After Meath East

Byelections in this Dáil are different to those which came before – with the government parties actually managing to do better than might otherwise be expected. That said there’s an element of a divided opposition gifting such results to the government. But there’ll be more, and let’s also be clear that by-elections are simply not mappable onto general elections, at least not with sufficient precision to call it for next time. Though this result tracks the broad lessons from national polling data (which is not the same as mapping the results onto a general election).

Paddy Healy makes some useful points here, not least that the turnout was abysmal, and weather and other factors no doubt played their part on the day.

Independent votes still strong. FF and FG in contention. The LP in deep trouble. Deep deep trouble. The further left marginalised. SF doing okay, not brilliantly but still seeing an uptick from 2011. Considerable volatility still extant. A lot to play for, particularly in urban constituencies.

But, what of specific lessons, firstly, the fall of the LP doesn’t mean the rise of the left – and following on from that there’s no certainty that the LP votes in 2011 represented anything other than a ‘change’ vote as distinct from a ‘left’ vote, however soft left it might be. Pat Rabbitte may think the LP vote stayed at home, and yes, a lot of votes did stay at home, but such a vertiginous collapse when mapped against the rise of FF tells it’s own story. He/they might do well to ponder the grim story of the Green Party in the period 2007 to 2011.

Secondly the FF rise while impressive is not necessarily remarkably impressive. The solidity, relative admittedly, but still solid, of the FG vote is worth thinking about. They will weather the storm, outside urban areas, perhaps better than expected. Though more to come in terms of political trouble. But, time has obviously detoxified the FF brand – or the lack of an alternative has allowed it to contest.

Thirdly SF while doing well didn’t do stratospherically and will have its work cut out across a range of constituencies – though that SF vote still suggests they’ll do well come the next election in places that hitherto were resistant to their charms. They’re tilting into genuinely replacing the Labour Party as the third party in the state.

Fourthly we can look at the Independent bloc as holding promise, but it also holds threats, such as DDI which while in the greater scheme of things have limited influence, and probably limited impact, can act as blockers of more progressive alternatives. It seems to me that DDI, while worth keeping an eye on, aren’t yet a significant threat. And in all honesty they should have done well here if anywhere given that they’ve two offices in Meath. Indeed by-elections have always provided arena’s for fourth and no party candidates to do better than usual. And I’d suspect that their beating the LP into fifth place is more significant – in that it demonstrates how toxic the LP now is, than they themselves as a formation are. But. Well worth keeping an eye on.

Fifth… Fine Gael abides, as noted above. Specific circumstances here, and that’s true. FF might have won if not for those circumstances, and that’s perhaps true too. But FG did win. And that may be no harm in so far as the forward progress of FF, it’s return to political credibility – ahem – is stymied very slightly. The actual balance of power doesn’t change, albeit the tensions inside the Coalition will increase, perhaps severely.

Sixth… The challenge by the WP/CAHWT didn’t exactly catch light despite trojan work on the ground and a genuinely heartening degree of public support from others on the left. This is problematic. It’s not just that the constituency is conservative, though that is true a varying degree(and let’s be careful about not writing off ‘rural’ constituencies as if there’s some immutable law that they cannot vote left). But it’s certainly typical of many other constituencies across the state. And if the left isn’t even in shape to mount an effective challenge here in that category of constituencies then it’s far far from making much of an impact, let alone winning state power. Okay, we knew that yesterday, but worth reflecting upon today. The divided nature of the vote suggests that even in urban constituencies where competition on the left is so much broader there’s no sure fire guarantee that formations will come through in any numbers. There’s no reason to be absolutely downhearted by that. But as raised in comments here there’s problems, serious problems.

But one final thought for the moment. If the economy is driving politics in this state how precisely is that manifested in Meath East and what does it say about the tenor of the electorate there? Pro-status quo, anti-status quo or… and this might be a real issue, much more indifferent to these matters even after half a decade near enough of austerity than might be expected? I can’t quite decide but a lot to think about after all this.