Sinn Fein and Sardines
TALKING POLITICS
Catherine Carr
4.7 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2020
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We talk about two countries going through dramatic democratic change: Ireland, where Sinn Féin came top of the vote in last weekend's general election, and Italy, where the Sardines are the latest movement trying to shake up the system. What does the Irish vote tell us about the collapse of two party politics? Does Sinn Féin's success suggest that the party has changed or that the electorate has changed? And in Italy, who or what now stands between Salvini and power? Plus we discuss whether the age of 'grand coalition' politics is now over. With Niamh Gallagher, Lucia Rubinelli and Chris Bickerton.
Talking Points:
In 1997 Sinn Féin got only 2% of the vote, in the recent Irish general election they got almost 25%. What explains this shift?
- In the 90s, the party was still connected to the IRA and the politics of Northern Ireland.
- Sinn Féin voters today skew young (under 45). Their major concerns are issues such as the cost of living, rent, and healthcare.
- The party ran and won on a leftist platform.
- The leadership has also changed. Gerry Adams stepped down in 2018. The new leader, Mary Lou McDonald is less connected to the past.
- The electoral system also makes a difference. Sinn Féin ‘won’ with 25% of the vote; Labour lost with 40%.
- Brexit did not feature heavily in this election, even though Leo Varadkar had a ‘good’ Brexit by most accounts.
Meanwhile, in Italy, movements and parties are again in turmoil. Is Five Star done?
- A movement has less institutional heft than a traditional political party. This is both their strength and their weakness.
- What about the Sardines? They started as a flash mob in Bologna and call themselves a ‘phenomenon,’ rather than a movement or a party. Their objective is to counter images in the media put forward by Salvini.
- Meanwhile, Salvini is still inching closer to power on his own.
Are we seeing the end of grand coalition politics?
- Coalitions today tend to destroy one of the partners (for example, the Lib Dems).
- Sinn Féin certainly doesn’t want to be a junior partner, but it might want to prove that it can be a party of government.
Mentioned in this Episode:
Further Learning:
- A profile of the Irish political parties
- More on the Sardines
- David’s lecture, Democracy for Young People
And as ever, recommended reading curated by our friends at the LRB can be found here: lrb.co.uk/talking
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, my name is David Ronserman and this is Talking Politics. Today we're talking about |
| 0:12.8 | two countries where democracy is doing really interesting things. Ireland and our old friend |
| 0:19.7 | Italy. Talking Politics is brought to you in partnership with the London Review of Books |
| 0:29.0 | and the LRB now has a beautiful new website to mark its 40th anniversary. Just go to |
| 0:35.3 | lrb.co.uk and you will discover a treasure trove of articles from the last 40 years and all the |
| 0:43.2 | latest writing, including Adam Schatz on the death of Solomani. If you take out a subscription, |
| 0:50.0 | you will get all this and so much more. The Print Magazine, the LRB app and unlimited access |
| 0:56.6 | to that archive all for just £1 an issue. To subscribe visit lrb.me-flash-talk. |
| 1:13.3 | We're going to come on to Italy in a bit and we've got Lucia Rubinelli here who knows a lot about |
| 1:18.1 | Italy as well as about political philosophy, Chris Bicqueton who knows about European politics |
| 1:23.5 | which is good because we're also talking about Ireland and I'm delighted to say we've got |
| 1:26.8 | Neve Gallagher here who is a historian of modern Ireland and we're going to start by talking about |
| 1:34.1 | Sinn Fein, some history as well as some of the present context. That obviously is a headline story |
| 1:41.4 | of the Irish election. Sinn Fein, so I'm going to put this in quote marks one in the sense that |
| 1:47.0 | Sinn Fein got more votes than anyone else did not get more seats partly because Sinn Fein didn't |
| 1:51.0 | believe it was going to win and so didn't put up nearly as many candidates as its rival parties. |
| 1:57.1 | My question to start with it seems like the big question here. In the 1997 Irish general election |
| 2:03.9 | Sinn Fein got 2% of the vote the year before the Good Friday Agreement. Sinn Fein is now on |
| 2:09.6 | roughly 25% of the vote. Did the party change or did the Irish electorate change? I'm sure it's |
| 2:16.8 | a bit of both but where would you put the balances? Is it that Sinn Fein is a very different kind of party |
| 2:20.7 | or is it that our voters are looking at politics very differently? Why did Sinn Fein win? There are |
| 2:27.3 | lots of different reasons. As you say it won 24 and a half percent of first preference votes. |
... |
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