Irish election results and Labour’s wait (E319)

Not for a hundred years has the world’s eyes been on Dublin as much as they were this week. Sinn Féin – which means ‘ourselves alone’ in English – swept the past aside. Formerly derided as the ‘political wing of the IRA’ their support in recent times was strongest in the Catholic ghettos of Belfast and Derry, and their leaders’ voices were spoken on UK television by actors due to an edict by Margaret Thatcher to deny them the “oxygen of publicity.” But Sinn Féin’s recent success at the ballot box in the south of Ireland has left the governing parties Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael reeling. So, we invited Kevin Meagher, the former British Labour Party advisor and author of ‘A United Ireland: Why Unification is Inevitable and How it Will Come About,’ into the Sputnik studio to give his thoughts on Ireland’s future.At a seemingly snail’s pace the race to be the next leader of the Labour Party continues amidst acrimony, suspensions, and expulsions. Business as usual then! The Continuity Corbyn candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey is struggling with the weight of expectations, Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry with the weight of errors past and Lisa Nandy with the weight of weightlessness. Sir Keir Starmer is now the bookies red-hot favorite to win. So, fresh from Iowa, where he was observing the Democratic Party fiasco, is political analyst John McTerna – former adviser to two prime ministers, Tony Blair and Julia Gillard – who came into the Sputnik studio to give his take on what might happen. 

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