Sinn Fein and how do they form a government dilemma

SF's inability to enter government was down to 2 reasons

1. Their failure to run enough candidates, considering they'd have had 2 seats in some constituencies and their transferability
2. FGs and FFs unwillingness to enter government with them due to historical reasons, without either the numbers weren't their

The first point doesn't take into account what the government would have looked like had they run enough candidates. Which parties would have lost seats to SF and which of the 2 larger parties would have been willing to support an SF government IMO I think a second general election would have been run in 2020 as the numbers just wouldn't have added up, I don't think SF could have formed a gov with 45 seats in 2020, even if the 8 had been taken from FF and FG

FF/FG - 62

SF - 45

GP - 12

LP - 6

SD - 6

SPBP/LEFT - 7

Aon - 1

In - 19

FF/FG/LP/GP - 80 with help from indos IMO would have been the outcome.

The "left" means different things to different people (by the way i have never heard SF call themselves the "left" or socialist ) and those who call themselves socialists may not wish to support SF.

There is bad blood between some on the left and SF and they do not trust SF who have no problem lying on a regular basis,the average industrial wage,IRA membership,robbing banks,supporting criminials (slab Murphy) and failing more recently to give a reasonable explanation for the funding of Lady Lou's Mansion.

They don't even try - they just aren't a left wing party in NI.

Well, the polls can move further, one way or the other, between now and the next election. We won't really know the lie of the land until the election happens and we see what the vote-shares actually are, and we see how that translates into seats. We have to identify the coalitions that are mathematically possible before we identify the coalitions that are politically feasible.

Still, lets play the game of speculation. The good people at Irishelectionprojections.com have modelled what would happen if the latest opinion poll results were applied to the revised constituencies, and the projection is:

SF: 64

FF: 43

FG: 34

Greens:2

Lab:3

Soc Dems: 6

PBPS+: 6

Ind/Other: 16

With a 174-seat Dail, a majority government needs a minimum of 88 votes: SF will be 24 votes short. Even if they could corral the splintered parties of the left into a stable coalition arrangement, that would only give them 17 seats; they'd need at least another 7 independents to commit to supporting the government. Frankly, I don't see it.

So, yeah, SF's only options will be FF or FG. With either of those, they don't need anyone else. And, of the two, FF looks much more viable, in political terms.

What about FF/FG? With just the two of them, they'd be 11 votes short of a majority. They could find that eleven if they could get the Greens and Lab and the Soc Dems to back them. Or, they could replace one of those parties with a clutch of independents. But these numbers don't really add up in a politically plausible way; they'd have to get too many different groups to join, and to remain committed, for this to be easily managed.

But the picture doesn't have to change too much for FF/FG to start to become viable. For one thing, the polls just ask people about voting intentions in party terms, not about candidates, and they just look for your first preference. I think SF does have a candidate problem which will mean a greater propensity for their voters to vote-split (i.e. give their first preference to an SF candidate and their second preference to a candidate of another party, ignoring other SF candidates) and this will mean that their vote share will not translate into seats as efficiently as other parties' vote-shares do. If I'm right, even on the current polls SF will have fewer than 64 seats, and other parties correspondingly more. It doesn't take too much of this, and of some modest movement in the polls, for the FF/FG seat share to rise to a point where they can govern with, say, one other party, or even no other party.

On this view, the shoe-in for government is not SF; it's FF. They'll be in government either with SF, or with FG and probably others. An SF/FG coalition is the only thing that could keep them out, but in political terms that's wildly unlikely.

this is going to be the big question. IF SF joins up as a junior minister to anyone, SF voters wont be happy as SF's influence will be limited. If its SF with either FG or FF as junior, then again, it wont be a clear SF controlled government and FFG will do their best to **** things up even more. They dont care about people either FF or FG so you wouldnt want them in government at all. I'll be disappointed if SF have to go into government with either of them .

We just have to see how many they SF field this time and how the voters feel on the day - but Im not a fan of SF going into power with either ff or fg. they would undermine everything - though to be fair at least they arent the DUP.

Apart from the greens

Will the greens have any significant number of seats

This is why it won't work. The first scandal or indescretion involving anyone from FF will require SF to either publicly back them up and be seen as hypocrites, or else hold them to account and potentially bring down the coalition. Lose-lose for sinn fein.

What are you talking about?

All major irish parties are centre left, or left.

FG have moved centre left, FF already there. SF and Soc Dems are traditional left also, so to the Greens.

Labour even, if they still exist?

There is no Tory party in Ireland.

No centre right whatsoever.

Left and right are inherently relative terms.

Within the spectrum of the party political system in Ireland, SF, Lab, the Soc Dems, PBP/Solidarity and probably the Greens are to varying degrees to the left; FF and FG to the right (FG probably more so).

The UK political spectrum is well to the right of where it is in Ireland. No (non-fringe) Irish party is as far to the right as the Tories, but so what? It is meaningless to locate Irish parties to the left or to the right on the UK's political spectrum; what would be the point of that?

In terms of broader European politics, where placement of Irish parties does make sense, both FF and FG are centre-right parties. This is reflected both in their broad policy positions and in their formal alliances and relationships. FF is a member of Liberal International (that's "Liberal" in the European sense, not in the American sense) and of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (and is regarded within that group as being on its right wing). FG is a Christian democratic party, a member of Centrist Democracy International and of the European People's Party, all of which put it firmly on the centre-right.

Tl;dr: in European terms, the Irish political spectrum is not anomalous and does not skew to the left — a bit to the right, if anything, given the left parties' singular lack of success. It is the UK political spectrum which is anomalous, skewing markedly to the right. The UK spectrum is artificially compressed because of their bizarre electoral system, and voters are basically offered a choice between a centrist party and a party that is well to the right.

To get within 10 seats of a majority, even with an increased number of transfers, Sinn Fein will need more than 40% of the vote, possibly as much as 45% - they are like the FF of the 1980s under Haughey in terms of transferability. There are no opinion polls showing them anywhere near that level of support.

I am not saying it is impossible, but even if they did get within 10 seats of a majority, that would be due to a wipeout of Labour, SDs and PBP. FF and FG together would probably also be only 10 short, with independents and rumps holding the balance. No stable government other than SF/FF would be possible, but even more likely would be a confidence and supply arrangement, whereby Sinn Fein could go into government, a big big risk for a naive untested party.

A big big risk for an untested party? Tell me now was the FG government from 2016 to 2020 not a big risk? how many independents had a seat at the cabinet table.... now that you say it perhaps that wasn't a risk we should have taken.

That government contained some people with cabinet experience. Sinn Fein on their own, in a confidence and supply arrangement, or with the alphabet parties of the left, is completely untried and untested in government. We will either have a complete disaster or a government run by the civil servants.

To my recollection, that 2016 government only had 2 ministers who never even been junior ministers - Shane Ross and Katherine Zappone - I could be wrong, but they are also arguably the two ministers who achieved the least in that government, which only 100% backs up what I am saying.