A Realistic Proposal for a Nationalist Coalition in Irish Politics
It’s becoming a truism that the Irish right-wing vote is horrendously splintered, which is inhibiting Ireland moving towards the mainstream of European politics with a major right-wing party challenging the establishment. Dr Matt Treacy recently observed in Gript that the collective broad right-wing vote in the EU elections amounted to 21.5% of the total valid poll. He continued by noting that this is actually higher than the 20.4% of the combined vote that went to candidates for the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and Identity and Democracy (ID) across all 27 member states. There’s clearly an appetite out there for right-wing candidates.
Practically, the 21.5% is just too broad to actually form into a cohesive entity. There needs to be some level of competition and essentially a Darwinian process of natural selection. Peadar Tóibín isn’t going to appear on the same ticket as Andy Heasman, and nor should they. The ‘united’ right-wing coalition I am proposing would be smaller but more explicitly the Nationalist-Right rather than populist independents and the ideological hodgepodge that is Aontú.
For several years now there have been repeated calls for ‘unity’ between the right-wing nationalist parties, generally the Irish Freedom Party, the National Party, and recently Ireland First. We saw during the election campaign a joint four-party letter signed by the three aforementioned groups and The Irish People to RTÉ complaining of media bias against their candidates. This was a good step in showing some level of coordination. But practically, how can these four parties coalesce?
The facts of the vote splitting have already been well made. By outlining a pragmatic path toward unity, this article aims to ameliorate the fragmentation that plagues Irish Nationalism.
A Nationalist Coalition
For the purposes of electoral politics, only non-party candidates and those of registered political parties can appear on the ballot paper. The State will not legally allow some sort of formal joint alliance to appear on the ballot paper, meaning that for a hypothetical “nationalist coalition” to be created it will legally need to be a newly registered political party.
Some alternatives may be floated to the above suggestion, including: 1. a formal transfer pact, or 2. selective coordination and fielding of candidates. The first has the most obvious flaw, because the electorate does not abide by transfer pacts and may not even be aware of them. For instance, in Ballymun-Finglas, in the most recent election, Leon Bradley’s leaflets urged his voters to carry their preference to Stephen Redmond (National Party). But after Bradley’s elimination, more of his votes went to Gavin Pepper than to Redmond.
The second proposal of a selective approach to coordinated constituencies is not a bad one. Proponents would say, for example, that the National Party takes Dublin West, the Irish Freedom Party takes Dublin Mid-West, Ireland First takes Cork East, and so on – effectively dividing up the country. However, I believe that in the final analysis this proposal is still problematic. Rather than solving the problem of disunity, it formalises it. It also doesn’t benefit from a few key strengths of the nationalist coalition idea – explained below.
The option I favour is that the four major right-wing parties (Ireland First, The Irish People, the Irish Freedom Party, and the National Party) should each retain their registration on the Register of Political Parties and continue to function as separate entities, but should register a new “political party” for the purposes of electoral politics. This coalition should also encompass independents.
This should be done as soon as possible, for a major reason: there is likely to be a general election in the coming months. There will be 43 Dáil constituencies. The nationalist coalition needs to be registered as a new political party, not as four separate parties contesting 10 seats each, because the total first preference vote total needs to be unified into one party. If it’s split four ways, and each side averages .5% of the first preferences, nobody gets any money. If it’s one legally registered party hitting 2%, then the nationalist coalition acquires state funding and that would set the nationalist movement up nicely for future success.
Between them, the four parties fronted over 100 candidates. It should be more than doable to find 43 competent candidates, on a tiered scale from essentially presentable but largely token candidates to those in with a real shot of making an impact (sitting councillors).
The Polish ‘Confederation’ scored around 12% in the most recent European Elections, returning 6 seats. That entity is a similar coalition of various political parties.
Legally, How Can It Be Created?
Legally, a party must have either 300 members or they must have 1 TD/MEP/Senator or 3 councillors. There are currently 4 nationalist councillors in the country – Steenson, Pepper, Moore, Quinlan. As stressed above, the registration of a new political party is purely a legal necessity – it would in fact act as an alliance between the Big Four parties and some independents. The four nationalist councillors could each sign on to be part of this new nationalist coalition and register the new party very quickly with the Electoral Commission, bypassing the need for 300 members.
Obviously, each constituent party within this alliance/coalition (and the independents) will want certain guarantees and security for their own group. Draw up a legal document stating that in the event of qualifying for state funding, 50% of that funding will be distributed between each of the four political parties. I would suggest this should be an equal quarter each, rather than pro rata according to performance as if it were the latter, it would incentivise too much competition between the parties and incentivise each to look to stand more candidates than others. The other 50% should be invested into building the nationalist coalition as a stand-alone entity: employing staff, covering expenses for meetings, a headquarters, producing material, and other sundry expenses.
In addition, the legal constitution of the ‘party’ could specify some conditions to safeguard the position of each of the four parties as well as the elected representatives. The governance structure of the nationalist coalition ought to be required representation for a set number of delegates nominated by the respective four parties. Any elected representatives should have a seat on the ‘executive’ body by automatic right. It could look like this: the four nationalist councillors are on the executive; then there are two seats reserved for representatives of each party (who these people are could be nominated by the individual party on a rolling basis, meaning that the party need not send the exact same people each time to meetings of the executive). In addition, there should be some seats which are directly elected.
For the National Party in particular, this model would provide them with a ladder out of their current dispute. But for all parties, this model would be the best way forward to achieve unity and cooperation. It’d also allow different parties to focus on their particular strengths.
In Basic Terms, How Would It Work?
