Irish General Election (February 8th 2020)

[Cassius]

It’s on.

[LabourJersey]

I assume Fianna Fáil will stand to gain or win outright given Leo's handling the memorializing controversy pretty badly. I still genuinely don't understand what FF stands for ideologically though.

[mileslunn]

My guess is neither party wins a majority and with both parties not willing to work with Sinn Fein, likely another supply and confidence rely on other.  I believe Fine Gael will likely win, but admittedly with it being right after Brexit, that could figure bigger in the election.

[PSOL]

The race does seem close, with other minor parties being key into who gets into the next government. I do hope that the right minor parties pull at the eventual government to get the right concessions and objectives done at this turbulent time.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

What is the difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael? They’re both listed as pro-European conservative parties, which is obviously an over-simplification.

[mileslunn]

What is the difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael? They’re both listed as pro-European conservative parties, which is obviously an over-simplification.

Both are broadly centrist with a slight rightward tilt but Fine Gael is somewhat more conservative although for comparisons Fine Gael would be like the Red Tories in Canada of the old Progressive Conservatives pre-merger or the One Nation Tories in UK such as exemplified by Kenneth Clarke while Fianna Fail would be like the Blue Liberals in Canada or Orange book Liberal Democrats in UK.  The real difference is from the Irish civil war but unlike parties elsewhere in Europe ideological differences are rather small.  Ireland being a small homogenous country lacks the polarization you see in most other countries thus smaller differences.

[Gary J]

What is the difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael? They’re both listed as pro-European conservative parties, which is obviously an over-simplification.

The Irish party system is confusing. Looking at the history, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael descend from the Anti-Treaty and Pro-Treaty factions of Sinn Fein which fought the Irish Civil War in the early 1920s. The basis of the appeal of both was vote the way you shot, so animosities ran very deep without being based much upon policy in the conventional European sense.

The predecessors of Fine Gael governed as a conservative Catholic party. They also attracted the support of former unionists (mostly in the Dublin area) and the larger farmers.

Fianna Fail was also a conservative Catholic party, but it was a more populist vehicle for Eamonn De Valera and had support originally from smaller farmers, particularly in the west of Ireland.

As the two parties have developed they both aspired to be conservative catch all parties, but Fine Gael was simultaneously more conservative old wealth and socially liberal than Fianna Fail. Fianna Fail represented more new wealth and clientalist politics. The culture of the two parties is quite different, as far as I can tell, not myself being Irish.

[CumbrianLefty]

What is the difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael? They’re both listed as pro-European conservative parties, which is obviously an over-simplification.

John O'Farrell related - in his absolutely classic book Things Can Only Get Better - asking an old Irish bloke this very question back in the 1990s. The reply - "its the difference between s*** and s***e"

[Intell]

What is the difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael? They’re both listed as pro-European conservative parties, which is obviously an over-simplification.

Finna fail is eastern Ukraine politically and Fine Gael in western Ukraine politically.

[LabourJersey]

What is the difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael? They’re both listed as pro-European conservative parties, which is obviously an over-simplification.

Finna fail is eastern Ukraine politically and Fine Gael in western Ukraine politically.

This just makes things less clear

[brucejoel99]

It'll be the first Saturday election since the first Dáil/last Westminster election in 1918.

[Tintrlvr]

What is the difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael? They’re both listed as pro-European conservative parties, which is obviously an over-simplification.

The Irish party system is confusing. Looking at the history, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael descend from the Anti-Treaty and Pro-Treaty factions of Sinn Fein which fought the Irish Civil War in the early 1920s. The basis of the appeal of both was vote the way you shot, so animosities ran very deep without being based much upon policy in the conventional European sense.

The predecessors of Fine Gael governed as a conservative Catholic party. They also attracted the support of former unionists (mostly in the Dublin area) and the larger farmers.

Fianna Fail was also a conservative Catholic party, but it was a more populist vehicle for Eamonn De Valera and had support originally from smaller farmers, particularly in the west of Ireland.

As the two parties have developed they both aspired to be conservative catch all parties, but Fine Gael was simultaneously more conservative old wealth and socially liberal than Fianna Fail. Fianna Fail represented more new wealth and clientalist politics. The culture of the two parties is quite different, as far as I can tell, not myself being Irish.

From a non-Irish perspective, the two parties seem to have evolved to be further apart in recent years, even while forming a coalition, partially because of the total death of Fianna Fail's urban wing (and, if Fine Gael loses an election badly in the near future, their rural wing might start looking endangered), and partially because of the evolution and decline of Fine Gael's "special relationship" with Irish Labour (which has itself basically become a social-liberal party rather than a social democratic party). Fine Gael has become more liberal-conservative (more urban, more upper-middle class, more economically right-wing, more socially liberal), while Fianna Fail has become more Christian-democratic (more rural, more lower-middle class, more economically populist, and, while maybe not more socially conservative, less in the socially liberal direction than Fine Gael, while Ireland as a whole is rocketing in a socially liberal direction), to use Continental terms. The Dutch VVD and CDA might be useful analogies.

[Ethelberth]

Fianna Fail was traditionally more sensitive to Northern Irish Nationalism (SDLP-type).

