Probably the single biggest advantage you can have, if you want to start a new political party in Ireland, is a coterie of already sitting TDs. Of all those “new” political parties to be founded in Ireland over the last forty years, those that have succeeded have always had this in common: The Progressive Democrats emerged from malcontents in Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and even Labour. The Social Democrats emerged from Labour, and the Independent benches. Aontu emerged from Sinn Fein. But as Renua, for example, proves, just having sitting TDs is no guarantee of success: It’s a prerequisite, not a golden ticket.
The reason it is so vital is straightforward: The hardest single thing to achieve in Irish politics is to get elected for the first time. The Irish voter is a strange beast – at once very angry and concerned about national issues like hospitals and housing and schools; and yet at the same time unwilling to vote for anyone who hasn’t proved themselves on bread and butter issues like fixing potholes, getting grants for the local GAA club, or buying twenty tickets in the fundraising raffle for the local tidy towns. This is one reason that extra-parliamentary groups like the Irish Freedom Party or the National Party are unlikely to make any impact at the next election: Voters might be theoretically receptive to a message about immigration or crime, but they’re not going to elect people they don’t know and who haven’t served their time doing the local gruntwork.
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