Aontú could win up to twelve seats in the next Irish general election and alongside significant gains in next year’s Stormont and local elections in Northern Ireland, leader Peadar Tóibín told members at the party’s annual think-in in Derry on Saturday.
Aontú was experiencing “enormous growth” because it was pursuing policies that mattered to grassroots people while Sinn Féin was “locked in a downward spiral in relation to the delivery of public services”, he told party faithful.
Ahead of scheduled local and Assembly elections in Northern Ireland in May next year Tóibín said support for Aontú was now at an “historic high”.
He referred to the recent Sunday Independent poll which had Aontú on eight per cent support, which was double the 4 per cent vote the party gained in the 2024 general election in the Republic.
If translated into votes, this gives Aontú a chance of winning twelve seats in the next Irish general election, with strong opportunities in at least five constituencies such as Meath East and Cavan-Monaghan, he said.
The increase in support was because Aontú was listening to its grassroots “while Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin are not listening to their base”.
“The Ireland Thinks poll puts Aontú support equal to the combined support of the Labour Party (3 per cent), the Greens (3 per cent) and People Before Profit (2 per cent). That’s an enormous feat by a new party like ours,” he said.
He welcomed North Antrim councillor Margaret Anne McKillop who quit the SDLP over the abortion issue, first to become an independent and now to join Aontú. Tóibín said: “She represents, I believe, a growing number of people within the SDLP and SF who are deeply unhappy that their leadership is no longer listening to the grassroots.”
Currently McKillop is the only councillor Aontú has in the North but Tóibín predicted the party would make significant gains at local level and also gain representation in the Northern Assembly. It plans to run ten Stormont and 15 local candidates with deputy leader Gemma Brolly, he said, having a good chance to win an Assembly seat in East Derry.
Tóibín told delegates at the think-in in the Maldron Hotel in Derry city centre that policies pursued by Aontú were having an impact in the South.
He said the party had “won” the 2024 referendums rejecting change to the family and care definitions in the Constitution.
He continued, “We were the only party to push back against the hate speech bill and we were successful. Aontú stood with farmers and contractors during the fuel protests when most of the political establishment stood idly by. And we helped force the government’s hand on excise.
“We were the only party to oppose the multi-annual ratcheting carbon tax policy of the government. Watch the government back down on this too in the next budget.
“The government has stolen our clothes on new citizenship laws. FF opposed these laws at the start of the summer, now they are introducing them.” He added that immigration was decreasing because the government parties were “following the lead of Aontu”.
“This government is out of touch and is out of time. They are disconnected from the people they are meant to serve,” he said.
Aontú deputy leader Gemma Brolly, meanwhile, said it should be up to the people, not a Northern Secretary, to decide when and if a Border poll should be held.
“No one should have the power to lock us into stagnation, dependency, or constitutional limbo,” she said. “The future belongs to the people – and the people should determine when a referendum is called. Not London. Not a Secretary of State. Us.”