Political momentum is notoriously difficult to define. A bit like mood music, it’s something that everyone can sense although few can quite put their finger on.
With the local and European elections looming, a lot of people will again be straining to hear the mood music. Was that referendum clobbering on March 8th on Care and the Family just one of those things? Leo Varadkar seemed to think so clinging to the belief that referendum results do not generally leak over into the cut and thrust of normal politics.
The fact that Varadkar is no longer Taoiseach may be commentary enough on that bit of homespun political wisdom. March 8th was a bad day at the office for Official Ireland and neither did the cynical scheduling of the vote on International Women’s Day spare it from an electoral hiding.
The other thing that stands out about the March 8th referendums was that it was possibly an even worse day for Ireland’s self-styled political opposition led by Mary Lou McDonald and Sinn Féin. In most functioning democracies, the political opposition get to use the term ‘opposition’ because they are opposed to the government. Sinn Féin and the rest of the left failed that simple test in those referendums.
Turning to the upcoming elections, the first thing that can be said is that it’s as if the Euro constituencies – with the exception of Dublin – were specifically drawn to be meaningless entities. For example, the constituency of Ireland South stretches from Wicklow in the Dublin commuter belt all the way to Mizen Head in the farthest reaches of west Cork. It’s the same story with Ireland North-West.
These prairie constituencies favour the well resourced state funded political parties who can usually out run a Grand National size field of poorly resourced independents and one-issue candidates. In an EU headed by Ursula von der Leyen, herself the unelected President of the EU Commission, perhaps such things are to be expected.
The other thread connecting the upcoming Euro elections and the recent referendums relates to voter turnout. European elections, despite all the bluster about the great European project, clearly do not engage a large section of Irish public opinion.
The 2019 Euro elections in Ireland had a voter turnout of just 49.7%. The fact that they were scheduled to take place on the same day as the local elections undoubtedly boosted this figure. A standalone European election might have been lucky to get a 40% turnout.
Reporting on the Ireland South count in 2019, the Irish Examiner noted that 5% of all ballots were spoiled. This included about 25,000 entirely blank ballots! It is safe to assume that most of these were returned by people who turned up on the day for no other reason than to vote for their local councillor.
Neither do constitutional referendums have a great record of engaging with public opinion. The March 8th referendums were portrayed by many on the Yes/Yes side as a form of harmless constitutional spring cleaning. On paper, at least, such a referendum could have been expected to attract a turnout somewhere in the mid thirties.
In fact, the turnout for the March 8th referendums was a very respectable 43%. What’s also interesting is that the turnout in working class areas was well above what was expected. Was this evidence of a change in political mood music? Whatever else, it doesn’t sound like the Irish electorate bought the story about it being nothing more than a bit of harmless constitutional spring cleaning.
The thing about elections is that they are as much about the electoral narrative that emerges as they are about the actual results. Indeed, winning the electoral narrative can often be as important as winning seats.
One of the big changes since the last Euro elections in 2019 is the changing media landscape. The mainstream media may still be important but it’s clear that its influence has declined even over the last five years. As was evident in the recent referendums, the nature of social media now makes controlling a narrative more difficult even for well resourced state funded political parties.
Electoral narratives usually hinge on whether the political opposition manages to gain electoral ground from the government of the day. However, the outcome of the recent referendums turned that narrative on its head. Sinn Féin, the self-styled main opposition party were cruelly exposed in that contest and ended up clutching precariously to the same political life raft as the government.
The story in the forthcoming elections is not whether Sinn Féin and the left will challenge the government but rather if ‘nationalist’ candidates challenge both the government and Sinn Féin. Even modest seat gains by such candidates will be viewed as the news story of the 2024 European elections.
However, there should be no underestimating the hill these candidates have to climb. Ironically, the greatest thing Ireland’s political establishment have going for it is the fragmented nature of the opposition. Voting transfer leakage and the problems associated with competing political egos could well mean the difference between winning and losing seats.
The local and European elections on June 7th will be watched closely for some key early indicators. One of these will be voter turnout. Will an increasingly angry and engaged electorate turn up to vote in numbers? If the turnout exceeds the 2019 figure of 49.7%, it may well signal a change in Ireland’s political mood music. This is especially so in working class areas which have been to the forefront of recent immigration protests.
It’s worth remembering that in the 2019 Ireland South constituency while 5% of the votes cast were spoiled, Deirdre Clune the outgoing Fine Gael MEP still managed to get elected with just under 9% of the first preference vote! The fact that about 25,000 of those spoiled votes were entirely blank shows just how close the margins are between winning and losing particularly in five seater constituencies.
What the coalition government and Sinn Féin have most to fear on June 7th is an above average turnout by an energised and motivated electorate similar to what we saw in those recent referendum votes. That could well signal the difference between inconsequential background noise and an actual change in mood music.