https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy99wyq25dzo
Conor Murphy says his party's performance in the Irish elections was a 'disappointment'
The Sinn Féin leadership will meet this week to review the fallout from the Irish local and European elections, a senior party member has said.
Ireland's main opposition party performed worse than expected in the elections last week.
Conor Murphy, Stormont's economy minister, said there was "no getting away from it being a huge disappointment".
But he said Sinn Féin would aim to put things right by analysing what went wrong.The Newry and Armagh assembly member (MLA) was speaking to William Crawley on BBC Talkback as part of a series of party interviews in the run-up to polling day on 4 July.
The party is now shifting its focus to the upcoming general election at Westminster
"We will recalibrate, get back on the horse and get ready for the next election," said Mr Murphy.
He added that Sinn Féin would listen to the electorate and that there was no single reason behind what had happened in the Irish elections.
He also defended the party president Mary Lou McDonald and dismissed suggestions that her leadership could be at risk over it.
Sinn Fein is fielding 14 candidates in Northern Ireland in the Westminster election, and will not run in four constituencies – Belfast South and Mid Down, Belfast East, Lagan Valley and North Down.
Mr Murphy is the party's director of elections in this campaign.
He defended the decision to stand aside in those areas and said the party had not endorsed any other parties, but wants to "support progressive candidates."Pressed on whether the party could end its long-standing policy of abstentionism and allow its MPs to take their seats in Parliament, Mr Murphy said that was "not even a debate" within the party.
Author, Jayne McCormack
Role, BBC News NI political correspondent
11 June 2024, 13:37 BST
Updated 35 minutes ago
by Diomas
11 comments
Wonder will they have the balls to address the unvetted elephant in the room
The south don’t want us. I’m a catholic from the north and like many catholics don’t care about a united ireland.
Wow. Insightful reporting there. They’re going to analyse how they did after an election?!? Must be a political first.
Reporter shouldn’t have bothered, TBH.
Gee, how could this have happened.
I do like it when they fail.
SF have went too far left and are now out of touch with the working class people put them where they are.
Please please Mary lou stay on as leader….
Sinn Féin just can’t get it right in the South.
SF ran a lot of candidates at the last local elections, and their vote collapsed. They didn’t run enough candidates at the last general election, and failed to fully capitalise on the anti-establishment tidal wave. They ran plenty of candidates at this local election and come up short again.
Despite the miscalculations SF still have more seats than all the other Left parties combined, but they’re not getting the protest vote anymore.
Just catching up on his interview with Crawley now and I think this was a very poor showing for SF and Conor Murphy. I know this will get downvoted to fuck and so what, its imaginary Internet points that mean nothing. Also have to preface this by saying I’m not a unionist, a DUP/TUV/UUP supporter at all.
Firstly, it’s not the first time I’ve heard this pointed out but it’s becoming more and more apparent. Why do they hide Michelle O’Neil away so much? It’s either Mary Lou taking centre stage and Michelle relegated to a nodding dog on the side or often like this Murphy being put forward. Is she really that bad at handling any kind of tough questioning? (COVID enquiry suggests yes for me). I’m not buying the media duties being divided between the ‘leadership team’ excuse at all. It all just seems a bit smoke and mirrors, dare I say it almost like some mob family, the way the leader, leader in the North or whatever roles seem to be so interchangeable depending on who’s asking.
The excuses for Michelle not attending D-Day commemorations also just came across as a dodge with undertones of just straight anti-Britishness. Personally I think something like D-Day should exist outside of the old battle lines here and when you see the stick Sunak got got leaving early it has to raise questions about MO’N skipping it altogether.
Still not clear on why Murphy was off on the sick until just after the COVID enquiry before coming right back on the scene like nothing happened.
Edit: oh and what do you know, when the COVID enquiry comes up he completely ducks it altogether and hides behind the fact he apparently can’t discuss anything about COVID until after the enquiry. Very convenient that.
In Ireland, SF had broad and shallow support based on not being FF or FG.
But it’s not like in the North where people support the party because of the constitutional question. They’d to do retail politics and their offering was pretty shite.
This is their centre piece policy on housing
>
**Key Housing measures include:**
>Build 21,000 social and affordable homes – 7,300 more than government target – as part of the **biggest house building programme in the history of the state**
>Put one month’s rent (up to €2,000) back into renters pockets and ban increases for three years
>Introduce temporary, targeted mortgage interest relief between now and April 2024 – This would cover 30% of increased interest payments up to a max of €1,500. There have been ten increases in interest rates with 40% of mortgage holders paying at least an additional €3,000 a year
>**What would we do different to the government** – Greater investment, increase targets to match demand, cut out red tape which is resulting in delays of up to 2 years before a brick is laid, use of new technology build, speed up planning and introduce changes to tax code to incentivise building of affordable homes.
Not that anyone reads this stuff except nerds but does that wow anyone? Does that represent change? Are people going to wake up and vote for that in big numbers?
They could get away with vibes and being the anti-government party for a few years but not a full electoral cycle and then immigration came along last year and they’ve been totally paralysed.
I’ve a fairly low opinion of politicians at the best of times but I think SF are genuinely bad at this. Fucking over the SDLP by being super nationalist is not that hard to do. Being the anti-government party is not that hard either. Carving out solid dependable support from a group of voters is hard and takes years of graft and SF has blown it.
https://preview.redd.it/ojgx2xx8ny5d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=fa9023f421412ee319110b61f1fd3499950445fc
So do I . She’s a closet FGer