Sinn Féin’s electoral triumph could make a border poll more likely – but winning it less likely Sinn Fein’s republican critics say power has come at the expense of what were once some of its unalterable principles

In Dublin on Tuesday, a politically astute taxi driver recounted something obvious, but which on reflection is profound. A middle aged Irishman, he marvelled at how in his working lifetime Sinn Féin had gone from being banned from the airwaves by the government to being on the cusp of being the government.

It is the sort of sudden overwhelming regime change which might be recounted by taxi drivers in Baghdad, Cairo or Kabul. But because it has been preceded by Sinn Féin’s incremental move into the political mainstream even this sudden surge forward for the party can seem less remarkable than it really is.

A former member of the defence forces, my Dublin taxi driver was no Shinner but he was broad-minded enough to understood why many people had turned towards what they saw as an insurrectionist movement, believing that it was genuinely different to the old establishment parties who increasingly appeared indistinguishable.

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Sinn Fein’s republican critics point to how power has come at the expense of what were once some of its unalterable principles – not taking seats in partitionist parliaments, supporting what it proclaimed was the IRA’s right to attack British forces so long as they remained on the island of Ireland and toning down what was once a radical Marxist-inspired economic policy to something which is not going to terrify, let alone overthrow, the capitalist system.

A moment of vindication

But in a democracy the price of power is compromise and – as some republicans immediately knew when the ‘ballot box and Armalite’ strategy first emerged in the 1980s – if Sinn Féin was serious about attaining real power some of its old shibboleths were always going to have to go.

Having entered the electoral arena and largely accepted that it would have to play by its rules, Sinn Féin’s assent to power in Belfast while simultaneously standing on the edge of power in Dublin is the outworking of a brilliant – and ruthless – political strategy.

If the end justifies the means, then this is a moment of vindication for what was, in the eyes of many republicans, Gerry Adams’ heretical movement away from violence and towards the ballot box.

For any other party, this would be a moment of near-complete triumph, the only caveat to which is that Sinn Féin still has room for significant growth, something which may come in a second election this year.

However, the Provisional republican movement out of which Sinn Féin grew has always had a far grander goal than mere electoral success or executive power.

Even removing the border is not the end of its ambition – but it is the step which for almost a century has been insurmountable, whether by violence or politics.

An era of uncertainty

Where then does Sinn Féin’s stunning electoral victory leave the possibility of Irish unity? Unsurprisingly, Mary Lou McDonald pronounced this result as bringing a united Ireland closer.

However, if there is one thing which recent political events – including her own party’s rise in the matter of a few weeks – have taught us, it is that only the foolish confidently predict how the public will vote in future and as yet undefined circumstances.

We live in an era of uncertainty. Globally, the world is changing with rapid technological advances, job displacement, the collapsing power of institutions and what are likely to be the accelerating effects of climate change.

Locally, many of the old certainties are giving way, with a departure from the EU, a looming Irish Sea trade border, rising English nationalism, the disillusionment of the young with what hitherto have been unchallengeable social and political dogma, and a rising Catholic population in Northern Ireland.

A world of uncertainty and sudden upheaval does not favour the status quo – though it may survive despite the swirling winds of change.

Four short years ago, polls showed that Northern Ireland was more constitutionally secure than at any point in its history. In what seems like the blink of an eye, that has gone. But having changed so rapidly once the constitutional pendulum could swing back again for reasons as unforeseen now as much of what has unfolded since 2016 was then.

Sinn Féin’s veneer

The greatest obstacle to the realisation of republicans’ goal has been their inability to persuade a majority of Northern Ireland’s inhabitants to vote to leave the Union.

In the last four years a series of factors – from Brexit to the exposure of Stormont’s grotesque innards in the cash for ash scandal to a rudderless unionist leadership – have given republicans hope that they had new arguments to win over some soft unionists and, more importantly, the growing group of centrist voters who at one point will decide a border poll.

Even if those people remained largely wary of major constitutional change, many were at least becoming less unenthusiastic about it – in large part because the Republic was becoming a very different polity.

Seen in that light, events of recent days have the potential to make it harder to persuade those people. A Republic in which Sinn Féin is a major force is much more similar to their present reality.

But more than that, the immediate recourse to veneration of the IRA in some Sinn Féin TDs’ victory celebrations is a throwback to the 1980s. Some unionists welcome what they see as Sinn Féin’s polished veneer being scratched to reveal an uglier interior.

Sinn Féin shouts of ‘up the Ra’ are far away from the sort of self-critical elements of the 1916 centenary commemorations four years ago which had marked a maturing of the Republic’s public discourse where even those who denounced the Easter Rising could debate the morality of how Irish independence was achieved without simply being shouted down.

But even though this result may make winning a border poll harder for Sinn Féin, it could make the holding of such a poll more likely.

If a Sinn Féin Taoiseach or Tanaiste is demanding a border poll in exchange for accepting whatever Brexit deal Boris Johnson wants, what would the Prime Minister do?

A politician who twice betrayed Ulster’s unionists even when their main political party was propping up his government is unlikely to now – when the DUP’s influence has been spent – stand firm in defence of them.

Unionism’s fears

In government Sinn Féin could also use the apparatus of the state to try to prepare for a border poll and to harmonise more areas across the border. While there are significant reasons to believe that there is little likelihood of a sudden vote for Irish unity, unionism’s leaders have been grossly complacent about that possibility.

Their reliance on what some unionists see as insurmountable economic arguments ignores the reality that voters rejected overwhelming economic arguments in backing Brexit – and also fails to accept the possibility of innovative ways of funding a united Ireland which at least may be sufficiently credible to persuade voters to back it.

Despite unionism having long feared the day when Sinn Féin was in power in Dublin, paradoxically, unionism’s greatest hope now may be that Mary Lou McDonald does enter government at this point.

Having campaigned in soaring poetry, she would have to govern in prose and – if her party’s Stormont record is any guide – Sinn Féin’s bite is likely to be far less radical and far less left wing than the bark which attracted many voters to give the party a chance. Most revolutions end in ultimate disappointment for the revolutionaries.

But while this brave new world may not last for republicans, recent days have again exposed how shorn of zeal, ideas or, in some cases, even basic competency unionism’s leaders now are. If they are sitting back and hoping that circumstances will change and save the Union, that is a monumental gamble.