What will happen to sinn fein after this election.

Loafing Oaf

_Brian wrote: »

Aontu will make gains at the expense of both SF and FF.

Gains of seats? They'll have to make that 1% in the opinion polls goa long way...

As for SF, I think Mary Lou will have to go if they lose 5+ seats, as seems likely. Then they'll have to find a new policy direction, or a different tone at least, that will go down better among swing voters...

IAMAMORON

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Gains of seats? They'll have to make that 1% in the opinion polls goa long way...

As for SF, I think Mary Lou will have to go if they lose 5+ seats, as seems likely. Then they'll have to find a new policy direction, or a different tone at least, that will go down better among swing voters...

I don't honestly think Mary Lou is their problem. She is a very competent politician and I would hate to see her not involved in home politics. It took a lot of guts to do what she has done and I would hope she is not judged harshly if they have a poor election. Ireland needs people like Mary Lou in politics, she could make a great Taoiseach one day.

None of that is possible however until they take a hard look at themselves and see where they want to go and what sort of an offer they want to provide Ireland with.

But Mary Lou is not the problem , at all , they would be in much worse nick without her.

Fr_Dougal

mariaalice wrote: »

Not shouting up for SF, but no they haven't they have taken on those who feel they are marginalised ( whether they are marginalised is another question ).

Sounds like you are...

is_that_so

SF are in a quandary as their vote has slipped quite a bit. They lost nearly 80 council seats and saw their vote share slide by 1/3. Going towards the centre is logical but how to do it without alienating too many on the left is their problem.

flazio

decky1 wrote: »

Time to move on , maybe give them a chance and see if they live up to their promises, could they be any worse that previous elected , we can't just keep going around in circles with the same parties every few years and spent that time saying their no good , lets give them a chance.

Yeah, they can be worse, but they could be better. The fact is that we simply don't know.
Voting isn't like betting. The electorate need to know more about policies then just "not what the other crowd were doing"

JohnnyFlash

IAMAMORON wrote: »

I don't honestly think Mary Lou is their problem. She is a very competent politician and I would hate to see her not involved in home politics. It took a lot of guts to do what she has done and I would hope she is not judged harshly if they have a poor election. Ireland needs people like Mary Lou in politics, she could make a great Taoiseach one day.

None of that is possible however until they take a hard look at themselves and see where they want to go and what sort of an offer they want to provide Ireland with.

But Mary Lou is not the problem , at all , they would be in much worse nick without her.

The main problem for Mary Lou is she has a voice like a fücking foghorn.

Loafing Oaf

IAMAMORON wrote: »

I don't honestly think Mary Lou is their problem. She is a very competent politician and I would hate to see her not involved in home politics. It took a lot of guts to do what she has done and I would hope she is not judged harshly if they have a poor election. Ireland needs people like Mary Lou in politics, she could make a great Taoiseach one day.

None of that is possible however until they take a hard look at themselves and see where they want to go and what sort of an offer they want to provide Ireland with.

But Mary Lou is not the problem , at all , they would be in much worse nick without her.

Well she seemed almost machine-tooled as the SF leader to win over Middle Ireland but it doesn't seem to be happening and the party can't wait around forever for her to turn things around...

Bass Reeves

IAMAMORON wrote: »

I don't honestly think Mary Lou is their problem. She is a very competent politician and I would hate to see her not involved in home politics. It took a lot of guts to do what she has done and I would hope she is not judged harshly if they have a poor election. Ireland needs people like Mary Lou in politics, she could make a great Taoiseach one day.

None of that is possible however until they take a hard look at themselves and see where they want to go and what sort of an offer they want to provide Ireland with.

But Mary Lou is not the problem , at all , they would be in much worse nick without her.

I am not sure the country could survive 4years of listening to Mary Lou's shrill voice if she was Toiseach

IAMAMORON

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Well she seemed almost machine-tooled as the SF leader to win over Middle Ireland but it doesn't seem to be happening and the party can't wait around forever for her to turn things around...

She might be middle class, but it is the Sinn Féin strategists which need to decide how to attract them.

As I said they assume that middle class voters are somewhat wrong or greedy etc. This is lazy politics, Ireland doesn't have a genuine working class, not like ones on France, Germany or the UK. We have a class of cranking grunts who do nothing, we have a huge working " middle " class, who pay for everything and then we have the old money crew, who spend all their money on shight like tickets, wine, fags, beer, holidays and M&S casseroles. They are too busy to vote anyways.

As I said, until the Sinners can genuinely attract the genuine working " middle" class of Ireland they can't and won't grow.

Millionaire only not

mariaalice wrote: »

Mary Lou on RTE at the moment doing much better than Micheál Martin, however, they may fall off a cliff after this election?

