labour and Sinn Féin has a lot in common at a policy level, tactically they are worlds apart. Furthermore, the Irish mainstream media has absolutely no comprehension of this difference.
Stephen Collins in Friday’s Irish Times (sub req) attributed a significant part of Sinn Fein’s 10% showing in the latest opinion poll to recent developments at Stormont. “Sinn Féin” wrote Collins, “is clearly getting a real boost from the agreement with Ian Paisley to establish a power sharing executive in the North.” A strange analysis as the 10% in the opinion poll was based on core support.
But Collins’ article is full of sloppy analysis. Later on he states that “The Greens are also suffering from the rise of Sinn Féin. This is particularly noticeable in Dublin. Support for the Greens has halved in the capital while Sinn Féin has almost doubled.” What a crude conclusion! One goes up, one goes down. Ipso Facto dipshit mathematics. Yep. Sinn Féin taking votes from the sandal-slappers. Oh, and Sinn Féin is also taking votes from Fianna Fáil as well, the nationalist working-class vote that the soldiers have held onto for so long. Well keep your options open Steve.
With regard to Labour, Collins holds out that while Labour’s vote has dropped, the party should do well on transfers from Fine Gael. Again, there is no evidence to support this conclusion. In the last election only 8% of Fine Gael votes transferred to Labour, while 15% of Labour voters transferred to Fine Gael (see below).
Sinn Féin is gaining votes because, like Sunderland under Keane, it works bloody hard for them. It establishes branches and creates political activists. It campaigns, it gets things done – quite simply, it is doing all the things a political party should do if it wants to attain power.
For all intents and purposes, Gorey is a new town these days, with thousands of new voters. Labour doesn’t really canvass there, nor does it appear interested in doing so. Wexford County, it seems, is a one labour town. Sinn Féin, on the other hand, is out there every night getting people not only to vote for them, but to join up as well. And Sinn Fein has been doing that across the island for at least twenty years, building up its party organisation.
Developments in the North are a bonus to Sinn Féin, but they have built up that Southern support through hard graft, and not through the recent appropriation of a nationalist working-class and environmental middle-class vote through the positive Stormont meetings, as Collins believes.
Going on the opinion polls, Rabbitte might have to resign come the results. Whoever replaces him needs to learn from Sinn Féin’s organisation and tactics, before the party is overtaken for good.
Excellent analysis which completely chimes with my own observation of hte machine in action in Kerry North where they targeted and won the Labour seat of Dick Spring (at the second time of asking). The volume of support which is being tied into the party is a clear play from old fianna fail.
On transfers, the last comparable campaign for Lab/Fg seems to be the 1973 where transfers seemed to be more successful for the two parties. its a long time ago and i dont doubt you are correct considering the modern voter but I suspect that 73 is informing some decision making/confidence.
Thanks Cian. I just find it bizzare that Labour have based their entire election campaign on gaining transfer votes, not first preference votes. Nobody else does that. Labour have set themselves up to be taken, and Sinn Féin are hungry enough - and God knows ambitious enough - to do it. for decades we’ve had the analysis in the mainstream media that the only place on this island with a nationalist working class was in the North. But sure there’s a nationalist working class in every part of the country - in Kerry, Limerick, Galway, Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Clare, Roscommon, Cavan, etc. Sinn Fein’s base is that vote, but they will probably be in a position after the election to start their full-scale encroachment on Labour’s patch (as they have done already, as you point out, in Kerry north) - labour’s dwindling supply of first-preference voters.
To put all your eggs in a transfer basket. That’s just crazy. but Labour have done it because they see themselves as somehow having reached their quota of first preference votes. God. Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Some great points Ben. Two questions. Firstly, in the North, the dynamics are substantially different from those in the South and options are limited for aspiring and talented politicos. Do you think Sinn Fein’s growth potential is inhibited in the South through lack of high quality candidates? Secondly, do you see a major breakthrough for Sinn Fein in this election and what would you put their tally at when the counting is done?
I’d have to stick to my opinion that it’s Sinn Féin’s dogged grassroots work and political strategy, and not the actual quality per se of their individual candidates, that has them at a possible 10% core vote in the South. It’s boring, but I think that’s what has them in the position where they are now.
the peace process is a boost, of course, but that has been the case for some years now - it’s not just a short-term ‘boost’ as Collins would have it.
As to whether this is their breakthrough, I hope not!
I’m a labour voter, and have been for twenty years. I want to see Labour getting those votes, but that’s not going to happen.
I think that there’s a protest vote out there, and Fine Gael and Labour haven’t really tapped into it -even with the results of the most recent opinion polls.
The Greens, Sinn Féin, and the independents are going to do well - and because of that, because that protest vote will be spread over three different political bloocks, I can’t see this election being Sinn Féin’s breakthrough. 2012 though, that’s another story.
I have to say though, that I think the socialist party are going to take a seat in Dublin North. Clare Daly is a strong candidate, and only just missed out last time by a couple of hundred votes. It’s the least they deserve, especially given the fact that Joe Higgins has nailed Bertie more times than Kenny and Rabbitte put together. Bertie’s whole body language just implodes when Higgins gets the razor out.
but yeah, sinn Féin are going to do well, although they’re not quite the lightning rod for the anti-government vote. Yet.