7 Comments

• Stuart 17th Jan '12 - 11:46am

  “and if you’re eligible to take part” – who is eligible to take part? Thanks.

• Mark Valladares 17th Jan '12 - 12:46pm

  Stuart,

  Membership of the Liberal Democrats is the key, indeed, only qualifier to apply for a place on the Congress delegation. The ELDR Council delegation is part directly-elected (next election this Autumn), and partly nominated by various Party committees.

  The catch is that there is no financial support for the delegation, except for those on ELDR Council, who have part of their travel costs reimbursed.

  But, if you’re still keen, get in touch with Paul Spellar, I’m sure he will welcome your interest.

• Cllr Steve Bradley 17th Jan '12 - 1:56pm

  It still makes me ‘facepalm’ that the right-of-centre socially conservative Fianna Fail party is in the ELDR. They’re only there because the other main party in Ireland – Fine Gael – is so close to them on the political spectrum that they both couldn’t join the European People’s Party (which they wanted to do). FF lost out, so opted for ELDR as their second-best option. But that doesn’t make them instinctively liberal.

  Fianna Fail has been in government in way or another in the ROI for the majority of the Republic’s existence. Despite that, abortion is still to this day illegal in the country. And it was Fine Gael who got the long-standing absolute ban on divorce over-turned in 1994 by a tiny majority in a referendum (I think FF may actually have been against the change). Though even now, Ireland’s divorce rules as still pretty inflexible. And FF has long had a far-too-close relationship with the Catholic Church in Ireland, and other socially conservative organisations (e.g. the GAA).

  It’ll be a nice trip to Dublin for those who go to that meeting, but it’s a shame that their hosts won’t be liberal in the sense that most of us would desire.

  Yerevan will be a good trip as well. Nice place, lovely people.

• Alex Macfie 17th Jan '12 - 5:00pm

  I find Fianna Fail’s membership of ELDR odd too.

• Ian Sanderson (RM3) 21st Jan '12 - 12:09pm

  @Alex MacFie
  “I find Fianna Fail’s membership of ELDR odd too.”
  Me too, having been in Ireland when de Valera’s leadership was still in force, when it seemed to embody a narrow nationalism, social conservatism (much more so than the contemporary British Conservatives or Ulster Unionists), and rigid deference to Roman Catholicism (which was much more rigid then).
  Eighty years as the natural party of government in the South gave it an air of cronyism and made it a target of those wished to corrupt. Ireland, North and South, has, in terms of political diversity and social attitudes, a much narrower range, than, say, England. Admittedly, FF has eased up a lot, especially in the last twenty years, but it doesn’t look like a natural Liberal party to me.
  We did once recognise the Progressive Democrats as our nearest soulmates in the Irish Republic. What happened to them?

• Alex Macfie 24th Jan '12 - 1:12pm

  The PDs provide a cautionary tale of what can happen when a junior coalition partner appears too close to the senior one (Fianna Fail). From 1997 onwards, the PDs fought elections on a joint manifesto with FF and had an electoral (preference trading) pact with them. So in the end, PDs imploded in the 2007 election (down to seats) as very few people saw any reason to vote PD instead of FF. The party was formally wound shortly afterwards. I know there are not many people in the Lib Dems advocating coupon elections and suchlike, any who do should just look at the grave of our former sister party in Ireland.

• Alex Macfie 24th Jan '12 - 1:13pm

  should say down to two seats in 2007 !