Not A Hope In Hell

In denying the Irishness of Paul Hughes, Conor McGregor expressed a view that was widely held in the 26 County State, and which may very well be majority opinion there. According to that view, that State's legal name is Ireland because Ireland is what it is. The Irish come from Ireland, meaning that. Over 100 years old, it is economically, socially, culturally and politically distinct. To be Irish is to have been formed by that. Ancestrally, people the world over may be a bit Irish, but whether in Boston, Brisbane, Birmingham or Belfast, they are not really. With his Planter surname and his views on immigration, McGregor clearly regards the Irish people as the people of the 26 Counties at the point of independence. A lot of that people would agree with him.

They will not, however, be given the opportunity to vote for him. To stand for President, McGregor would need to be nominated by at least 20 members of the Houses of the Oireachtas, none of whom would do so, or by at least four of the 31 county or city councils, if anything even more unlikely. Increasingly concentrated on the populist Right, British republicans should take note. There would have to be a nomination process. Candidates would certainly require nomination by one tenth of the House of Commons, 65 MPs, and very probably by one fifth of that House, 130 MPs. Even in the first instance, in the wildly unlikely event of more than two candidates, then the House would whittle them down to the two who would then be presented to the electorate. At any given time, only two parties would ever have 130 MPs each. In practice, they would arrange to alternate the Presidency between them. It would make difference that one of those parties were led by Nigel Farage.