Sir, – Una Mullally's article "#MarRef effect will blindside big parties" (Opinion & Analysis, Online, February 3rd) identifies a widespread international phenomenon whereby young people favour issue-based politics over party identification.
This is backed up by youth-focused research carried out by AudienceNet across four continents for the “Millennial Dialogue” project (millennialdialogue.com), which is currently under way in Ireland.
Internationally, millennials identify a difficulty in subscribing to the totality of any party’s programme, and Ireland is no different. Following the late Peter Mair, it is worth asking whether it is even possible for parties to capitalise on campaigns such as #MarRef anymore.
Yet there are uncomfortable realities facing millennials, should we wish to maintain the sense of political efficacy we felt last May.
Primary among these is that social change still requires the heavily compromised institutions of party politics.
Put simply, #MarRef could not have come to pass had the Labour Party not had a longstanding LGBT section and pushed it onto the programme for government, had Fine Gael not accepted it and had the other parties not supported it.
Was Roscommon-South Leitrim the only outlier because it is much more conservative than neighbouring constituencies or was there something more mundane at play?
The political representation in that constituency was composed of an Independent TD, a government defector with no party organisation, and one unhappy government TD. The surrounding constituencies, by contrast, had party TDs in place who could mobilise their local organisations to varying degrees alongside Yes Equality activists.
There is a crucial role for activist politics in fostering social change and getting progressive issues over the line.
The fact that parties often let us down does not take from the corresponding role they play in bringing such issues through the legislative process. – Yours, etc,
DAVID KITCHING,
Director of Social
and Political Research,
AudienceNet,
Shoreditch,
London.