The issue is they have a few very competent people who are heled back by being in SF and the rest of SF

Locally they attract a lot of chip on their shoulders and crank type supporters which does affect their vote and its possible the same in each constituency?.

N.I is different.

I’d say they were due to fall off that cliff! Leo and Flanagan threw them a life line last week !

Loafing Oaf

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

The main problem for Mary Lou is she has a voice like a fücking foghorn.

When you're pitching to fickle floating voters, I'm afraid stuff like this can genuinely make the difference...

marieholmfan

Bass Reeves wrote: »

I am not sure the country could survive 4years of listening to Mary Lou's shrill voice if she was Toiseach

As opposed to B B B B Bertie or Cowen the tedious bore or Squeaky Leo - Enda had a great voice but Enda is a gobsh...


Screechy voice is just a codeword for misogyny.

James Brown

They won't fall off a cliff.
They are lacking a spark, however I think it'll be another spread of votes with FF taking a marginal lead.
MM said he wouldn't deal with SF. I think both FF and FG have some neck in that regard.

Dyr

Mad_maxx wrote: »

O Broin championing Margaret Cash went down like a led balloon as well

They've lost their identity a little

Ironic given their embrace of identity politics.

Magaret Cash and a dozen other virtue signalling faux pas will cost them. But the Greybeards who've run things up to now might actually be too old to ditch O'Broin and the other champagne socialists as a beaten docket. Democratic Left part deux.


Republicanism has always been prone to being enamoured by whatever new wackiness is en vogue on the far left. Their only hope is people still dislike FFFG enough and still consider them a viable alternative

Loafing Oaf

IAMAMORON wrote: »

As I said, until the Sinners can genuinely attract the genuine working " middle" class of Ireland they can't and won't grow.

Maybe if they repented:P

James Brown

All left leaning parties need to be seen to stand for the working tax payer, quality for money on our tax spends and rewarding the taxpayer.
The spin is SF and the like are all about dole spongers and foreva homes, (ironically a better deal than leasing off vulture funds) etc. The irony being any issues anyone can point to are firmly on FF/FG.

I think SF would be more for the average working tax payer than the FG spin would suggest.

IAMAMORON

Millionaire only not wrote: »

I’d say they were due to fall off that cliff! Leo and Flanagan threw them a life line last week !

It amazes me how people have not read through this nonsense at this stage?

As long as people are bitching about Fine Gael liberalism and their indifference to civil war politics, the less likely people are going to concentrate on the genuine issues at large in 2020.

The PR squad in FG are more than happy for people to gripe about the blueshirts and supporting the Tans.... as long as they are not considering the real issues such as homelessness, an economy potentially entering a recession, the childrens' hospital and in particular to last week, the HSE queues …

If you ask me the whole commemoration rubbish is a massive red herring in the grand scheme of things and has been dumped into the spotlight to get people off the real issues.

Dyr

IAMAMORON wrote: »

It amazes me how people have not read through this nonsense at this stage?

As long as people are bitching about Fine Gael liberalism and their indifference to civil war politics, the less likely people are going to concentrate on the genuine issues at large in 2020.

The PR squad in FG are more than happy for people to gripe about the blueshirts and supporting the Tans.... as long as they are not considering the real issues such as homelessness, an economy potentially entering a recession, the childrens' hospital and in particular to last week, the HSE queues …

If you ask me the whole commemoration rubbish is a massive red herring in the grand scheme of things and has been dumped into the spotlight to get people off the real issues.

FGs evil plan is to have people not vote for them because of the Tan War (2020 edition) rather than not vote for them because of housing and health?

Sounds like a swiss watch of a plan...

Patser

SF do have a big positional issue at the moment.

15 years ago, when they were on the up and up, they occupied an area of politics to the left of even Labour, and were able to make big gains with populist promises as they knew they would not be in power, and have to deliver on them.

When they hit about 15% in elections, becoming effectively the 3rd largest party and therefore a possible coalition partner, they stalled. As such they had to row back on the populism- which would be both undeliverable and but also to appeal to the middle ground voter to push them over that 15% threshold.

This left them exposed to the new Left pop up populist groups: like Paul Murphy, Boyd-Barrett etc - who were able to steal their schtick in appealing to 'working class' voters and cut into their votes from the left, while they also failed to make gains in the centre where other groups like the SDs popped up.

This election is still a big chance for SF to do something I feel. The economic recovery (and frequent splits) has taken a lot of wind out of the likes of Solidarity, PBP etc, while Labour are a charisma black hole and the SDs losing Stephen Donnelly was a massive blow to their credentials. So on one hand SF have a bit of an open field to the left again.

But they are making little headway. All debate seems to be about FG vs FF, both can lay claim to the recovery while SF still can't seem to get through that armour, and instead seem to have a bit of infighting and doubts. That said in an election campaign anything can happen - one good debate or a pledge that resonates can swing things a lot.

