parish pump politics

parish pump politics (uncountable)

1. (Ireland, derogatory, informal) political activity that is more evidently concerned with addressing the immediate needs of the local electorate than with strategy that might affect the national interest.
   • 1875, Thomas Bardel Brindley, Hints, Humorous and Satirical, to all the world and his wife (Wit and humor)‎, Simpkin, Marshall&Company, page 6:

     7.—Never avoid bars or smoke-rooms, because in the former case you miss the chance of marrying a flirt, and in the latter of having your mind improved by local parish-pump politics, and your head broken by a fool in his cups.

   • 1981, Electoral Politics in Ireland: Party and Parish Pump‎, page 144:

     Unfortunately, the parish-pump politics this perpetuates is congenitally unsuited to deal with the demands of a modern European society.

   • 2005, Bora Laskin: Bringing Law to Life‎, University of Toronto Press:

     Where others looked at Canadian regionalism and saw a fruitful and admirable diversity of human experience, Laskin saw petty fiefdoms, parish pump politics, and constricted horizons.

• provincialism
• parochialism

• narrow-mindedness