December 20, 2023 - 4:00pm
In the wake of last month’s Dublin riots, migration in Ireland could prove a roadblock for Sinn Féin’s electoral success.
The party comprises two similarly sized factions — progressives and traditionally working-class nationalists — which are diametrically opposed to one another on the issue of immigration. To paper over this division, Sinn Féin has tried to fudge matters by portraying itself as the party of law and order, without really addressing the problem at its root. Having got away with past efforts to liberalise Ireland’s immigration policy, its stance is now coming under greater scrutiny.
This is because recent polling shows that three in four Irish people believe that the country is taking in too many refugees. This is heavily pronounced among Sinn Féin supporters, with over 80% sharing the view. As a result, the party is now haemorrhaging support: although it remains the most popular party in Ireland, Sinn Féin took a three percentage point hit in the immediate aftermath of the riots (down to 28%). In contrast it recorded a 34% approval rating at the end of last year.
As support for Sinn Féin has fallen, support for the party closest to representing a Right-wing faction in Dáil Éireann has increased, with Independent, mainly rural and populist, politicians recording a gargantuan surge of 13%. Following the riots, the Rural Independents tabled a motion calling for a cap on migration. The rise in support also includes “other” parties not mentioned, but may consist of the country’s smaller Right-wing movements not represented in Parliament, such as the Irish Freedom Party.
Members of Sinn Féin are certainly concerned about this, with internal party polling in central Dublin showing that the party is unlikely to increase its vote share on the city council. What’s more, it will possibly lose seats to immigration-sceptic candidates in local elections next year.
Understanding the threat on the horizon, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald gave a candid interview at the weekend in which she denounced attempts to “repress the conversation” around immigration, adding, “I think there has to be space for people to ask questions […] because I think if we’re not in that space, if we’re saying ‘you shall not speak on this subject’, what’s that achieving?”
It is taken as an article of faith that Sinn Féin will emerge from the next general election as kingmaker in the subsequent government. Despite the talk of a “Left government” comprising the party and smaller legions of disparate Left-wing factions within the Dáil, the party knows it has a delicate balancing act to maintain. Adopting a more hardline immigration stance would risk alienating its younger, more liberal wing. However, if it doubles down like Ireland’s other Left-wing parties — from which it may need help to form a government — in calling for further liberalisation of immigration, it risks abandoning its older, fervently nationalist wing.
How it grapples with these opposing electoral stakeholders will be crucial heading into the next general election in 2025. As immigration grows increasingly central to politics in the Republic, Sinn Féin’s omertà won’t be able to last.
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SubscribeIf Sinn Fein gets into government, particularly if propped up by various crankish left wing parties, then emigration rather than immigration might quickly become the more pressing problem.
“Sinn Fein tries to present itself as the party of law and order” !!!
Is it April 1st already ?
Wait til there’s a Sinn Féin-Fine Gael coalition. And don’t think it’s impossible: Fine Gael already went into government with Clann na Poblachta in 1948 and Democratic Left (formerly Official Sinn Féin; the current Sinn Féin are Provisional Sinn Féin – there was a similar division in the IRAs).
“Adopting a more hardline immigration stance would risk alienating its younger, more liberal wing. However, if it doubles down like Ireland’s other Left-wing parties — from which it may need help to form a government — in calling for further liberalisation of immigration, it risks abandoning its older, fervently nationalist wing.”
If it does go that way, the party will need to change its name. “Sinn Fein”, meaning “ourselves, alone” or “we alone”, would be the daftest possible name for a party who wants ultra liberal immigration policies.
This is a result of the realignment over the past couple of decades as Sinn Féin became close to the US Democrats. At the moment it is an uneasy alliance of traditional nationalists, protest voters and ideological leftists. Naturally this won’t hold forever.
They can always shoot them, knee-capping might be sufficient.
Precisely, they’ve had plenty of practice after all.
Exciting times for those of us who think Sinn Fein are a bunch of horrible ogres.
