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Ireland goes Left, Europe goes Right

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  • 07-06-2009 9:09pm
    #1
    PopeBuckfastXVI
    Registered Users Posts: 5,155 ✭✭✭


    Interesting that Socialists seem to be benefiting from the dissatisfaction with the economic crisis, and Governmental response in Ireland, yet across Europe it seems that centre to extreme Right parties are the main beneficiaries.

    Anyone any ideas on what makes us different?


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    #2
    Dirk Gently
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,784 ✭✭✭Dirk Gently


    PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »
    Anyone any ideas on what makes us different?
    A lack of a far right party to give a protest vote to. (not counting libertas)


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    #3
    cornbb
    Registered Users Posts: 6,790 ✭✭✭cornbb


    I just noticed that myself and have been wondering the same thing. Maybe its the fact that in Ireland, the "bigger small" parties (well just Labour I guess) happen to be left-leaning, whereas right-leaning parties have been occupying a similar position elsewhere in Europe - maybe the Irish electorate are just looking for something that they think Labour will give them, even if they don't happen to be left-leaning. If we happened to have a right-leaning party in Labour's position in Ireland maybe we would have swung to the right too, if you know what I mean.

    Maybe I'm talking out of my arse though. Another theory would be that Ireland is still very much a pro-EU nation at heart, despite the Lisbon affair, and euroskeptic parties (who tend to be on the far right as far as I can tell) have virtually no support here.


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    #4
    rovert
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 23,089 ✭✭✭✭rovert


    The BNP should have ran :pac:


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    #5
    PopeBuckfastXVI
    Registered Users Posts: 5,155 ✭✭✭PopeBuckfastXVI


    rovert wrote: »
    The BNP should have ran :pac:

    If the circulation of the Daily 'Irish' Fail is anything to go by, they would have done alright...


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    #6
    rovert
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 23,089 ✭✭✭✭rovert


    PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »
    If the circulation of the Daily 'Irish' Fail is anything to go by, they would have done alright...

    with the skinhead housewives


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    #7
    USE
    Closed Accounts Posts: 68 ✭✭USE


    Ireland goes right way (and that is left).


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    #8
    mike65
    Closed Accounts Posts: 88,978 ✭✭✭✭mike65


    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/elections/euro/09/html/ukregion_999999.stm
    UK votes are coming in, Yorkshire/Humberside the latest

    Con x 2
    Ukip
    Lab
    Lib Dem
    BNP

    all elected.


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    #9
    MoominPapa
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,106 ✭✭✭MoominPapa


    Panic on the streets of Humberside. I wonder to myself. Will life ever be same again?


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    #10
    BlitzKrieg
    Registered Users Posts: 14,685 ✭✭✭✭BlitzKrieg


    I find that England going *right* aswell to be more interesting.

    We've always been seen as away from the continent because we are british isle style politics, but England is going the same way as contential europe and we are the odd ones on our own?


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    #11
    PopeBuckfastXVI
    Registered Users Posts: 5,155 ✭✭✭PopeBuckfastXVI


    BlitzKrieg wrote: »
    I find that England going *right* aswell to be more interesting.

    We've always been seen as away from the continent because we are british isle style politics, but England is going the same way as contential europe and we are the odd ones on our own?

    I'm quite proud of us actually...


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    #12
    fcussen
    Closed Accounts Posts: 142 ✭✭fcussen


    I think Fine Gael have moved far enough away from their Trotskyite roots that describing them as "socialist" is no longer accurate


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    #13
    the_syco
    Registered Users Posts: 37,301 ✭✭✭✭the_syco


    Without the PD's, I think FG is as far right as we go...


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    #14
    USE
    Closed Accounts Posts: 68 ✭✭USE


    PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »
    I'm quite proud of us actually...
    I'm quite proud of Ireland actually.

    And by the way some extremums does not represent whole "continent" it's not enough to generalize. Maybe it is true that right parties are the most common in Europe but most of them are also proEuropean and this isn't a new treand or somethinf (also majority of them aren't far right or radical right). It's only few noisy ones who makes the media to shout a lot.


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    #15
    BlitzKrieg
    Registered Users Posts: 14,685 ✭✭✭✭BlitzKrieg


    I think this is more to do with the success of labour in both the local and european elections. While still not the biggest party, they have shown an imense swell in support (especially dublin) from what they had five years ago.


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    #16
    BlitzKrieg
    Registered Users Posts: 14,685 ✭✭✭✭BlitzKrieg


    wait?


    what?


    SInn Fein...right?

    did I miss something?


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    #17
    ,8,1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 256 ✭✭,8,1


    Well historically they were more to the right, and nationalist parties tend to the right.

    Not the Shinners though. Long since a bunch of Commies! :o
    ,8,1 wrote:
    If you are a Rightist in Ireland, it's hard to know where to throw a protest vote.

    What do you have, Sinn Fein?!

    They're about as "rightist" as you're going to get, and they're a bunch of filthy Marxists! :mad:


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    #18
    ,8,1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 256 ✭✭,8,1


    The question is, in local and national elections, what is the "rightist alternative"?

