Ireland General Discussion

[JimJamUK]

All of the polls seem to have had Yes comfortably ahead on both questions, albeit with a big undecided vote. Presumably their methodologies didn't account for the low turnout.

The fact the polls had a very large pool of undecided voters should have indicated how low the core Yes vote actually was (helped by the fact the referendum had no direct stakes for actual policy like the abortion or gay marriage ones did).

[JimJamUK]

"All the undecideds are actually secret social conservatives" comes to Ireland?

That wasn’t the case in the abortion referendum, but it was certainly so in the gay marriage referendum. Given those 2 votes still resulted in a clear victory for the ‘progressive’ side, it seems yesterdays votes were more to do with the public being asked to vote on purely symbolic changes while an unpopular government refuses to tackle the issues they actually care about.

[JimJamUK]

Now is a time when we really could do with a strong and credible Irish Labour party. Which just makes what has actually happened there all the more tragic.

That ship arguably already sailed in 2011, but Dublin Bay South was a disaster disguised as a triumph. Bacik, who has spent her entire adult life ensconced in the bubble that is Trinity, has absolutely no idea how to connect with voters beyond Portobello and Ranelagh or even with her own councillor base.

Are there any working class/kitchen table issue focused politicians left in the party? From the outside they seem to basically be a scattering of de facto independents and the woke middle class who are too establishment/power hungry to vote Social Democrat (and at a guess presumably arrived in politics at the wrong time to join the Greens).