In a recent article on Gript we discussed that Ireland is an outlier in allowing refugees, asylum seekers – anyone resident in Ireland, “regardless of how recently they have arrived to Ireland” – to vote in local elections.
Not only can up to 50k Ukrainian refugees, for example, vote in the local elections this week, but, because of poor government resettlement policies, it is possible that ethnic voting blocs, were they to vote as a block, will be powerful enough to get preferred candidates handily across the line.
In Killarney, Natalia Krasnenkova, a refugee who has lived in the town for two years, is a favourite for election. In 2019, the quota was 1,584 and there are currently 2,575 Ukrainian refugees resident in the constituency – all with the right to vote (though it is unclear how many of them are adults, or how many have actually registered).
News that anyone resident in Ireland can vote in local elections might come as a surprise to many citizens. Since 2004 any refugee, asylum seeker or other non-national can register to vote in local elections, simply by providing their Temporary Registration Certificate as proof of ID.
A campaign launched this year to boost voter participation amongst those in direct provision saw Liliana Fernandez, Programme Manager at Common Purpose Ireland, acknowledge that “Ireland is one of the very few inclusive countries” in this regard.
In reality, Ireland’s “inclusive” approach means that, for example, those 85% of asylum seekers who arrived at Dublin Airport in 2023 with no or fake ID can vote in upcoming Local Elections should they have registered in time and choose to do so.
This 2004 change to Irish voting eligibility has been quietly put to use for two decades by the Immigrant Council of Ireland whose undertakings seem to have the potential to shape the future of the country by training immigrant activist leaders to become local representatives and by mobilising immigrant voter blocs to register to vote.
The Immigrant Council of Ireland seems to be the engine room of immigrant representation in local elections. In a recent post on X the Council celebrated registering 3000 new people in immigrant communities to vote in upcoming local elections. Polish activist and Political Participation Coordinator for the Council, Teresa Buczkowska, boasted about personally signing up 200 new voters in the weeks before the election registration deadline.
That the Immigrant Council and their staff are involved in aggressive voter registration campaigns isn’t too surprising. What should raise eyebrows however is their outsized role in placing new immigrant candidates in local election races.
This June, more than 100 candidates of migrant background will be running in local elections, up from 56 in 2019. The near 50% increase has been, in part, driven by the Immigrant Council. Celebrating the dramatic rise, Buczkowska wrote on X, “There are more than 100 candidates of a migrant background running in the local elections in Ireland. 1 in 4(!) of them received capacity building support from the [Immigrant Council of Ireland].”
In an interview with The Journal regarding the news, Buczkowska stated that one in eight people (12%) living in Ireland are migrants but only one in twenty of candidates (5%) are migrants, concluding “our democracy is still not fully representative”.
One of the dangers with talking about making democracy “representative” in terms of ethnic groups is that it might be seen as an endorsement of the idea that people should mainly vote for people of their own ethnic background or nationality – something that we have seen in other democracies where it is commonly referred to as “bloc voting”.
Bloc voting is a phenomenon where a group of people follow strong voting patterns based on a shared identity, for example, race, immigrant background, religious or sociocultural issues. For example, much has been made of the evangelical right voting bloc in the U.S. In the 2020 Presidential Election, 81% of white evangelical Protestants voted for Trump. Similarly, a key Democrat bloc is the black vote. No Republican candidate has received more than 15% of the black vote since 1965 and a Pew Analysis of the 2020 Presidential Election found that 92% of blacks voted for Biden. To maintain that high black vote percentage in 2020, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama leaned into the George Floyd controversy by co-opting the language of Black Lives Matter while Kamala Harris spoke about ‘structural racism’ at that year’s DNC Convention.
Another timely example is the current ethnic tensions between American Jews and Muslims since October 7th. In 2020, 77% of Jews voted for Biden while 69% of Muslims did. However recent polls show that both Jews and Muslims are dissatisfied with Biden’s handling of the conflict and it could cost him their support – and the election – come November. Blocs of voters in both groups are fundamentally tied to a conflict elsewhere and it is shaping political events at home.
In the UK, a similar pattern is emerging. In March, George Galloway won a Rochdale by-election by rallying the area’s large Muslim community against the Israel-Gaza conflict and in May, Mothin Ali, a Green Councillor in Leeds, made headlines after shouting “Allahu Akbar” in victory after a similar campaign based on rallying the Muslim vote against Israel.
