Tag: European People’s Party

Northern nationalists look to be locked outside the gates of power The SDLP is now scattered to the four winds. Its leader, Colum Eastwood joined Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin on stage at FF’s ardfheis last month, while former leader Mark Durkan raised some eyebrows by being unveiled during the week as a Fine Gael candidate for the Dublin constituency in the European Elections to represent, not Dublin, but Derry. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has suggested Durkan’s candidacy under the FG banner is partly about delivering on his promise of December 2017 that northern nationalists “will never again be left behind by an Irish government” . As the Labour Party sees it, there is another dimension to this. It is not a receptacle for the SDLP exiles, despite the Labour dimension to its title. As we look forward to these elections, it is clear that the true candidate for social democracy – for a social democratic and labour party – will not be the Fine Gael candidate, nor indeed the Fianna Fáil candidate, despite their recent alliance with the SDLP. One of the reasons the SDLP’s first leader, Gerry Fitt – who insisted on the inclusion of the word Labour in its title– parted ways with the party in 1979 was because he believed it had become too “republican” and he regarded himself as representing the “voice of concern”. A divided SDLP is now, it seems, a political flower withered beyond recovery, but the scattering of its petals is just one manifestation of weakened northern political muscle. Sinn Féin has also struggled in recent times to carve out a distinct space in the Brexit drama and has been left reacting rather than initiating. But the complaints of SF are also a reminder of a wider recklessness and lack of leadership in NI of which SF bears part responsibility at the very time when that leadership is needed most.

The intervention of former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon in European politics could help rightwing parties become the biggest bloc in the European parliament next year, according to Nigel Farage. Farage told the Observer that, Eurosceptics could become the largest political grouping on the continent and predicted that anti-EU MEPs could secure between 176 and 235 seats in the European parliament elections next May. With a bit of luck and a following wind it could even be the biggest,” Farage added. Bannon’s foundation, called The Movement, will be based in Brussels and dedicated to campaigning aggressively for a large, anti-EU faction in the European elections next spring. Bannon said last week he had already started raising funds amid speculation that former English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson, currently in jail, might be offered a leading role in its UK wing. Robinson, whose imprisonment has made him a cause célèbre among the international far-right, could be released this week following his appeal against a 13-month sentence for contempt of court in May. Farage also revealed that Bannon wanted to offer a rightwing antidote to the centre-right European People’s party (EPP), currently the largest party in the European parliament, and the European Socialists (PES), a social-democratic political grouping that includes the British Labour party, the Italian Democratic party and French Socialist party. Even though Britain is floundering with Brexit, across the rest of Europe, the Eurosceptics are on the march. All three are potential rivals to the prime minister and Bannon believes all of them could help deliver his ambition to undermine and eventually paralyse the EU. “I think shares in Bannon are overvalued.