James Brown

The Tan commemoration was simple arrogance. Not related to the election or anything else. Arrogance.

bladespin

Matt Barrett wrote: »

The Tan commemoration was simple arrogance. Not related to the election or anything else. Arrogance.

It was a shocking miscalculation, we often say they're out of touch etc etc but could never dream of demonstrating just how far away from reality they are until...

IAMAMORON

Bambi wrote: »

FGs evil plan is to have people not vote for them because of the Tan War (2020 edition) rather than not vote for them because of housing and health?

Sounds like a swiss watch of a plan...

If you think about it for a second.

No one is not going to vote for FG because they agreed to an RIC commemoration.

But they could definitely lose support if they raise taxes and cost the country money, which they are doing. So they would rather have a load of bar stool republicans, a lot of who won't leave the pub to vote anyway, bitch on about 100 year old politics, that makes no difference to what is happening in Ireland for the next 5 years.

It actually makes a lot of sense.

You were never not voting for FG because you didn't agree with Cumann na nGael policies of the 1920's... but their major support base will see the commemoration issue as meaningless, as will other non republicans who also vote.

JohnnyFlash

SF have shown themselves to be a real party of hurlers on the ditch over the past few years. Bluster and indignation isn’t leadership and the majority of voters see that. It’s going to be a shïtshow of an election for them.

suicide_circus

What would happen? Nothing.

They'd be told by the mandarins in the upper echelons of the public service that any radical plans they have are unworkable. They might get a border poll but thats about it.

James Brown

I think all parties need to find a back bone. There should be no 'no go' areas.
The first party to get in and take a run at the HSE and the Civil Service etc. will win my respect.
FF/FG are not those parties. Kenny had the best chance for that.
We need a change from FF/FG.
I'll be voting SD/Indie/SF etc.
The Greens are a novelty party and Labour cannot be trusted.

Brussels Sprout

is_that_so wrote: »

Overall votes for the hard left will probably be down as their angry message is not going to work anymore. That could put them out of the running for some seats. Retirements too will hit them. Even if they hold up around where their support level was in 2016, it is doubtful IMO and they will naturally lose seats anyway through lack of transfers. I think they'll lose 3 seat straight off - Louth, Kerry and Meath East. You could probably add Cork NC to that list. If their vote doesn't go south of 13%-14% I'd say 6-7 losses in seats will be good. If it does go under 13% then we could be talking about double figure losses. FF will probably gain from that, but so will others.

Nah, they'll definitely hold that seat, straight swap of Thomas Gould who did well in the recent by-election for Jonathon O'Brien (retiring).

Donnacha O' Laoghaire in CSC could be in trouble though. He'll be fighting with Jerry Buttimer and the Greens for that final seat.

dulpit

Matt Barrett wrote: »

I think all parties need to find a back bone. There should be no 'no go' areas.
The first party to get in and take a run at the HSE and the Civil Service etc. will win my respect.
FF/FG are not those parties. Kenny had the best chance for that.
We need a change from FF/FG.
I'll be voting SD/Indie/SF etc.
The Greens are a novelty party and Labour cannot be trusted.

You say you want a party who will get in and take a run at the HSE/etc, but then say the Greens are a novelty party and Labour can't be trusted, but these are the parties who have actually had a go at government in the past, but got bashed for it..

bladespin

dulpit wrote: »

You say you want a party who will get in and take a run at the HSE/etc, but then say the Greens are a novelty party and Labour can't be trusted, but these are the parties who have actually had a go at government in the past, but got bashed for it..

How did the Greens 'have a go' at the civil service or HSE? In fairness they had bigger things to deal with but still.

JP Liz V1

decky1 wrote: »

Time to move on , maybe give them a chance and see if they live up to their promises, could they be any worse that previous elected , we can't just keep going around in circles with the same parties every few years and spent that time saying their no good , lets give them a chance.

Yes let's give SF a chance, Doherty would be a better leader imho

marieholmfan

Yes but it might cost them transfers. I'd say that Marcella Kennedy will get in before Flanagan and he may now be transfer toxic.

IAMAMORON wrote: »

If you think about it for a second.

No one is not going to vote for FG because they agreed to an RIC commemoration.

But they could definitely lose support if they raise taxes and cost the country money, which they are doing. So they would rather have a load of bar stool republicans, a lot of who won't leave the pub to vote anyway, bitch on about 100 year old politics, that makes no difference to what is happening in Ireland for the next 5 years.

It actually makes a lot of sense.

You were never not voting for FG because you didn't agree with Cumann na nGael policies of the 1920's... but their major support base will see the commemoration issue as meaningless, as will other non republicans who also vote.