site.btaEP Elections in Ireland "Were Not the Revolutionary Election That Has Been Predicted", Dublin Journalist Says

The European Parliament elections in Ireland "were not the revolutionary election that has been predicted", Frank McNally, a journalist with Irish Times said in a BTA interview. His country voted to elect its representatives in the EP on June 7. "The big story so far is, in a way, a non-story: this is not the revolutionary election that had been predicted. There is no big surge of far-right anti-immigration parties. The main parties that were already in government have done well.," he said.

The message from the elections so far has been that the centre has held yet again. The government parties have done surprisingly well, he said. "There have certainly been surges in the anti-immigration vote, specifically in local elections. I don’t think there’s any far-right MEPs going from Ireland to Europe on that ticket. Lots of central-right, central-left MEPs instead as usual. Yes, there have been gains, but even among the people who campaigned on the immigration issue, the more moderate people, the merely sceptical ones are more likely to get elected. The more xenophobic hard-right are not winning seats." 

He believes that the party that may be most pleased with itself so far is Fine Gael, one of the governing parties.

Ireland had a change of leadership a couple of months ago. Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar stepped down, following two referendums in mid-March (on constitutional references about a woman's place in the home and the other about redefining the family to include "durable relationships") and very soon after that Simon Harris, who took over as deputy. "He changed the tone of the party, including on the issue of asylum seekers. This coincided with a surge in tented encampments on the streets of Dublin, outside the International Protection Office. Large numbers of asylum seekers, who might have previously gone to the UK, were forced through the UK, they were coming to Belfast, then down across our open border. We were careful during the Brexit negotiations not to return to a hard border. As a result, there were hundreds of immigrants coming to Dublin, who would normally have been in Belfast or London. There was nothing to stop them. That became an issue, a visible crisis with tents everywhere. Harris under Fine Gael has hardened the rhetoric against this. There have been moves to clear away encampments. The people find accommodation for them, emergency units open weekly. Critics would say that hardening the rhetoric was cosmetic. He didn’t have long before the elections to do anything practical. Changing the tone of the government seems to have worked. Fine Gael seem to be a big winner. They are losing local election seats, but they were predicted to lose a lot more. Their performance seems to be impressive," said McNally. 

He expects that his country's performance in the EP elections will be peripheral to the story "even more so than usual for a small country". "The big drama may be in France, the Netherlands, Germany. That’s where change in power in the EP may come from. That’s where changes in the agenda of Europe will be dictated. Not by Ireland".

Irish MEPs will likely be a bit more sceptical on the immigration system, more willing to be in favour of slightly tougher policies, he said.

There will also be a continuation of pushback against the Greens, he expects. "They aren’t having a disaster in the local elections, but they may lose one or two MEPs. That’s predicted for them across Europe. There will be pushback against the green agenda especially from the Irish rural MEPs who were targeted by the farmers’ protests in Strasbourg and Brussels in 2023."

McNally believes that the big local issue which won’t be solved in Europe is housing.