Sinn Féin can save us from nightmare of a hard border, but has Mary Lou the steel to make that call?
IT’S early days yet in Mary Lou McDonald’s leadership of Sinn Féin. Too soon to read much into a recent opinion poll, showing that the party had not received an electoral bounce following its first transfer of power in 34 years.
Too soon to speculate if Mary Lou’s parroting of the republican slogan ‘tiocfaidh ár lá’ at the end of her first ard-fheis leadership speech has long-term significance.
On Pat Kenny’s radio show, she tried to persuade listeners that far from being more of the same – an impression she unfortunately created with the jingoistic, grassroots-appealing slogan – she genuinely represents a new era for Sinn Féin.
‘Well let me tell you that the war and the conflict has gone away, you know,’ she said with characteristic firmness.
‘The IRA has gone away you know and Sinn Féin is led now by a woman from the city of Dublin who has had no involvement in the conflict with the IRA or anything else.’
Pat Kenny’s persistent line of questioning reflects the enormous task facing Mary Lou McDonald.
She has to convince an electorate that has no truck with paramilitarism or the legacy of the blood-soaked Troubles that her party has turned over a new leaf.
However, as long as the party is bedevilled by claims of bullying and bitter feuding, as long as there’s a lack of openness about appointments to leadership positions, as long as the suspicion lingers about the influence of shadowy West Belfast figures in the party’s affairs, voters will remain dubious.
But there is a way Mary Lou could undercut these deep reservations about her party’s fitness for government and assure putative supporters of her determination to do things differently.
And that’s by steering Sinn Féin towards dropping its long-held policy of abstention in Westminster and taking up its six seats in parliament, however temporarily.
The suggestion may seem fanciful, given how, since 1917, abstention and the refusal to take an oaths of allegiance to the British monarch are articles of faith for Sinn Féin, the bedrock of party doctrine and identity.
But as the shambles of Brexit escalates, along with the spectre of catastrophic damage to our economy, not to mention the potential to cause the hard-won Good Friday Agreement to fall apart should the North leave the EU and a hard border return between it and the rest of Ireland, the idea that Sinn Féin should do the unthinkable and help break the Brexit impasse has gained traction.
Last week Leo Varadkar called on the party to do so, ‘to make things better for Ireland’. The Labour Party joined in the chorus about Sinn Féin’s duty to ‘defend the interests of Ireland’, as has the Fianna Fáil party.
Given Sinn Féin’s reluctance to stray from its rigid ideological goal of a United Ireland towards anything that would signal its recognising British authority in the North, it’s almost inevitable that these entreaties will fall on deaf ears, even though the logic is inescapable.
At the moment the hardline DUP are kingmakers in Westminster. With its ten MPs, the party shores up Theresa May’s fragile government as long as its demands are heeded.
By taking up their seats in the UK parliament, Sinn Féin would be a counterbalance to the DUP bloc and given that support for and against a hard Brexit are so tight, the party could have extraordinary influence.
Armageddon
It could help defeat any Brexit proposals put forward by Theresa May that would mean a return to a hard border or spell devastating economic consequences for us.
As John Major warned in yesterday’s Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘It is clear that Brexit will hurt Ireland, Britain’s nearest neighbour. That was not the intention but it is the reality.’
In Westminster, Sinn Féin could act as a safeguard against this political and economic Armageddon, using its influence to join with more pro-EU Tories or the British Labour Party to press for a customs arrangement that would keep the border open.
If that succeeded they would emerge as the heroes of the hour, the saviours of Ireland and Britain – and indeed of our peaceful co-existence.
The historical U-turn, its sacrificing of its ancient principles and its risking its electoral self-interest for the common good would enhance Sinn Féin’s reputation almost as much as its role in the Good Friday Agreement, more than 20 years ago. Naturally, though, the party stubbornly refuses to contemplate such a daring manoeuvre.
According to a spokesperson: ‘This is not even a topic of discussion within the party. We are an abstentionist party and we are mandated to abstain from Westminster by the people who vote for us.’
Sinn Féin may be hidebound by the party’s past and ancient principles but perhaps it should look further back through history to see how, rather than turning a cold shoulder on Westminster, nationalist leaders exploited it for their own ends.
As a non-violent proponent of Home Rule and land reform, Charles Stewart Parnell had to depend on a range of parliamentary tactics to push these issues to the heart of British politics.
He developed the parliamentary weapon of obstruction to a fine art, delaying bills as they progressed through parliament by debating them for as long as possible, thus wrecking the British government’s legislative timetable.
Parnell’s campaign of obstruction reached its zenith in his opposition to the Irish Coercion Bill in early 1881, which sought to punish tenants who got embroiled in violent altercations with their landlords, paving the way for their imprisonment without trial.
At the time, Parnell was newly elected to the leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party. When the bill surfaced, he tied the house up for 41 hours, debating its terms.
However, the parallels with Daniel O’Connell are perhaps more relevant, in so far as when The Liberator was first elected to Westminster, he was unable to take his seat, as taking the Oath of Supremacy was not open to Catholics.
Fearing a rebellion in Ireland as a consequence, prime minister Arthur Wellesley persuaded King George IV to pass Catholic Emancipation and to allow people who were not members of the Anglican church to sit in the parliament.
Anglo-Irish history shows us that while Irish nationalists may have regarded the London parliament as anathema, they grudgingly accepted that it offered the only hope of peaceful advances in the cause of self-determination.
It also shows how the symbolic importance of Sinn Féin’s crude boycott is outweighed by the practical benefits won in the past by taking seats in Westminster.
Perhaps Brexit is another moment when the national interest justifies taking the Oath of Allegiance.
The prize of preventing a hard border and securing peace and prosperity in the country is arguably as pivotal as Home Rule and Catholic Emancipation.
However, that decision is Mary Lou McDonald’s to make.