Sinn Féin are trying to avoid mistakes. Someone might tell Belfast

WE STOOD in the Leinster House car park looking at a sleek, black Mercedes saloon. Two Fianna Fáil TDs alerted me to a new black Mercedes a young colleague had parked near the front door. I was familiar with the significance of the purchase. This week another three (super junior) ministers were granted special state funded cars driven by armed gardaí, to add to the 15 cabinet ministers who had this benefit restored. But once, before the financial crash, all ministers had this perk. And, often, even if they hadn’t yet reached ministerial office and they’d just been elected – or found they had a few quid to spare – a politician would invest in their own black Mercedes. Even though the State had moved on with a slight variety in luxury cars, purchasing BMW, Lexus and the odd Volvo, it was the black Merc that still held cache. In some rural constituencies a four wheel drive jeep or pick-up might have been more suitable for negotiating pot-holed roads and tight boreens with their green strip of growth down the middle of the road. But the ownership of the black Merc was a statement for those who hadn’t yet been given one by the State, it said: ‘I’m going places.’

YET my two Fianna Fáil companions were more steeped in knowledge of rural politics, and whereas I thought it was only TDs and Senators who pulled off the ‘buying your own Merc’ trick, they told me that even county councillors would join in sending subtle messages. One of the TDs told me of a well-known veteran councillor who whizzed up to the front of a parish hall for a meeting. He said, beaming a smile as bright as the sunrays bouncing off his polished Merc, and waving a munificent hand: ‘She’s my only indulgence.’

I thought of this hilarious hubris the day of the Sinn Féin alternative budget launch last month. I was walking away from Leinster House, from Merrion Street Lower onto Lincoln Place, which is a hairpin that causes cars to slow to a crawl. A friendly voice shouted out a driver’s side window: ‘Here, John, I didn’t see you at our pre-budget launch!’ It was the Sinn Féin health spokesman and Waterford TD David Cullinane, who has always been unusually affable for a member of that party. I was in the process of shouting back that one of our political team had gone instead, when I almost fell into the passing traffic with shock. I had now noticed the car. It was a long, black Mercedes saloon of a recent enough registration. Here David’s ‘only indulgence’ gave more evidence that Sinn Féin are preparing for power.

The British Labour Party call what Sinn Féin are doing the ‘Ming Vase Strategy’. Opinion polls show Keir Starmer’s Labour Party so far ahead in the polls, that their strategists believe that they must merely make no unforced errors and they will be in government after the next election. They just have to transport their valuable Ming Vase without dropping it. Here Sinn Féin, we might say, are trying to play errorfree football. The signs are everywhere. Yet, like most things with Sinn Féin, this is a far more complicated execution of strategic planning than it is for every other party. For, as we saw last week, there is still a strong extra-jurisdictional influence in Sinn Féin that would be unconscionable in any other Western democracy. Illogically, when the shadowy figures in west Belfast hear of Mr Cullinane’s Merc, they may fear it constitutes a threat to the Ming Vase. I say illogically, because they clearly don’t see that their own recent interventions are far more damaging.

Let me outline the timeline. As Sinn Féin settled on the heady poll heights of the mid-30s I had already noticed some changes in how the Sinn Féin TDs and Senators went about their work. By mid 2022, parliamentarians of both genders were sporting the corporate look. It has certainly not always been the case, but men were wearing ties and business suits and women wore corporate chic. Mary Lou McDonald, it must be said, always dressed formally in Leinster House but I rarely recall Gerry Adams wearing a tie.

The most striking display of change came when Fianna Fáil leader Michéal Martin stood down as Taoiseach to make way for the rotation of Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar into the role last December.

All the Dáil benches of Sinn Féin, the left populist party, stood and applauded Michéal Martin. A party who had spent the previous 11 years mercilessly censuring Fianna Fáil for its leading role in the financial collapse were now – led by Ms McDonald – giving a standing ovation to the Fianna Fáil leader. Sinn Féin frontbenchers have repeatedly told me a gushing variation of the line ‘we’d make a great pair, us and Fianna Fáil’.

MEANWHILE, business leaders have told me that they are meeting with Sinn Féin’s leading figures – at the PIRA’s former political wing’s request – to reassure them that they will not frighten the economic and financial horses. Financial and economic positions had softened. Yes, their pre-budget announcements were well to the left, but, yet again it hasn’t hit them at the polls.

Sinn Féin had somewhat seen off Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. It was an uncomfortable political position for the party of the hard left, which has traditionally been supportive of Russia, no matter what maniac was its leader.

Then, on October 7, came the murderous Hamas attack on Israel. Like most of the European left Sinn Féin has always supported a Palestinian state (which in our binary modern world means not supporting Israel) and in 2020 Ms McDonald appeared at the party’s Voices from Palestine conference whose online speakers included Dr Basem Naim, head of international relations for Hamas. Yet within days of the attack that killed 1,400 people she explicitly condemned the attack, saying ‘the targeting of civilians and the taking of hostages is to be condemned outright.’ Then on October 18, Sinn Féin voted in favour of a Government motion, which read that the Dáil ‘unreservedly condemns the brutal attack by Hamas in Israel on Saturday, 7th October last, indiscriminately, and systematically targeting civilians, and resulting in over 1,400 deaths’.

A Sinn Féin amendment, to condemn ‘Israel’s brutal assault on the civilian population of Gaza’ was rejected. Still, they backed the Government and the result was noted in Dublin, Tel Aviv, Washington DC, Brussels. And Belfast. Consistently Sinn Féin failed to join other parties of the left in calling for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland, Dana Erlich. Ms McDonald even explained, on social media, to Sinn Féin members on November 2 why she, the president of the party, steadfastedly supported the state.

But then Sinn Féin had a meeting in Belfast on November 3. Afterwards the party announced that it would now be calling for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador.

Sinn Féin is an unprecedented party in so many ways, yet this was extraordinary. If possible, leave aside the subject matter – the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – that led to the U-turn and break down what happened.

The President of Sinn Féin directed her parliamentary party to take a policy position on an international situation. They obeyed. Then the president travelled to Belfast and had a meeting where the matter is discussed. Then the party issues a statement outlining the new policy in direct contradiction of the position articulated by the Republic of Ireland party leader for nearly a month, and restated by her the night before.

The party will have been cognisant of the accusations that the party is not, in fact, ultimately directed by Mary Lou McDonald but by the remnants of the Provisional Army Council. Sinn Féin must attract the support of the middle ground in the Republic to make it into Government. To announce this change of policy in Belfast of all places seemed at best, a mistake. At worst, a serious political error.

But the main opposition party may find, that error free football is easier to preach, than practice. Especially when some powerful figures in the party (and the shadows) believe ideology rather than the Ming Vase is more important.