[mileslunn]

Another comparison between the two parties would be Atlantic Canada where Liberals and PCs are not all that different but more represent different regions and factions.  Federally it used to be like that in Canada too where both were big tent and little ideological differences but not today and I guess more what is surprising is you haven't seen the strong ideological divergence in Ireland you've seen in other countries.  Mind you being a small and homogenous one probably makes it easier to get greater consensus than a larger more diverse one.  I think a lot of the more left wing and more right wing is more a reaction to the other side and feeling they don't represent them so they go to the opposite side.

[DL]

If Fine Gael is seen to be a bit more rightwing economically than Fianna fail - why is it that the Labour party has had so many coalition agreements with FG over the years but they never seem to want to cooperate with FF? 

[Tintrlvr]

If Fine Gael is seen to be a bit more rightwing economically than Fianna fail - why is it that the Labour party has had so many coalition agreements with FG over the years but they never seem to want to cooperate with FF?  

FF didn't need Labour; they usually won majorities or only needed small parties/independents that were ideologically closer to FF or otherwise structurally preferred. And, when they didn't, it was typically because the electorate had rejected a FF government; Labour wasn't about to go in and prop them up. The one time Labour did go into coalition with FF (after the 1992 election), it was a total disaster for Labour, who lost a ton of seats in 1997 as well as the last opportunity they realistically had at displacing FG as the main opposition party (well, they got a shot in 2011 at displacing FF and blew that, too).

The pre-2011 Irish political system has to be looked at in the context where FF was the dominant party and everyone else (other than some scattered independents and, for a while, the PD, which was really just a FF satellite after its inaugural election in 1987) was, first and foremost, anti-FF, and therefore odd ideological coalitions were formed by politicians and voters whose uniting feature was opposition to FF.

[DL]

Looking at this from a Canadian perspective...there might have been a time in the 60s, 70s, early 80s when it would have been conceivable that the NDP and the PCs would have worked together in the interest of having a non-Liberal government. Back when the PCs were controlled by their more "red Tory" faction and had leaders like Stanfield or Clark - you could have seen some sort of PC/NDP rapprochement.  But in the last 30 years the Conservatives in Canada have become such a rabidly rightwing party that it is inconceivable that there could ever be any common ground between them and the NDP. If the NDP ever struck some sort of Canadian version of the Cameron/Clegg LD-Tory coalition with Canada's conservatives - I suspect it would lead to an electoral armageddon for the NDP in any subsequent election (as happened to the LDs in the UK in 2015).

But it does not sound like either FG or FF in Ireland have been taken over by the extreme right the way the Tories in the UK and Canada have.

[Polkergeist]

Are their any Irish versions of 538?

Or at least someone who does seat modelling?

[Estrella]

Seeing that the results could end up being not very different from last time, are FF open to continuing to support FG in government? If they are too fed up with them and/or finish first, and have enough seats to govern with support of Sinn Féin+indies, would they go for that option?

[Intell]

Anyone have basic demographic analysis of the parties as well as exit polls of the last election?

[Lord Halifax]

Good poll for FF.
https://twitter.com/gavreilly/status/1218687175237218305?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ct...

[urutzizu]

This poll was taken when the RIC controversy was at it's height. The backlash will die down (though it's definitely done it's damage) so Fine Gael will almost certainly make up some of this deficit.

[ObserverIE]

This week we had a homeless man get his back broken when council workers bulldozed his tent on a canal bank in very very plush Dublin 2 without bothering to check that there was no-one inside, all under the smiling gaze of a poster of the posh-boy FG Minister for Housing under whose reign homelessness and rents in Dublin have rocketed. The response of Varadkar was of course to try and blame it on the Lord Mayor of Dublin (a ceremonial post; Dublin, like all local authorities in Ireland, is run under a council-manager system where the executive power is held by an appointee manager) who is running as a FF candidate.

There was the particularly gruesome murder of a 17-year-old boy as part of a drugs feud in Drogheda, who was dismembered with his limbs being left in a holdall in one part of Dublin and his head and torso being found in a burnt-out car in another part of the city. The reason why these scumbags can go full Narcos is because half of professional upper-middle class Dublin (obviously excluding Varadkar and his clique personally, just in case any libel lawyers are browsing) love putting Colombia's finest up their nostrils (the country is f***ing awash with the stuff).

I don't think those are conditions in which voters are particularly likely to rally to the party in government. FF have, of course, faults too obvious and too many to mention. But they're not systematically tone-deaf in the way that Varadkar's clique is and their leadership comes from a wider social and geographical background than the Leinster Schools Rugby Cup All-Stars Second XV set and so are less likely to be viewed as being out-of-touch by Ireland beyond the Dublin ring road or even Dublin's workaday western and northern suburbs. Neuf ans, ça suffit.

[CumbrianLefty]

We couldn't be about to see yet another "centrist boyfriend" come to grief, shurely?

[rob in cal]

  I realize Ireland isn't as divided by the nationalist vs internationalist debate as other European countries, but for those voters who are in that mindset, how would an anti-high immigration voter vote, and how about their pro-immigration opponents. Also, is anybody at all supportive of an Irexit, in terms of prominent candidates?