The Post-Social Democratic Left
Sinn Féin and the Irish Election
By John Foster
Coalition politics are hotting up in Europe these days.
If one were to point to a trend, it would be the decline of the cartel party system, which has grounded Western European political life (such as it is) since the end of the Second World War.
Oddly, the collapse of this system has always been what people on the left thought they wanted, confirming the truth of the old adage about being careful what you wish for.
To a great extent, the end of the cartel system has been the collapse of social democracy.
The once-powerful Italian left disintegrated, leaving the field to the populists of the far-right right and the postfascist Fratelli d’Italia. This is only the most precipitous decline. The left’s malaise across Europe is nearly universal.
Ireland, as is so often the case, is bucking the trend.
Irish politics has always been an outlier by European standards. The Republic’s former status as a British colony and the circumstances under which it emerged from this condition have shaped political divisions in ways entirely dissimilar to the European norm.
Only recently did the left-right divide, which defined politics in most other European states, shape Ireland. Without going too deep into the weeds, Irish cartel politics was a function of networks rather than ideology for nearly a century.
For most of the decades since independence in 1921, Fine Gael (roughly “Tribe of the Irish”) and Fianna Fáil (Soldiers of Destiny) have alternated in power.
Fianna Fáil is the more conservative of the two parties and has been more successful. However, both trace their lineages to groups of notables formed during the War of Independence or just after.
Recently, Sinn Féin (We Ourselves) has achieved enough support to upset the apple cart, at least somewhat.
Leftists have existed in Ireland throughout its history. For example, James Connolly, a socialist writer and activist, chose to lead the small Irish Citizen Army to participate in the 1916 Easter Rising and was executed by firing squad at Kilmainham Jail in its aftermath.
Radical parties have worked with varying degrees of success to break into the mainstream in the Republic and Northern Ireland. Sinn Féin, which started life as the political wing of the Irish Republic Army, was the first to gain real traction.
Since the IRA abandoned its urban guerilla tactics, Sinn Féin has been able to throw off the stigma of its connection to terrorism.
For years, the party has been prominent in Northern Ireland, as it was seen by many in the Catholic community as the group most committed to the struggle against political and economic domination by the (increasingly narrow) Protestant majority.
Sinn Féin’s rise to prominence in the Republic had to wait for the passing of the old guard.
Gerry Adams, indelibly marked by his role as leader of the Belfast Brigade of the IRA, stepped down in 2018. Two years later, in the next election, Sinn Féin nearly doubled its vote (from 13.8% to 24.5%) and vaulted into the ranks of authentic candidates for power.
The party grew by committing itself to a range of policies geared toward the practical needs of voters at the bottom of the economic ladder. Sinn Féin’s most recent platform called for the construction of 50,000 new residences and rental rate controls.
In a country that has experienced a pronounced housing shortage for decades and in which both of the other leading parties have links to property developers (with their attendant scandals), this kind of campaigning gets attention.
Still, the traditional cartel parties are not content to go quietly into the night. The politics leading up to today’s election have been particularly intense. Sinn Féin’s poll numbers slipped in the last year due to doubts about whether its solution to the housing crisis would be effective and the party’s mishandling of internal scandals.
Until recently, it looked like Fine Gael would recover its dominant position before 2020. But the party has made serious missteps.
Ryanair executive Michael O’Leary made derisive comments about teachers at a Fine Gael gathering earlier this month. A story emerged of a party senator for Louth being held liable for a violent assault.
And then there was the moment at which Fine Gael’s normally media-savvy Simon Harris laid an egg on camera. Harris was confronted by a disability care worker who complained about the disgracefully low pay in their sector and described him as “not a good man”.
An experienced politician should be able to cope with this. Instead, Harris simply walked away. It’s not Donald Trump’s failure to disavow the support of the Ku Klux Klan, but it was the sort of botch that Harris’ competitors could only dream of.
In the wake of the video, Fine Gael’s numbers took a big hit. According to one frequently cited poll, the drop was about six percentage points, from 25% to 19%.
Of course, poll numbers are notoriously imprecise. Even if there hadn’t been such a dropoff, there’s every likelihood that voters will shift to Fianna Fáil, which has a relatively similar position, as opposed to making the jump to the left.
On the other hand, Sinn Féin, which polled in the upper teens as recently as a few weeks ago, has now jumped into the low 20s. However, this is still a long way from leadership.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have made it clear that they aren’t interested in being coalition partners with Sinn Féin.
The leftist party has quite different fiscal priorities than its competitors, highlighted by an outgoing Fine Gael official’s claim that Sinn Féin’s plans for funding social programs constitute a “piggy bank heist” on the nation’s finances.
Although today’s elections are unlikely to bring fundamental change, Sinn Féin’s rise from extremist marginality to a player in a three-way national race has created an important shift in Irish politics.
Even if the traditional cartel parties don’t let it into the halls of power, they still have to listen to the issues Sinn Féin raises and pay attention to constituencies that were ignored for decades in favour of cosy deals with developers and other monied interests.
Here, we might find another helpful thought: What if other European social democratic parties took note of Sinn Féin’s strategy and committed themselves to policies that address the needs of the groups that formed their core constituencies before neoliberalism?
The centre-left has spent too long apologising for protecting vulnerable people. Sinn Féin is making the case that this constituency might be the way forward.
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Photograph courtesy of Wasfi Akab. Published under a Creative Commons license.