Rank the parties w/ national legislative representation: Ireland

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Ftr and just to correct Oakvale, I'm not really Doom Pauling on the prospect of a SF-FF coalition as awful as that sounds, my precise Doom Pauling is in regards to the prospect that no government can form following the next general election leading to the nirvana of the local independent hacks and ward-heelers.

And I refuse to participate here.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Few people immigrate to Ireland, so little point in stirring up xenophobia? My first guess at least.

PR-STV is also advantageous to vague centrists who can harvest second votes, rather than fascists who are inevitably last pick on everybody's list.

<complete guess>

We have quite a lot of immigrants now actually. This has made no impact discernible political impact as of yet.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

That chart is from 2006, it's a bit different now. Although yes, migration hasn't been that strongly Islamic.

Here's the report of the 2011 census, for instance. Some changes since then - a lot more South and East Asian migration and a dropoff from elsewhere (except perhaps Latin America).

[Tetro Kornbluth]

That said, it is odd no real Eurosceptic parties seem to exist in Ireland (aside from Sinn Fein), especially as the Irish people aren't exactly Europhilles.

Ummm... That is a relatively recent phenomenon. There was almost no euroscepticism in Ireland until recently. And from an ideological POV, there still isn't really.

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Yes. It's becoming quite common. But local government is quite powerless as Al said.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

If one where to construct a new and suitable party system from scratch in Ireland how would that look like? Presumably there would be some CDU style nominally Christian and moderately conservative alliance and a real Social Democratic one. But what else?

We have the party system that exists because people vote for it.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

That said, it is odd no real Eurosceptic parties seem to exist in Ireland (aside from Sinn Fein), especially as the Irish people aren't exactly Europhilles.

Ummm... That is a relatively recent phenomenon. There was almost no euroscepticism in Ireland until recently. And from an ideological POV, there still isn't really.

Huh, I was thinking about the initial rejection of both the Nice and Lisbon treaties, but fair enough.

Do you see a national FF/FG coalition in the future then? (or even a merger)

Nice was an absolutely massive shock at the time (and on an utterly dire turnout). More telling in both cases, has been the second referenda.

As for FF-FG or FG-FF certainly it can't be ruled out now, but methinks if there is wriggle room out of it in 2016, especially should that room (highly unlikely at this stage) not involve SF, then watch them try and squirm away.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

If one where to construct a new and suitable party system from scratch in Ireland how would that look like? Presumably there would be some CDU style nominally Christian and moderately conservative alliance and a real Social Democratic one. But what else?

We have the party system that exists because people vote for it.

True, but people vote for the parties that happen to exist. Generally a party system has a lot of redudant bagage from the past and that clearly is the case in Ireland. So I just wondered how a party system would look like if it was created from scratch today.

Not too dissimilar today methinks. There would be stronger a centre-left party but we are talking the NDP here, not UK Labour or Swedish SAP.