Working Class Action
The Irish Right
First published in Fourthwrite Magazine, Issue 10
By Ciaran Perry
In all the commentary of the General Election results in the 26 counties, the implosion of the Blueshirts, the possible Left/Right re-alignment in Irish politics etc…, an important result was missed, or at least misread.
That result was the 926 votes cast for Áine Ní Chonaill of the racist Immigration Control Platform (ICP) the Dublin South Central constituency. The result itself was mentioned by a few commentators but the significance of the number of votes was totally missed. Most people, political commentators and Irish Times letter writers alike, were of the opinion that 926 votes, or over 2% of votes cast in the constituency, was a poor result for the ICP. Unfortunately, this simplistic analysis of the result hides a few very significant factors which, when taken into account, transforms the result into a relatively good showing for the ICP.
First of all was the fact that Ni Chonaill lives in Cork and had to travel up to Dublin every weekend to canvass. Because of this, Ni Chonaill and her sidekick (singular), only managed to leaflet a couple of supermarkets and the odd block of flats in the constituency. Her campaign on the ground was almost non existent - no posters, very little leafleting and very little face to face canvassing. And she still got over 2% of votes cast in the constituency.
Her main form of publicity was a free post to every house in the constituency which she was entitled to as a candidate. While the postage was free, she still had to pay for the leaflets and get them individually addressed to the occupiers of each home. There are 44,000 homes in the constituency so finance obviously isn’t a problem for her. Anti Fascist Action, with the help of Residents Against Racism and a few individual anti racists, counter leafleted door to door in the constituency. We gave out over 20,000 leaflets arguing against Ni Chonaills’ racism from a working class prospective. We must assume that this effort had some effect yet she still got over 2% of the votes cast in the constituency.
Another disturbing factor was how the Left faired in comparison to the ICP. The Socialist Workers Party, with an organised campaign, only managed 617 votes and this was as the official Anti-Bin-Charges candidate in the constituency. The campaign against the Bin Charges does have a genuine resonance in working class areas such as Dublin South Central and the poor vote for the SWP would probably have been worse only for this issue. The two Workers Party candidates, both locals, only managed 623 votes in total.
In reality the comparison between the votes cast for the Left and those cast for the ICP isn’t as important as the comparison between the ICP and a genuinely representative community candidate such as Vincent ‘Ballyfermot’ Jackson. Jackson is currently an elected councillor for the Ballyfermot area which covers a large part of the Dublin South Central constituency. Jackson received 1,142 votes which is 2.6% of the vote, just 0.5% above Ni Chonaill.
There is no point in exaggerating the significance of the result, this is not the breakthrough in electoral support for the fascists. But it should be clear to everybody that the potential for a local candidate with the capabilities of organising a decent campaign on the ground and running on a racist platform is enormous. Perhaps even more frightening is the case where mainstream politicians use the race card as a cynical way of establishing a profile for themselves.
A perfect example of this is Fianna Fail’s Noel O’Flynn in Cork North Central. In the General Election of 1997 he scraped in as the third Fianna Fail candidate with 4,943 votes. In the run up to the latest General Election he made what can only be described as racist comments about Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Ireland, calling them ‘spongers and freeloaders’. There was a huge amount of criticism of his remarks yet he went on to top the poll with 7,387 first preference votes.
This is a lesson which I am sure will not be lost on aspiring politicians around the country.
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