Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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Notes -
Ireland
In an unexpected change of tune Sinn Féin have come out against the controversial hate speech bill, citing their own experience being on the wrong end of censorship and the refusal to include their proposed amendments to the bill. This is especially strange given that they voted in favour of the bill at every stage of the process so far. Leo Varadkar has accused the party of cowardice and falling prey to "an online campaign of misinformation".
They've also come out against the EU migration pact saying that Irish immigration policy should be decided in Ireland. The migration pact seems like it would solve some of the immigration problems the EU is facing so Sinn Féin's opposition isn't a move to the right on the face of it, but they have said they agree with some parts of the agreement so the objection doesn't seem to stem from their being against stemming the flow of migrants.
Pretty weird to talk about an entire political party as if it was one agent in the context of a bill like this. Is that how it works outside the US? In the US it's common for at least a few congresspeople to break party lines. Or at least I think it is.
America has some of the loosest party discipline in the world, because of how we choose candidates and our two party system. In general, parliamentary systems can have news articles saying, "the party has chosen this," and be basically correct, because people who disagree enough to not go along with the party simply become independents or 'lose the whip,' which is a sign they'll be deselected at the next election.
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