The far-right failed in the general election - but reports of their death have been exaggerated

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NOW THAT THE dust has settled on the general election, it’s clear that far-right candidates did not have a good campaign.

By our calculations, around 70 such candidates stood in 40 constituencies in the election, either as independents, as members of the three-party National Alliance, or as members of Ireland’s two other far-right parties who didn’t take part in the alliance.

They included members of the anti-immigrant movement, anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, and self-described “citizen journalists” from groups which have all become more prominent since Ireland’s last general election in 2020.

Four years ago, there were just two registered far-right parties in Ireland (the Irish Freedom Party and the National Party) and no far-right candidate got more than 2% of first preference votes in the general election.

But the upward trajectory of the movement, buoyed by two years of anti-immigrant protests, saw several candidates breach the 2% figure from 2020 during the local elections in June, when five far-right politicians took seats on councils in Dublin and Kildare.

It was no surprise then that many fancied their chances of rattling Ireland’s establishment for a second time in 2024.

Ultimately, none of these candidates won a seat in the 34th Dáil, a fact that has been heralded by opponents of extreme politics as a rejection of the far-right’s message and values.

Why did they do so badly this time around?

Last week’s exit poll provides a big clue: it showed that the three biggest issues for people when they were deciding who to vote for were housing (28%), cost of living (19%) and health (17%).

In contrast, the far-right’s twin focuses of immigration (6%) and value for public money in spending (1%), which encompasses things like the National Children’s Hospital and the Oireachtas bike shed, were far less of a priority for voters.

That’s a serious turnaround compared to the run-up to June’s local elections, when various polls indicated that immigration was a top priority for voters (or at least that it was a subject they noticed a lot).

Related to this, far-right parties and politicians have a more fundamental problem when it comes to canvassing for votes: they have no policies around the problems people actually care about.

You can only get attention for a certain amount of time by banging the drum about immigration and asking questions about how Ireland will cope with an influx of so many asylum seekers, but eventually people will want to know what you’re going to do for them.

Mainstream parties fell over each other during the campaign to make pledges about the number of houses they would build, or how they would reduce the cost of childcare, or to what extent they would lower taxes if elected.

But far-right parties or candidates offered little to voters on these topics, apart from plans to deport immigrants to free up housing or to withdraw from the EU to “regain Irish sovereignty”.

The National Alliance’s plan for housing contained a handful of ideas around planning but mainly focused on things like banning foreigners from buying houses and prioritising Irish people for social housing, while its cost-of-living policy featured a list of proposals reduce things like taxes, fuel prices and VAT without explaining how these would be funded.

There’s also a practical difference to winning a seat in a general election compared to getting voted in as a councillor.

In local elections, there are far more seats to fill (949 compared to 174 in the 34th Dáil), smaller quotas to get elected, and Local Electoral Areas that can be as big as six- or even seven-seaters, which tend to favour smaller and non-party candidates.

Gavin Pepper and Malachy Steenson, two independent far-right councillors who won seats on Dublin City Council in June, failed to get elected in separate Dublin constituencies this time around, despite being eliminated with more votes.

In June, Pepper won 1,126 first preferences in the seven-seater Ballymun-Finglas LEA, where the quota was 2,178 votes, and ultimately crossed the line with 2,452 votes.

This time around, he was eliminated in three-seater Dublin Mid West – a constituency that isn’t much bigger than Ballymun-Finglas but where the quota is 8,184 votes – with 3,087 votes.

Likewise, Steenson won 915 first preferences in the seven-seat North Inner City constituency in June (where the quota was 1,280 votes) and crossed the line with 1,232 votes.

He was eliminated with 2,195 votes this time in the four-seater Dublin Central, where the quota was 6,551 votes.

Of course, it’s easier for candidates to get more votes in general elections because Dáil constituencies are bigger than LEAs, but those numbers also show that the far-right’s voters didn’t dramatically fall in six months – just that it’s harder to win a seat in the Dáil than your local council.

The other important aspect of the far-right’s performance is that, although it was dismal, it is a significant improvement on the 2020 general election.

Almost 20 candidates got a higher than 2% of first preference votes this time around, which is 20 more than the far-right’s previous electoral best before the June elections.

Eight of those candidates even managed to attain a quarter of the quota before they were eliminated, meaning that they could claim back the value of their election expenses (if they stood for a party) or their €500 deposit (if they stood as an independent).

The performance of the Irish Freedom Party, the oldest of Ireland’s current crop of far-right parties, was particularly noteworthy: more than half of its 15 candidates pulled more than 1,000 first preference votes, and its leader Hermann Kelly was the last far-right candidate to be eliminated on Sunday.

It’s even more notable considering that the Irish Freedom Party was not in the National Alliance formed by members of Ireland First, the National Party and the Irish People, and ran against other far-right candidates in every constituency, meaning its vote would have been somewhat split.

As badly as the far-right performed in this election, it is still a movement that is growing and one that doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.

One only has to look at the performance of Gerry “The Monk” Hutch to spot the gap in mainstream politics among a chunk of the electorate.

Although not far-right himself, Hutch (who is a well-known criminal figure) shares similarities with the movement in that he’s another candidate with vaguely stated goals beyond railing against the establishment, and nearly managed to take a seat in Dublin Central.

Issues like housing, the cost of living and healthcare, which were named in Friday night’s exit poll as the biggest reasons why people voted as they did in the election, impact deprived parts of society even more.

Some far-right candidates even managed to pick up on this during the campaign: Gavin Pepper spoke about elderly people “freezing” in their homes, while National Party councillor Patrick Quinlan’s campaign focused on “housing the Irish”.

Far-right parties may have missed the opportunity to capitalise on these problems this time around, but their growth since 2020 suggests they’re getting at least some purchase.

If mainstream politics fails to address the social issues that move citizens towards voting for them, they might have grown again by 2029.