I confess I had to suppress a snort of laughter when I read the headline that adorned the Irish Times homepage for much of the day yesterday: Days of asylum seekers living in encampments on Dublin streets for weeks are over, says Harris.
My laughter, to be clear, was not directed at the Irish Times, because Mr. Harris did indeed use the words attributed to him. It was directed, largely, at Mr. Harris’s presumably well-placed faith in the goldfish-like attention span of much of the electorate.
Earlier in the week, I wrote for subscribers about something that I think is relatively obvious: To the average low-information voter’s ears, the Fine Gael message on immigration is probably more appealing, right now, than the messages being put forward by many of Fine Gael’s radical opponents. Harris has access to polling – much better and more detailed polling than tends to get published in the newspapers – and his messaging has all the hallmarks of stuff that’s been poll-tested to exhaustion.
“Firm but fair” is the new Fine Gael line on immigration. The days of canal-bank encampments are over. We’re going to fight the British to send people back. And while we’re at it we’re going to crack down hard on the “far right”. Firm but fair.
The question, at this juncture, is whether the electorate will fall for it. I confess I think they will. Or that enough of them will to prevent the local and European elections from being a total bloodbath for the Government parties.
To explain why, let’s first examine the nature of public opinion. When you see an opinion poll that shows – for example – 70% of people concerned about immigration, that only tells you so much. Within that 70% will be a wide range of views and – more importantly – a large range of tipping points.
Someone who lives where I do, in a part of rural Ireland that has largely been unaffected by the migrant crisis might well have been “tipped over” into concern about migration by scenes on their television of a tent city in Dublin giving them a sense that Government had lost control. Getting those voters back may well be as simple as convincing them that Government has regained control. That’s why Mr. Harris is saying things like “Days of people living in camps are over”. He sounds, as he says himself, firm, but fair – a new day has dawned and it’s safe to vote Fine Gael again.
On the other hand, somebody in Newtownmountkennedy or East Wall who has been living with the reality of the Government’s policies might find it much harder to shift back into the “everything is under control” camp. But that’s fine, if you’re on Mr. Harris’s team. The first stage of the communications plan is just to stop the bleeding, and win back those who are only theoretically annoyed.
Elections and referendums are entirely different affairs: Referendums present a binary choice in which every voter must choose just one camp, or the other. Elections divide us – in the case of the EU election in Midlands North West – twenty eight different ways. What’s more, the incentives of voters in elections with a big choice are entirely reversed compared to their incentives in a referendum.
In a referendum, “stick with what you know” is actually an argument against the Government: They are usually proposing a change, and if you have doubts about that change, then you vote against the Government.
In an election, it is the opposing candidates who are proposing a change. If you have doubts about that change, then optimum strategy is to stick with the Government.
Thus, the two prongs of the Fine Gael election campaign: The first is to tell undecided voters that things are changing under this Government in the way they would like. “Those days of camps are over”.
The second will be to point to the risks of radical change. Expect, in the weeks to come, to see a campaign of opinion pieces in the newspapers and on the airwaves making the case that the EU parliament is simply too important to turn over to a cacophony of inexperienced kooks, radio hosts, and extremists. Expect to hear talk of how Ireland’s reputation might be damaged by sending radical right wingers (as the opposition will be portrayed) to Brussels.
The objective here is not to win back the 70% who tell pollsters they are concerned about immigration, but to convince a large portion of those that since the problem is being better managed, they do not need to risk their votes on the fringes, or doing anything silly.
A big garda operation, flagged to the media in advance, to clear out migrant camps in Dublin is therefore as much a matter of electoral messaging as it is policy. Fine Gael is also no doubt hoping for criticism of such actions from the left: Few things would benefit the electoral strategy more than having the party denounced as cruel to migrants by the likes of the Labour Party or a few pro migrant NGOs. “We’re being firm, but fair”, Harris will say in response.
Elections are not decided, and never have been, by informed voters. To live in a democracy is to live in a tyranny of the casual, uninformed voter. Those who do not pay too much day to day attention, but absorb news through a vague process of osmosis. Elections tend to be decided by moods, noise, and a sort of herd mentality on the part of the electorate, which usually only becomes entirely clear in the final week. Mr. Harris wants those voters to form a vague impression of him as a man with his sleeves rolled up, tackling the immigration problem.
I’m afraid to tell you: I think it might very well work.
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