What’s the difference between the the IRA and HAMAS anyone?
Bill Maher’s answer is pretty good –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP-CRXROorw
1:10 to 1:40 if you are in a rush…
Great link Dominic A. Thanks!
The British didn’t have an Empire in 1155. Indeed, the British so called, didn’t exist. Henry II was a Norman King.
He was a Norman emperor though. Through the Angevin Empire, he controlled England, half of modern France, the most valuable parts of Wales and (soon) the most valuable parts of Ireland.
My point still stands. Henry II was neither British nor English.
Not an ‘Emperor’ and there was no such thing as the Angevin Empire.
It is/was a modern’ construct, rather like the rather misleading term Byzantine Empire.
The Byzantine Empire WAS an empire, of compete political continuity with the Roman. The name is modern, to distinguish the then by very different Christian culture from the Classical world, but the empire was real.
The Angevin “empire” was indeed a more loose knit set of territories, owing feudal alliegance to the Angevin kings.
On the final day, which you will recall was Tuesday the 29th of May 1453, the population still called themselves “Romanoi”- Romans because it was still the Roman Empire.
There was NOTHING Byzantine about it, even if a later a 16th century German scholar by the unusual name of Hieronymus Wolf found it rather irritating.
Off course after more than a thousand years of existence it was somewhat different to what Caesar or Octavian would have remembered.
French- Plantagenet!
You’re right!
You’re right, of course.
One of Mahers better monologues-although I’m sure his audience is made up of clapping seals-they appear to laugh & clap at anything he says.
That’s showbusiness!
Skin tone.
Can’t think of anything else.
Within living memory of many, Sinn Fein had close links with a private army. One that murdered, tortured, and maimed thousands of fellow Irish to further political aims.
If it’s cans of worms, how about their Nazi-loving antisemitism problem
SF can stay silent on immigration for as long as they can’t shut up about the prosecution of British soldiers.
Fortunately Colonel Derek Wilford, OBE, formerly of the SAS and the late Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion the Parachute Regiment died the other day at the age of 90. Thus he will NOT witness the revolting spectacle of one of his men* facing a vexatious prosecution for events that occurred in Northern Ireland over fifty years ago.**
Wilford who died in Belgium and was so utterly disgusted with this country that he arranged to be buried in Belgium rather than be returned to the UK. What a sad state of affairs.
(* So called Soldier F.)
(**By comparative analysis a rather minor disturbance now eulogised in some circles as ‘Bloody Sunday’.)
A “minor disturbance” however in which unarmed civilians were gunned down, many of them shot in the back. You don’t have to support Simon Fein to condemn this. In fact this single act caused a huge recruitment surge for the Provisional IRA.
By that stage “Simon Fein” as you call them had already murdered 60 of the Security Services.
They had it coming!
Many of the rioters, including Martin McGuinness, were armed with guns.
Most were throwing bricks and glass bottles.
Even Saville admits that ‘they’ fired a decrepit .303 rifle and “hit a drainpipe “.
What a ridiculous remark for someone who once served as a junior officer in the Royal Sussex Regiment during National Service.
“Sinn Fein tries to present itself as the party of law and order”
Uhm…. a fair number of Sinn Fein-IRA’s top leadership are convicted terrorists and murderers.
At the end of the day no better than HAMAS, it must be said.
Sinn Fein already underwent a political metamorphosis after 2016, when Brexit (and with it the threat or a hard Irish border) drove the party from a Euro-critical stance towards far greater fealty to Brussels, and it thereby ceased to stand for “Ourselves alone” which is what the words Sinn Fein mean. They are now a safe centrist party, but one which still offers a change from the two parties that have ruled the roost for a century. Immigration will cost them votes in local and European elections but they are still a shoo-in to lead the government after the next general election, which is due in about a year’s time.
I don’t know how you can describe them as safe, when they refuse to disown the violent past of their military wong.