Election shows adherence to strong principles is not a problem for voters

One of the most distorting developments in regard to politics in Ireland and elsewhere is the emergence of polling as a key determinant of policy-making and opinion. Principles don’t always matter that much anymore when it comes to the big parties in particular: the focus-group tested messaging is what decides much of the manifestos and political promises.

Take Michéal Martin’s desire to pivot his party on abortion around the time of the 2018 referendum. He was advised that, in order to maximise Fianna Fáil’s vote with progressives and young people, the Soldiers of Destiny needed to get behind repeal and pretty much everything else. That then led to a situation where, according to insiders, the party became a cold place for people with pro-life principles, and where, despite all the talk of tolerance, the whip was applied this year when TDs voted on criminalisng people for even silent pro-life prayer.

Listening to the strategists who said to ditch principle for public esteem didn’t do Fianna Fáil much good. In 2011, the party’s vote had collapsed to 17% from almost 42% of the vote in 2007 – a punishment for the financial crash – but had only recovered in part by 2016, coming in at 24%. An enthusiastic stance for abortion and everything else would help fix that, the party’s advisors thought.

It didn’t happen. Despite the hoopla at Saturday’s counts – and the mad spectacle of all three parties, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin, insisting they did great and that have been given a mandate – its obvious that Martin’s party got no repeal bounce in either 2020 or 2024, down another 10% last week since 2016. But because of the shift to policy by polling. a small number of Fianna Fáil TDs voted No to the abortion legislation. Some abstained or didn’t attend the Dáil. Many others – included those who had publicly supported a No vote in the referendum – voted Yes to a bill legalising abortion on demand and late-term abortion.

Those actions then help create a poisoned political culture, where candidates are told that holding a pro-life position, for example, will lose you votes. The media, and the  more vicious left-wing parties, encourage this view and have sought to punish, with online outrages, candidates who hadn’t signed up to repeal. It was often very nasty.

But what we have actually seen is there was no electoral reward to Fianna Fáíl for forcing people to go against their principles. And, interestingly, as we have seen yet again in this election, neither did the electorate punish candidates who remained outspoken and courageous in defence of their principle. In fact, they seemed to reward them.

That’s a key point: the idea that the electorate will punish you for holding pro-life views, or sticking to other principled positions, just doesn’t hold water. And often the TDs who have been most forthright about their principles, even when unpopular with the media, reap the richest rewards.

All of TDs who voted No to abortion in 2018 were returned in 2020. That mattered, because the spite and hatred they faced, in the Dáil Chamber and in the media, was off the scale. For those who left Sinn Féin, like Carol Nolan and Peadar Tóibín, they also faced a party’s ground campaign working directly against them. But they ALL got back in.

All those from that contingent who stood again in this year’s election not only continued to keep their seats but did extremely well – with Carol Nolan topping the poll, while Mattie McGrath, Peadar Tóibín, Michael Collins, Richard O’Donoghue  and others coasted home. They are joined by Paul Lawless of Aontú and Ken O’Flynn of Independent Ireland, and by a raft of others who have not been afraid to speak out or vote against the trend on the abortion issue.

The evidence supports the contention that, if you are a hard-working and smart TD, you won’t be punished by voters for holding to your deeply-held beliefs, especially when those principles may be increasingly making sense.

Take immigration, for example. Carol Nolan was amongst the first to speak out and say that the State couldn’t accommodate an unlimited number and was attacked from all sides. But she and others like Mattie McGrath stuck to their principles. It likely won them votes in the end, where Sinn Féin’s endless chasing of the next progressive issue, including open borders, saw their support collapse in polls.

Or Peadar Tóibín on the madness of putting men convicted of sexual assault in women’s prisons. He spoke up when it wasn’t popular or even acceptable to raise these issues  – and ended up, with other Independents, representing almost three quarters of voters in the landslide No votes in the March referendums.  The people of Meath West seemed to rewarded him by increasing his first preferences last week in the election. His commence sense approach to immigration very likely gained him and Aontú candidates votes too.  The Aontú leader and his party was subjected to attacks online for being pro-life in the run-up to the election. They doubled their vote anyway, and almost took additional seats in Dublin West and Cavan-Monaghan.

On the extremes of gender ideology, of course, most of the political establishment were totally at odds with the electorate, it just took two landslide No votes to make them realise that.

Then there’s climate change. Politicians love this issue, because they get to compete with each other in who can virtual signal the most in expressing heartfelt concern about the planet while mostly blaming external actors – and then inflicting carbon taxes on voters before flying off to international conferences to share concerns about carbon emissions.

Actually, like the chicken and the egg, climate change is one of those issues when its difficult to know which came first: genuine voter concern or the media picking up on an issue, deciding the discussion is closed and the parties much act accordingly, and the development of policies then adopted across the board. A bit like abortion.

However, as the Greens may have found out to their cost, when it comes to the actions beloved of climate botherers – carbon taxes, culling herds, forcing us all to use the infernal deposit return scheme when we had perfectly good green bins –  the focus groups don’t warn you about the backlash or the political chicanery.  It might be entirely fashionable to wear your Green credentials on your sleeve and drive your expensive EV but those who can’t afford those “luxury beliefs” seemed to quietly withdraw their support last week on polling day. If the world is burning, we don’t want to pay for it, was the response of middle Ireland.

The near-wipe out of the Greens may not have a real impact on government policies going forward however, since the bigger parties have long figured out out that wearing the Greens’ clothes while letting them take the blaming them for  carbon taxes is the smart way to go.

Now, you could argue that, in this instance, it was the Greens who were punished for the principled position. But since that position seems to mean that we all need to go back to living freezing in caves, perhaps it was a step too far for some voters.

But the Healy-Rae’s who were constantly in the news as supposedly being a laughing stock on the climate. They stuck to their principles on this issue as they have done on others and have retained their reign over the Kingdom of Kerry.

There’s obviously a lot more to getting elected, and keeping your seat, than deciding what you stand for.  Money, a campaign machine, doing the work in the constituency, speaking for those you are elected to represent – all that matters. But the evidence increasingly shows you won’t get punished for being pro-life or holding other deeply held principles. Voters may not always agree with your views, but they know a principled person is a person to admire.

   

   

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This article was first published in Gript and is printed here with permission

    

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