    Don't think there is one.

    Consensus politics vs. leftoids. Yawn.


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    #19
    PopeBuckfastXVI
    Registered Users Posts: 5,155 ✭✭✭PopeBuckfastXVI


    ,8,1 wrote: »
    The question is, in local and national elections, what is the "rightist alternative"?

    Don't think there is one.

    It strikes me that there isn't one because it's not wanted, in any great way.

    Certainly unusual... I wonder why? Maybe the left, through SF soak up the natural base of the nationalistic right?


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    #20
    BlitzKrieg
    Registered Users Posts: 14,685 ✭✭✭✭BlitzKrieg


    I think to a number people Fianna Fail by now are seen as right enough for them


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    #21
    ,8,1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 256 ✭✭,8,1


    BlitzKrieg wrote:
    I think to a number people Fianna Fail by now are seen as right enough for them

    That's a phenomeon in modern political systems. There's been such a systematic shift to the left that centrist consensus parties like Fianna Fail seem "rightist".

    People will always devise a spectrum of opposites; so if centrist parties are the furthest to the right, then they will be regarded as the rightist "end".
    PopeBuckfastXVI wrote:
    Certainly unusual... I wonder why? Maybe the left, through SF soak up the natural base of the nationalistic right?

    Yeah, maybe.. And if that's the case that's a great pity.


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    #22
    BlitzKrieg
    Registered Users Posts: 14,685 ✭✭✭✭BlitzKrieg


    You could blame it on american influence and how the republican party has behaved over the last 8 years.

    Right is defined by big buisness influence private healthcare and so on.

    Its less defined by nationalistic tendancy because in america EVERYBODY LOVES AMERICA, and if you dont well you can get out commie.

    So the nationalistic element wouldnt be as unique.

    Let 8 years of that rub off on Irish culture and Fianna Fail, friend of the bankers and the big developers, closer of hospitals and health services.

    Would appear as american rightish.


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    #23
    ,8,1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 256 ✭✭,8,1


    Right is defined by big buisness influence private healthcare and so on.

    Exxxactly.

    "Economic liberal" = rightist. No, no, no!

    The way Thatcher hounded Marxist Sinn Fein and the Unions was beautiful, but she and Reagan are responsible in a large way for this perception of rightism in predominantly economic terms.
    Its less defined by nationalistic tendancy because in america EVERYBODY LOVES AMERICA, and if you dont well you can get out commie.

    So the nationalistic element wouldnt be as unique.

    And the USA was always the ultimate "propositional nation" anyhow, rendering traditional nationalism pretty well impossible if one stays within the bounds of the Constitution and established principles.


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    #24
    fcussen
    Closed Accounts Posts: 142 ✭✭fcussen


    They were saying on BBC 2 a few minutes ago that the parties ideologically opposed to the government in every country in Europe have gained in this election. e.g. right-wing parties gaining in Spain, left-wing parties gaining in Germany.

    There's no big secret to what's going on here: FF/PD government enacts right-wing policies for 10 years, the economy goes to sh1t on the back mainly of the global recession but also partly because of those same policies, people think "something must be done" and the consensus swings to the opposite end of the ideological scale.


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    #25
    Red Sleeping Beauty
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,443 ✭✭✭Red Sleeping Beauty


    Nick Griffin leader of the British National Party (you know what they're about ;)) has just been elected to the European Parliament.


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    #26
    fcussen
    Closed Accounts Posts: 142 ✭✭fcussen


    sickening


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    #27
    ,8,1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 256 ✭✭,8,1


    A rightist victory is something to be celebrated.


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    #28
    PopeBuckfastXVI
    Registered Users Posts: 5,155 ✭✭✭PopeBuckfastXVI


    ,8,1 wrote: »
    A rightist victory is something to be celebrated.

    By rightists ;)


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    #29
    Dr Galen
    Registered Users Posts: 7,373 ✭✭✭Dr Galen


    ,8,1 wrote: »
    A rightist victory is something to be celebrated.

    indeed it is, by rightist voters of course

    but a racist victory is definitely not something the British should be proud of. although the BNP hasn't really much ground electorally speaking, it's pretty awful that they have gotten in.


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    #30
    ,8,1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 256 ✭✭,8,1


    Mystik Monkey wrote: »
    indeed it is, by rightist voters of course

    but a racist victory is definitely not something the British should be proud of. although the BNP hasn't really much ground electorally speaking, it's pretty awful that they have gotten in.

    Don't you think it's a kind of "selective diversity" for leftists to cry foul when a rightist party gets elected to parliament? Selective pluralism also, of course.


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    #31
    Dr Galen
    Registered Users Posts: 7,373 ✭✭✭Dr Galen


    well yes I'd agree that the Left leaners can get a bit shouty when parties of the right get ahead.

    the point really though that I was making, following on from yours, is that no matter how good it is (for some of us) to see right sided oarties gaining ground, no sane person, with an ounce of intelligence or decency should be celebrating the BNP. right or left they are still rotten


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