EU vote throws up different dynamic to domestic polls
World of Politics with Harry McGee – [email protected]
European elections are a bit weird at the best of time – but Brexit will ensure that this time they border on the bizarre…not least with the UK holding a vote for a parliament they’ve been trying to extricate themselves from for more than two years with no success.
The shadow of Brexit looms large on this side of the Irish Sea too – but the domestic phenomenon has been the pattern of bigger parties throwing their heavyweights into the fray.
In all seven TDs are standing – although Euro elections don’t always pan out along party lines or even political polls with plenty of recent examples to illustrate that point.
Take 2014; Sinn Féin was having a moment. The party was riding high in the opinion polls and was regularly outshining Fianna Fáil in the opinion polls. Such was the strength of the brand in the last Europeans that the party polled 20 per cent nationally.
That was a phenomenal performance, especially because it was running three candidates who were not national figures, especially Liadh Ní Riada, with whom few people were familiar. Lynn Boylan actually romped home with 23 per cent of the vote in Dublin, despite having not being an elected representative.
How do we know people vote differently when it comes to Europe? Well, the local elections were on at the same time and Sinn Féin could only muster 13 per cent of the vote.
What explained that seven point differential? Or the fact that Sinn Féin has found it difficult to translate its poll ratings at general election time?
It’s what European elections are: a bit of discretionary spending. It’s why the Greens have done well in the past in Europe, without even getting on the radar of national elections. People “feel” differently about Europe.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.