General Irish politics discussion thread

Ah yes. Decisively winning a huge majority on 33.8% of the vote.

Decisive.

Roderic is the new Green leader and he's confirmed no change to their ministers. Correct decision by the green party in the first instance (although it was close) and correct decision by ROG to not shuffle the ministers this close to an election.

What's indecisive about PR-STV?

You don't have to vote any further than your first preference you know.

There's a separate election for it next week:

I don't see the benefit of a rural leadership, they're going to struggle for seats where they have previously been strong (the cities) so it strikes me as a better idea to shore up support there in what is going to be a tough election and then look beyond after that.

I don't see any world where they suddenly have an upwards spike in rural areas. Trying to, 'protect' a vote they don't and probably won't have at the expense of areas they could actually shore up seems pretty naive to me.

The Greens will always be a niche party and never more so than at the upcoming election. If they salvage three or four seats, all realistically in Dublin, that's about the best they can hope for. So while the stuff ROG has been doing as Minister for Integration is likely to be a turn-off with the majority of the electorate, it could well stand to him with that niche soft-left middle-class constituency the Greens are targeting.

Your certainly entitled to that opinion of course. There is no question that FPTP is a more straight forward system in terms of its operation. However personally I prefer PR as it is a more democratic system. Plus as others have pointed out nobody is forcing you to pick down as far as 5th preference or even second in PR. You can just put down your first preference and thats fine also.

I'm not sure the question of whether FPTP is more straight forward in operation is as definitive as all that. It has less writing for sure. However, in terms of making your vote count, it can actually be more complicated. In PR-STV, you need to rank your candidates in order of preference, and that's it. There is no gaming the system*. Tactical voting is essentially not a thing.

That's not the case in FPTP. You could be a strong Labour supporter, but depending on where you live, voting for Labour might be as useful as tossing your vote in the bin. You might be far better off voting for the LibDems, or the SNP. You need to know the details of the likely outcome of your constituency, which actually requires more knowledge than a comparable PR-STV one

*There is one exception (in Ireland, at least). If a party picks up enough FPVs, they're entitled to a certain level of funding from the Exchequer, so you may want to give you FPV to a lower preference if you believe they deserve funding.

Not that rare:

• Two elections in 1910
• Five elections in 1922-1931
• Two elections in 1950-1951
• Three elections in 1970-1974

Edit: Party with most votes lost in 1929, 1951, and 1974.

So we have elections rapidly followed by other elections even less often than the UK does - even though we don't use FPTP.

FPTP is bad in a lot of ways, but these are two of the worst:

• It creates "safe seats" where pretty much any warm body parachuted in by the party HQ is guaranteed a seat
• Millions of votes count for nothing and they may as well not bother voting at all if they don't support the "safe seat" party - and as a result, many don't bother. With PR-STV the vast majority of votes have a real effect (OK it's possible to only vote for candidates who end up eliminated, but even then order of elimination has an effect)

Obviously, if a manifesto fails to secure majority support — if more voters vote against it that vote for it — it should be watered down, so that the views of the majority of voters can be seen to have some influence over government policy and actions.

FPTP can result in a party shifting left or right and because of the system the rest of the party has to follow.

The ERG was the tail wagging the dog of the tories. You could argue similar with the tea party for the Republican party and trumpism now.

If these were standalone organisations in a pr system they'd be there as a small percentage off to the side rather than taking over the big parties.

You are arguing against your very own point. How exactly does FPTP leave the door open for extremists?

FPTP delivers considerable power to parties that a more democratic system would deliver to voters. The result is that the way to advance a radical position (whether you categorise it as "extremist" or not) is not to offer it to voters and seek their support; it's to have it adopted by a faction of one of the two dominant parties. Basically, extremists don't need popular support in the UK; they need control of one of the two dominant parties.

Under FPTP party factions contend for control in a process over which voters have next to no influence. Advocates for FPTP will point to the negotiations that, in countries with more representative parliaments, go into forming coalitions. But pretty much the same process takes place in FPTP countries, but it mostly takes place before the election rather than afterwards, and the factions don't seek to maximise their influence in the process by seeking voter support. Whether the Wets or the Drys, ERG or the One Nation groups, come to dominate in the Tory party has nothing at all to do with what voters want.

In the UK this feature is coupled with a doctrine of parliamentary supremacy which means that the faction that can take control of the party that secures the largest minority of the popular vote can do pretty much what it wants, including pursuing policies that are quite extreme or quite insane, like invading the Suez or slashing taxes in a way that undermines the currency or holding a referendum to implement a policy that you don't want to implement and haven't the first clue how to implement.

And, if we've learned anything from the past 8 years, its that this definitely does not make for stability or good government.

How do you know that? You don't.

Say in an alternative universe, there was a PR system in the UK, the populist right bloc/Anti-EU bloc would be a large part of Westminister, say 20% of the electorate, thus 20% approx of the seats. Given that PR systems lend itself to coalitions, what makes one think that

a) This party would never enter a coalition with other more like-minded centre-right parties.

b) That the referendum on the EU would not be a precondition to the said coalition for the government.

Far fetched?

Not at all.
When the Lib Dems entered government with the Tories in 2010, in the form of a coalition, they made it a precondition that a referendum on FPTP was put to the people, on the form of AV. (It was rejected)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum

In summary, the idea that it is the fault of FPTP that a Brexit referendum was called in the first place is fantasy. It was inevitable at some stage and if there was a PR system, it probably would have happened much sooner.

After all, 52% of the people voted for it, did they not?

I think more likely in that situation is that the ukip/Brexit vote would have remained contained to 1 party of say 10-20%. If they had made it a precondition to go into government with the tories, the tories wouldn't have done it, they'd have aligned more with the likes of Lib Dem. But we'll never know.

I still think the fundamental issue is a question of fairness. It's unfair that reform, as repugnant as they are, got so few seats. It's unfair that Labour got as many as they did. That's the only issue for me when it comes to voting systems.

In a PR system, Labour and the Tories would be much much smaller anyhow. And if a UKIP-type party existed, they would have gotten a fair shake of seats, going back the last 10 or more years, at the expense of more center right parties.

Look at France over the past 15 years. The centre-right party of the day, the party of Chirac, UMP are now nowhere to be seen and is more or less irrelevant. FN have eaten their lunch for a large part, while the old school centrists have moved to Macron's ensemble.

In a PR system, there would have been much more ebbs and flows, with big parties becoming small, and small parties gaining ground and traction.

It leaves the door open for extremists because they do not need to build any consensus with other parties via a coalition. They just need to get into power even as a minority which very often happens in FPTP. PR is much more democratic and its need for negotiation and consensus building makes it very difficult for extremists to gain control of the government. Not so with FPTP which requires little of no consensus.