An analysis by the Telegraph found that Labour support “plummeted in areas with a high Muslim population”, with one expert telling the paper that there were “fledgling signs of a reconfiguration in British politics” where Muslims are voting on “very different issues to the wider public”. In other words, the UK is entering an era of bloc voting where different groups are putting their own interests before that of the wider population.
In response to this growing Muslim voting bloc power, the Labour Party has been forced to act and said it would take “extraordinary steps” to show “we have learned the lessons and we are seriously committed to rebuilding trust” – and show it was “taking Islamophobia seriously”.
While studies have shown that “bloc voting appears to be increasingly consequential for immigrant political mobilization in European urban contexts”, some strategists argue that it is wrong to assume a voting bloc will act as a monolithic group, pointing to one of the largest voting blocs in the U.S., Latino voters, as being, in fact, a large section of voters for whom priorities shift from state to state.
Returning to Ireland, The Immigrant Council run two political training programmes which act as springboards to political leadership for immigrants in Ireland. The Migrant Leadership Academy “brings together migrants and refugees living in Ireland who are committed to social justice, equality and want to bring about positive change in their communities. The Academy teaches the fundamentals of activism and community organizing”.
Among the modules taught in the programme are “Community Organising and Building Power”, two units on “Speaking to Power”, a unit on “Leadership and Dealing with Resistance” and “Political Mobilisation”.
One graduate of the programme, Syeda, who completed it in 2020 stated, “Be prepared to work 10 times harder if you are from a minority group to achieve what your Irish colleagues would achieve without a problem. You should have a thick skin, a positive mindset and a strong faith to survive in Ireland.” She joined the programme to become “a positive force in her community and with her peers in the healthcare sector”.
A key stated goal of the programme is to connect immigrant leaders under a social justice-orientated training agenda in their future activist and political careers. The programme was funded by the EU Migration, Asylum and Integration Fund’s €9.88 billion endowment.
The Immigrant Council runs a second programme that highlights the relationship between the progressive NGO sector and the government.
The Migrant-TD Internship programme aims to promote “migrant participation in Irish politics through political internships with national politicians across Ireland.” The scheme, scheduled to run during the upcoming Local and European Elections, places an immigrant, selected by the Immigrant Council, with a TD to learn how the Irish political system works. This will include practical experience in canvassing and organising political meetings as well as visits to Leinster House. It is the kind of opportunity any native young aspiring politician dreams of having access to.
The programme is fully funded by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. It is the successor to the Council’s Migrant-Councillor scheme. This, however, doesn’t mark the end of the Immigration Council’s government reach.
The Council played a contributing role to the government’s recent Taskforce On Safe Participation in Political Life. The Taskforce’s recommendations include expanded funding for NGOs and preferential treatment for NGO social media censorship requests with Coimisiún na Meán. It further advises that “government adopt a long-term strategic approach to increasing political participation by under-represented groups to achieve greater diverse and inclusive representation as a matter of priority,” that political parties “put in place measures to support women and minority members and candidates”, and that parties “promote and implement the Anti-Racism election protocol.”
The Immigrant Council of Ireland then is directly responsible for providing politically progressive, social-justice and activist leadership training to one quarter of all immigrant candidates running in local elections in June. They have established a large immigrant voter registration machine to support these candidates. They are up to 80% funded by the EU and Irish government and are working in collaboration with the Irish government to fundamentally change the Irish democratic model by pushing mentorship programmes and legislation that institutionalises priority for migrant political candidates.
While the taxpayer-funded Immigrant Council has built this impressive and well-funded machinery with reach into the heart of government policy making, the majority of the native Irish have no idea that any of this is happening.
There has been no national debate on whether non-citizens should, in fact, have the right to vote in local elections – and no examination as to what the consequences might be for our political system. That must change.
Dr. Eoin Lenihan is an independent journalist and researcher. His work has been featured on AlJazeera and Fox News. He has written for The European Conservative, The Federalist, Arutz Sheeva, Quillette, The Post Millennial, and The Daily Caller. You can find more from Eoin on X @EoinLenihan and on his website, www.eoinlenihan.net.
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