By Padraic Halpin and Amanda Ferguson
DUBLIN/BELFAST (Reuters) – Sinn Fein’s polling collapse from government-in-waiting to likely also-rans at an Irish election next week looks set to rob Irish nationalists of a potentially transformative moment in their pursuit of a united Ireland.
Earlier this year the party appeared on the brink of power in Dublin for the first time, placing it in government on both sides of the Irish border and ramping up preparations as it sought to force London to hold a referendum on a united Ireland within a decade.
But a fracturing of the party’s electoral coalition – in large part due to anger among traditional working class voters at its relatively liberal attitude to immigration – appears to have closed the path to power at the Nov. 29 election.
That could shelve – for the foreseeable future – Sinn Fein’s plans for an Irish government minister for reunification, unity planning by both a parliamentary committee and a citizens’ assembly and a “diplomatic offensive” to promote the goal at the United Nations and across the EU.
“An Irish government led by Sinn Fein would change the dynamics of this quite dramatically … Sinn Fein are an absolutely vital part,” said Colin Harvey, a human rights law professor at Queen’s University, Belfast, and board member of Ireland’s Future, a group that promotes debate around unity.
“But I think it’s essential to underline that this won’t be taken forward by any one political party. It needs to be a wide, broad and deep political and civic coalition.”
In campaigning in Dublin, there were precious few signs of such a coalition being built south of the border.
On a two-hour Sinn Fein canvass in one of its working class Dublin strongholds of Donaghmede – part of a constituency where it scored the highest vote of any party nationwide in the 2020 election – Reuters did not hear unity raised on one doorstep.
Instead unaffordable housing costs and under-resourced state services dominated discussions.
“It (Irish unity) has in the past been something me and my friends and people my age have spoken about, I don’t think with everything else going on right now it’s number one priority,” said 30-year-old teacher Deirdre Ní Chloscaí, walking by Dublin’s main thoroughfare of O’Connell Street.
LOW PRIORITY
While a commitment to Irish unity is a historical touchstone of Sinn Fein’s main rivals in the Republic, they have left the subject as little more than a footnote in their election manifestos.
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