If the contagion effect of political uncertainty in Europe that spread with the Brexit vote helped to strengthen support for conservatives in Spain's election last week, in Ireland the ripples from the vote have also seen, it would appear, a significant swing back of voters to "old politics". Specifically to Fianna Fáil. Come back Soldiers of Destiny, all is forgiven! Or forgotten?
Today's Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll also records a near unanimous disapproval of the UK's decision to leave the EU (81 per cent), and an even stronger determination (86 per cent) that Ireland should not follow its lead out of the union. Hardly a sign of an ambivalence towards the EU which some have claimed to see manifest in past, closely fought referendums here on EU integration.
The poll records a rise in Fianna Fáil support levels since February's general election from 24 to 33 per cent (excluding the undecided) – a rise of a third in party support – and it marks a remarkable comeback. One that is mirrored, unsurprisingly, in a similar rise in satisfaction levels with party leader Micheál Martin, from 35 to 43 per cent, a full ten percentage points ahead of Taoiseach Enda Kenny..
Martin's strategy of supporting the Fine Gael government from outside has clearly found an echo among voters who remain alienated from the Government but accept the need for someone at the helm in difficult times; a sense that the Brexit vote seems to have reinforced. The poll shows Fianna Fáil well on the way to restoring support levels which in the'90s rarely dropped below its "core" 40 per cent vote but which plummeted to 17 per cent in the 2011 election, close, some predicted, to imminent extinction.
That willingness of voters to move beyond the politics of protest would appear to be a part of the explanation for the decline of a quarter in the support for Independents and Others (from 24 to 18 per cent), and the marginal shifts in the vote shares of most the other parties.
Fine Gael's decline of four percentage points since February continues a trend that goes back to November 2015, and now leaves it a full third down on the 2011 election. Kenny's satisfaction level remains doggedly on 33 per cent, unchanged for over a year, a far cry from the heady 50s of 2011. He is on a par with the unpopular Government, a continued poor showing that may further help incline him towards retirement now that he has claimed the prize of first re-elected Fine Gael taoiseach. Gerry Adams may find consolation in a small rise in his satisfaction rating, albeit to only 31 per cent, while his party share stagnates at 16 per cent. Labour's doldrums are if anything more depressing for it; its vote statistically indistinguishable from the Anti-Austerity Alliance/People Before Profit, the Social Democrats and the Greens. And not even a blip from its leadership change.