Last words (European elections 2024): With Richie Allen and Ninja Knight
‘You know how we talk, and the words just sort of come out? Well, we’ve run out of words, Richie!’
Caesura Saturday
Below find my final interviews of the 2024 European Parliament elections, with an old friend, Richie Allen, and a new one, Ninja Knight.
It’s been a remarkable experience, whatever the outcome, and all I know right now (Saturday evening, June 8th, the day after polling, the day before counting) is that I have a chance of staying in the game long enough to be embroiled in a serious dogfight for the last seat. This may take several days to be decided, or it may not.
If pressed to issue a tentative judgment on the outcome as it currently appears (from informal tallies), I would say that, whereas I approached the campaign on the basis that we are facing in Ireland an existential emergency, the electorate appears to have regarded it as a business-as-usual election. If I have to eat my words about that in a day or two, I shall be very happy to do so.
Taking the tallies at face value, there is not much evidence, in Midlands North-west at any rate, that the sentiments we attributed to the massive ‘No, No’ votes in the March 8th referendums has materialised in these elections. There is evidence of some withdrawal of affection from the government parties and Sinn Féin, but this is rather more marginal than it needed to be. This is a matter for future exploration and closer analysis.
I feel happy, nevertheless, that I accepted Sean Wynne’s challenge back on March 9th, the day of the count in those two family-related referendums, to run for the European Parliament as someone who would much have preferred if Ireland had stayed out of the EU. The deal Sean and I had made prior to that was that, if the result was a ‘Yes, Yes’, or even a ‘Yes, No’, he would abandon his campaign of attrition, designed to wear down my resolve. I’d already declined three times to run, but left the door open pending the results of the referendums. The ‘No, No’ outcome meant I was still on the hook. We talked; I weakened under the sway of his logic, which centred on the idea that I had, at worst, an outside chance of winning, and with a fair wind on the day might pull off a surprise.
Today, as I write, I feel it’s somewhere in between. I have been amazed by the shows of affection, support and loyalty I’ve encountered. We fought the campaign on a shoestring, and yet are already, in the early tallies, among the top ten finishers, alongside candidates of parties with unlimited resources and few scruples.
Once the initial two or three seats have been filled, this will be an election played out on down-the-line preferences, a scenario we already anticipated, given the number of candidates — 27! — in the field. About one-third of those are people of the same stamp as myself, which means that a victory for any of us is a victory for us all. This would amount to a first, tentative step in the enterprise of recovering our beloved country from the evil that assails her. In fact, if we can win just one seat in the entire country, we will have made a sufficient opening impression, laying down a foundation to be built upon in the next battle — likely to be the Dáil election due within at most the next nine months.
When the count is over, we can examine the entrails of the data to see where we may have miscalculated or underestimated our potential. At this moment of relative uncertainty — this caesura Saturday — I have no regrets and only a slight sense of disappointment that the Regime and its corrupt agents has — relatively speaking — managed to minimise its losses.
At a human level, it was a fantastic experience. I was privileged to have some of the most passionate and hardworking supporters on the battlefield, who were prepared to go out every day and do all the things we required to do to reach those who were ready to receive our message. I also had the services of some of the most talented and creative communications people in the business. All of them worked pro bono, out of their love for Ireland, and their belief in me, which overpowers me with emotion and hope for the future. I shall have more to say about these people and their contributions in the coming days.
Both of the conversations linked below occurred on Thursday June 6th, and between them cover pretty much the entirety of the ground in describing the nature of this moment, the circumstances we faced making this initiative necessary, and the possibilities that may arise as we contemplate the meanings and consequences of this first skirmish on the electoral battlefield, as we move forward in our attempts to wrest our country from the clammy grip of her would-be destroyers. If I were to address most of these subjects tonight, Saturday June 8th, I doubt if I would say much differently except in respect of the aforementioned failure of the sentiment of March 8th to manifest significantly in this rather different context.
Richie Allen Show
Click here to listen to Richie Allen Show podcast [Conversation starts at about 1 hour in.]
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