We’ll begin 2024 with an article that is guaranteed to make me look like either a buffoon or the second coming of Nostradamus in twelve months’ time. It’s a good year for making predictions, as it happens, because so much is scheduled to happen over the next 366 (it’s a leap year) days – a US Presidential Election, elections and referenda here at home, Olympic Games, and much more besides. In that spirit, here’s an extension of my neck, which we’ll come back to, if we’re all still here, in December:
Former President Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination – albeit by a smaller margin in the early states than most polls now predict – on the strength of voters feeling that he was somehow cheated out of the 2020 election. This decision will prove an error by Republican voters. While President Biden’s popularity continues to stagnate, Trump’s legal woes and chronic inability to stay on message for five minutes will prove Biden’s best friend. It will be a “stability versus chaos” election, and a slightly improving US economy by the end of the year will be enough for Biden to overcome his own handicaps. He will be reluctantly re-elected by the US public, winning the key states of Arizona and Georgia, and holding on to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Trump will get 46% of the national vote, just as he did in his previous two elections.
The difficulty for Israel in its war in Gaza is that it has set for itself an objective that is ultimately unobtainable. The military objective of the war, as set out by Prime Minister Netanyahu, is the destruction of Hamas both as a military and political entity. The problem with this is that while Hamas can be militarily degraded, it can only be politically destroyed by a capable political adversary with support amongst the people of Gaza. Such an entity is not readily identifiable. Over the course of 2024, the war will drag on and Israel will bleed support domestically and in the United States, the latter as a result of Biden’s need to placate his left wing before the election. Some time before the middle of the year, Israel will declare victory and bring combat operations to an end. By the end of the year it will be clear that Hamas has survived, though at heavy cost.
Ireland’s best ever Olympic Games was London 2012, when the country brought home six medals. In Tokyo last time, we brought home four. This year, the games are set to be held in Paris and Ireland is targeting a best ever seven medals, and sending its best-resourced team of Athletes ever. I’m going to stick my neck out and say that Ireland matches its best ever performance, acquiring six medals by the time of the closing ceremony on August 11th.
In a referendum campaign, the side that tells the better story usually wins. A few months out from Ireland’s two, largely pointless referenda on the family and women in the home, the Government has yet to develop any compelling reason to pass them at all. There’s no “vote for love”, as in the marriage referendum, or “fatal foetal anomalies”, as in the abortion referendum. By contrast, opponents are well positioned to tie the two referenda to unpopular social trends, and will have a receptive and restless electorate to talk to. A lack of enthusiasm for change will also hamper the yes campaign. Both referenda will be defeated on a low turnout.
This is a relatively easy prediction because it is already in progress. However, 2024 promises to be an even rougher year for the Government on immigration than 2023 was, with inbound numbers set to continue to hit new records, and with available accommodation running out. There will be more incidents of arson at proposed migrant accommodation centers. Local protests will continue to grow. Mindful of coming elections, Sinn Fein will morph over the course of the year into reluctant but firm immigration restrictionists, for which the party will be condemned from the left to little effect. By the end of the year Sinn Fein will be touching 40% in some opinion polls.
The country is ripe for political change but those seeking to bring that change about have yet to adapt to the demands of electoral politics. This summer’s local election campaign will see a raft of candidates from what the Irish Times would call “the far right” but many of them will run amateurish campaigns more suited to social media echo chambers than the demands of an election. In the meantime, Sinn Fein will steal many of their clothes, particularly on the immigration issue at local level. Sinn Fein will be the big winners in May, making gains of up to 100 councillors nationwide. In the European Elections, Clare Daly and Mick Wallace will hold their seats, as anti-establishment voters continue to reward an organised left over a disjointed right. For now.
A bad local and European elections for the Government will spark panic in the coalition and amongst coalition backbenchers. This time, they will finally be compelled to move, entirely out of self-interest. By June, talk of Simon Harris assuming the leadership of Fine Gael will be rife. By September, he may be Taoiseach.
While the Tory Government can in theory last until January 2025, the election will be held in 2024. This is the safest prediction on this list: The Conservative Party will be annihilated at the polls, and the UK will have its first Labour Government since 2010. This will improve Anglo-Irish relations, purely on the basis that most Irish politicians would vote Labour if they lived in the UK, and instinctively think of Labour politicians as a better sort of chap.
Wars cannot end, by definition, until one side is willing to surrender or both sides are willing to settle for less than they want. At the time of writing, neither Russia nor Ukraine have a compelling reason to make peace, and nor are they likely to get one in 2024. On the contrary, both sides have compelling reasons to stick at it: The Russians because they hope that western support will finally falter, causing the Ukrainian army to collapse; and the Ukrainians because they hope that western support will actually stiffen, allowing them to achieve limited strategic objectives like cutting off the Crimean peninsula. Unhelpfully for Russia, Donald Trump will prove to be Ukraine’s best friend in 2024, as he feels the need to distance himself from Putin ahead of the Presidential election in November.
As the year proceeds, the Government will continuously pledge that tough new hate speech laws are on the way. However, given the resistance to these laws, they will simply never get around to bringing it before the Oireachtas, given that the debate might motivate opponents before local elections or referenda. Sinn Fein, as part of its swing to the right on issues of culture, will emerge as stiff but opportunistic opponents of the bill, removing some of the Government’s already limited political cover. By the end of the year, a general election will be close at hand, and the bill will be quietly postponed until the new Dáil.