Are Sinn Féin a Left Populist Party? - Eoin Ó Broin | Europe's New Political Economy Podcast S03E03

Aidan Regan discusses left populism and Irish politics with Eoin Ó Broin, Sinn Féin spokesperson on Housing, Planning & Local Govt and Teachta Dála for Dublin Mid-West.

[johnny]

I find too many references to other countries with not enough attention to our particular socio-historical and Anglo-American experience and its implications for our political system

[Jim_]

Sin Féin have a young and liberal voting base, despite not having any green energy policy, and being Eurosceptics, two things that are VERY unpopular in Ireland. How people reconcile these factors, I have no idea. The mental gymnastics involved is baffling

[SuspiciousFace]

honest rewording would be: "Are Sinn Féin a communist party?"

[monke]

Call a spade a spade
SF are left leaning
FF and FG are right leaning
This guy loves dodging questions
A real slimy professional

[PM-hqbz]

I only watched this for a while before getting too angry to continue. I was looking for a serious and challenging discussion. This is not impressive from an academic source. O Broin is effectively allowed to claim that SF can make up all of its own definitions and run away from the core fact that it seeks to delegitimize those it opposes as part of an elite conspiracy against 'the people' who they represent whether or not the support SF.

The idea that populism of any stripe can be described as 'plural progressivism' is patently absurd. What is progressive or plural about saying that your opponents are in an elite conspiracy and that their voters are dupes rather than informed people who just happen not to agree with you?

Demanding levels of loyalty not seen in centre parties, refusing to apply standards internally which are demanded from others and aggressive attacks on anyone challenging you - these are undeniably aspects of SF's behaviour. Just say something mildly challenging to SF and see how you get swarmed.

As for the relationship between right and left populism the fact is that they empower each other because they undermine the idea that there is honest politics outside of their camp. There is a truly remarkable crossover between supporters of left populist parties and right populist parties. The number of former communist voters now voting far right is significant - and let's not forget that SF was happily backing Gemma O'Doherty in her claims against the centre parties until she outed herself on matters of race.

The academic consortium which prepares the populism surveys published by the Guardian has been clear in defining SF and PBP as populist parties. SF deserves to be challenged substantively on this.




The approach of this video is effectively to say that if populism is used in favour of things you agree with it's fine.