At the first electoral outing (the next general election, coming later this year or early 2025), each of the parties will nominate their own candidates to stand under the banner of the nationalist coalition. So there won’t be any of the party names on the ballot paper, it will be: Glen Moore - Nationalist Coalition; Patrick Quinlan - Nationalist Coalition; Malachy Steenson - Nationalist Coalition; and so on. There should be some agreement among the executive of the nationalist coalition on candidate selection, but the parties should be relatively autonomous.
The parties will have the responsibility for running their campaigns. Other than some key centralised points of agreement (explained later), the parties will be responsible for their own candidates’ election strategy. There shouldn’t be centralised financing, the parties will either fund their own respective candidates or they will be expected to self-fund (whatever the standard practice is currently in each respective party).
The names of the respective political parties, party titles (e.g. leader, deputy leader, etc), and other identifications of party membership should be absent from all material during the election campaign – except for the name of the nationalist coalition. Otherwise, election leaflets and output should be focused on policy, candidate biographies, and other standard election material.
The nationalist coalition would thus unite the Big Four nationalist parties under one electoral banner. There will still inevitably be some independents who go on a solo-run, and maybe some uncooperative elements within the respective parties, but this will hopefully be minimised. The hope would be that in time, particularly after the general election (at which 2% FPV could be achieved), the distinction between the autonomous political parties will eventually begin to fade away and the entity can become less ad-hoc and more stand-alone.
In future election cycles, the coalition should agree that it would only field one candidate in every European or Dáil constituency; at the local level, this can be decided on an LEA-by-LEA basis, but it’d be wise not to run more than 2 candidates per LEA, with a single candidate being the norm in most LEAs.
A Draft Scheme for Centralised Points of Agreement:
There should be high-quality, centralised graphic design. A single style guide must be agreed and adopted. Each individual candidate can of course have their own specific leaflets with their own text and points, but the graphic design principles should be centralised and the same across candidates irrespective of which party they belong to or none.
The nationalist coalition is just a “draft” name, it should not necessarily actually be named this. Ideally, the name should be in Irish. Possible names could be “Cónaidhm” (Confederation), “Comhghuaillíocht” (Alliance) or something else entirely – but it should be fairly generic and indicate that this is not a new ‘party’ but rather a coalition. “Comhaontú” (Coalition) can probably be ruled out as it sounds too much like Aontú.
On strategy, the nationalist coalition should be fairly autonomous and leave it up to the parties, but there must be a few points of agreement:
Some people must be overtly excluded from it. Specifically, a few of the people who are semi-tolerated in the nationalist movement at present but who do immense damage to it. The person who has fundraised thousands for fake projects in concert with a Scottish loyalist comes to mind and the person who’s currently trying to set up a uniformed paramilitary movement comes to mind.
There can be no cooperation with the Brits. Seriously, not even if they’re “on the same side as us” – the nationalist confederation should not have any international links at present, and especially not with anyone from Britain. This includes the Brexit Party candidate who spoke at a recent protest, and it most definitely includes Tommy Robinson.
There must be no tolerance for outrageous schizo conspiracy theories. The nationalist coalition shouldn’t police ideology and shouldn’t enforce any particular viewpoint on any candidate or constituent party, but there can be no truck with people openly espousing ludicrous conspiracies.
There should be an agreed programme of common consensus issues, they can be somewhat “watered down” but strong enough to give a sufficient grounding to the nationalist coalition.
Ending mass-immigration and introducing a stricter immigration policy, prioritisation of Irish people for public housing.
Pro-life, not rolling back on the abortion act per se, but a few incremental points such as stopping an expansion of the current 12 week limit, reversing telemedicine abortion, introducing mandatory pain relief, requiring positive options and alternatives to abortion are provided to women.
Eurosceptic, not ruling out a withdrawal from the European Union, seeking return of more sovereign power and exercising power within the EU to push national interests (Hungarian model), phased withdrawal from the Euro currency.
United Ireland, in principle supporting a border poll and a United Ireland.
Traditional conservative values, opposed to mandatory RSE in schools.
Irish-focused foreign policy, end Irish showboating over Ukraine, ensuring Irish neutrality.
End public funding for useless, campaigning NGOs, defund RTÉ. End the pro- legacy media funding including the removal of VAT on print newspapers.
The nationalist coalition should not have any ‘leader’. The time for egotistical leaders must come to an end. However, the nationalist coalition does need a crisp and unified message and an effective communicator to represent it in public. The best candidate for this is undoubtedly Cllr Malachy Steenson. In the nationalist coalition, Steenson should be named as National Spokesperson and should be the go-to figure for media, public relations, interviews, and so on.
Realistically, I believe the nationalist movement is going to largely be confined to large urban areas. “Rural Ireland” is too enamoured by gombeen politicians and the traditional political cartel. Let the nationalist coalition begin to build its strongholds in Dublin and Cork, and then eventually expand outwards to big towns and cities (Dundalk, Drogheda, Waterford, Athlone, Galway). Aontú is probably going to be the political force angling for the rural conservative-nationalist vote in Rural Ireland for some time.
Finally, the nationalist coalition really needs to get a grasp on the North. Breaking into the north is very difficult, but the North must be kept in its mind and it should not be cynically abandoned.
Conclusion:
The creation of a nationalist coalition may initially have teething problems and be clunky, but in time hopefully it’ll provide the barebones of a structure which can become more cohesive and effective. If this article acts as a starting point for some ideas on how such a coalition could be formed, then it will have achieved its aim.
The next step is for the parties and newly elected representatives to take action – take the initiative, get in touch with each other, let bygones be bygones. Hire a boardroom in a central Dublin hotel, invite representatives of the Big Four parties and the independent councillors, and get the negotiations underway. This project can never be realised simply by being speculated upon in articles or in vague nebulous tweets urging “unity”. There needs to be a concrete proposal for how to actually create a nationalist coalition in a way that’s realistic and achievable.