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Sinn Fein, Ireland’s main opposition party has been listening and thinking and changing. They say. A few short months ago they were riding high in the opinion polls, regularly scoring in the mid thirties and this was a solid pattern repeating over month after month. It was not a flash in the pan. It looked nailed on that they would be easily the largest party in the next Dail and there was a very good chance that in the biggest tectonic shift in Irish electoral politics since 1933 they would form the next government.
Then the slide began. From a high point at the end of 2022 of 37% they are now sitting on 18% in the last opinion poll. In the what is the most accurate test of opinion an actual election they did even worse than that. In the Euros and locals they manage only 11.1 and 11.8% respectively. The party was shocked and so were many commentators. So the leadership declared a period of reflection and self criticism.
To be fair they could have done what Irish political parties have done in the past in the wake of defeat they could have of blamed the voters. They could have blamed communications, which is really a way of saying the voter would have chosen us if they had understood our policies but sadly the voter is thick.
Mary Lou McDonald in commendable bout of honesty announced
“We and I, as leader of this party, must acknowledge that for a sizeable section of our supporters, there is a belief that we have failed to have their backs and that we didn’t listen to their concerns.
“It’s evident that in the local and European election campaigns, we lost trust and we lost support”
So from now on they are going to listen. Which is fine but what are they going to do at a policy level. In the new policy no centres for asylum seekers should established without first conducting a thorough review of the state of local services and infrastructure. Importantly no new centres should opened in “deprived communities that are already struggling” or as more cynical types observed in places where large numbers of Sinn Fein voters can be found. There is an anxiety to the language of the communiqué which is reflective of the internal tensions in the party. There must be local consultations but there can be no local veto. Ireland’s immigration policy must make sense to people (Sinn Fein Voters) but the party is committed to being Anti-Racist.
As had been elsewhere explained the party has a fundamental problem of coherence. It is in the European context something of an oddity, nationalist populist but left wing. For the first half of the 20th century we could have said the litmus test of the left was to be Internationalist where the right was Nationalist. This changed in the post war deconstruction of the European empires across Africa and Asia where nationalism was baptised as Anti Imperialism and Anti Colonialist and therefore acceptable. It is this kind of nationalist that the leadership and intellectual drivers of the party see themselves. This is not so true of the voters who are just rather old fashioned nationalists and not really that left wing especially on cultural issues.
The current hot spot in the immigration debate is in Coolock, a working class community in north Dublin. A former paint factory there is to be developed as residence for International protection applicants. This proposal has met with strong local push back and for several months a picket was established at the site to stymie the development. Recently what had been a peaceful protest escalated into clashes with police and apparent acts of arson in what some have called the Battle of Coolock.
Coolock is in a Dail constituency where Sinn Fein took a shade under 30% of the vote in the last general election which would have been enough to take two of the five seats had they run another candidate. It is emblematic of their problem. At top they are comfortable with the language of anti racism decolonisation and white privilege, their voters on the ground no so much. Mary Lou McDonald called the Taoiseach and told him
“There is an urgent need for engagement and dialogue with the community in Coolock. This is crucial in a community which has been ignored and left behind time and again. People must be heard and responded to”
This she said have met with residents and community groups in the area. However there is controversy over who she talked to as many local activists say they were not contacted. Anyway consultations are not going to cut it as everyone has heard clearly the qualifier. No one can have a veto. This is the core of the problem, once the state has decided to construct an IPAS centre in your community there are no effective legal or political avenues of action. Some years ago an application had been made to develop the site of the paint factory. In 2018 application for planning permission sought to transform the old paint factory into a mixed-use development for the area. The full application would include, in addition to 4 apartment blocks containing 198 homes; a 172-bed Hotel with function rooms and retail space; an Apart-hotel which would have 120 units for longer stays; commercial Spaces including Offices and incubator; and amenities including a children’s playground, 238 car parking spaces, 360 cycle parking spaces, and a crèche. Planning was refused. Planning however is not required by the state to construct the IPAS centre so the principal instrument that an individual or community would use to oppose unsuitable or undesirable developments is taken from them.
For a party like Sinn Fein with its roots and its history the sight of two water cannon trucks being delivered to Garda HQ on loan from Northern Ireland is deeply discomfiting. Trucks being borrowed in preparation for the police response to a planned protest in Coolock, where many of the protesters will have been in the past Sinn Fein voters. Mary Lou is faced with an unenviable task but if she can pull it off and reconcile the seemingly unreconcilable factions in the party then she will truly deserve the palms of victory.