Sinn Fein’s new-found support for European Union is just another way to get at British government

SHONA Murray’s observation that Sinn Fein’s alignment to the EU (Write Back, January 22) is a step away from its earlier Eurosceptic bent is more an understatement than anything else.

Rather than a step away, it would be better described as a complete somersault. Sinn Fein was vehemently opposed to the EU, involving as it did, among other matters, a measure of union with England. Yet, it now welcomes “the language and support of senior EU officials” in opposing Brexit.

As few in the media are prepared to challenge it (Shona Murray appears to get the nearest to a challenge), we have no idea whether the party’s position was the result of debate or diktat. But that may not matter as other forces in the Sinn Fein psyche may be at work.

For the DUP, to say it has no logical reason to support Brexit, other than an “obsession with being seen as unshakeably British, as opposed to Irish”, may be barking up the wrong tree.

The mindsets of both are watered by subterranean streams that go back to a past concern with whether or not England and Ireland should be ruled by the King of Spain, following on the death of his wife, Queen Mary of England and Ireland, who, like Mary, was considerate to the then See of Rome as a religious institution, although not always to it as a sovereign princedom — or by Elizabeth I, who was considerate in neither.

Settled for a while, the issue came to a head later with the Scottish Stuart, King James II, on whose side most of Ireland fought.

A separatist Ireland no more featured then than, paradoxically, deep down it does with Sinn Fein today. Being proEU and opposing Brexit is just another way of getting at England. That is what matters. Oppositely, it matters with the DUP and the fight continues.