Mary Lou speaking out of both sides of her mouth on Brexit
THIS is a tale of two cities and two women, Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald in Dublin and Marine Le Pen, president of National Rally (formerly National Front) party, in Paris. Both are irredentist nationalists and both lead populist opposition parties but each takes a very different approach to Brexit, the most divisive and threatening issue in Europe.
Mary Lou McDonald has prioritised Irish jingoism as an issue as Britain leaves the EU while Marine Le Pen has put French chauvinism on hold to deal with Brexit.
Ms Le Pen was an anti-EU crusader like Ms McDonald and was elected an MEP the same year, 2004, both for political parties where nationalism is their raison d’être.
But after Brexit politically convulsed Europe, Ms Le Pen said: ‘We can improve the daily life of the French people without leaving either Europe or the Euro.’
Pressed on the issue, she explained her change of mind: ‘We have heard the French people.’
Ms McDonald seemed to be ignoring the Irish people and winking at Sinn Féin’s fundamentalists last week when she did a U-turn on her warning of the ‘dangers’ (her word) posed by Brexit.
On Monday, Sinn Féin’s president said the question of a border poll should be put aside until the dangers posed by Brexit are mitigated. And she was praised for articulating a more sophisticated political position before her party’s reflex ‘Irish unification’ stand.
On Tuesday, she reversed her position on a BBC breakfast radio programme. She said wanted the British government to call a border poll if there was a hard Brexit. In less than 24 hours, she had reverted to Sinn Féin’s kneejerk policy that Irish unification is more urgent than Brexit’s threat of economic and political chaos.
Why would the second most popular political leader of the second most popular political party in the State (according to the most recent opinion poll) totally contradict herself in hours?
I was in the North last week and this was the reasoning from reliable observers:
‘The Boys of the Old Brigade in Belfast reset Sinn Féin’s moral and political compass after the party leader’s conciliatory statement on Monday – and on Tuesday she did their bidding by reversing her position on Brexit.’
Ms McDonald is likeable and has many qualities but she does not have authority in the party that voted for her to be their president; shadowy figures still call the shots in Sinn Féin.
It also means that Ms McDonald is controlled by old men in Belfast speaking Jailtacht Irish with a cellphone in one hand and Sinn Féin’s delegates’ votes in the other.
How can she plausibly give her word on anything in Dublin or anywhere when the Old Brigade in Belfast decide what she does as leader of Sinn Féin?
Unionists have always believed that Sinn Féin puts unification before anything and everything else. But other nationalists, north and south, were disappointed with Ms McDonald’s contradictory decisions about the most important issue facing Ireland, north and south.
It is also a timely reminder that Sinn Féin’s barrage of social and economic policies still play second fiddle to the party’s ultimate reason for existing: Irish unity – by any means.
Mary Lou need not ask Marine Le Pen to translate this time-honoured phrase from the original French: ‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’ – ‘The more it changes, the more it’s the same thing’.
Strip away the policy wonks and populist distractions and Sinn Féin remains a single-issue party that would have the Irish people pay any price, and make any sacrifice for its unification agenda.
LONG lines from dawn and lurid tales of queue-jumping at the new US embassy in London where all visa applicants must make a personal appearance in Nine Elms, way out in SW11.
Cut to footballer Wayne Rooney, who urgently needed to get his US visa to seal his €337,000-aweek deal to play for Washington’s DC United. Rooney made a day trip to Belfast where the US consulate on Stranmillis Road arranged his visa.
According to a fellow passenger on the return flight to London: ‘He [Rooney] was charm personified with my eightyear-old daughter and gladly posed for a photo with her – even though she loudly exclaimed she hadn’t a clue who he was... much to his agent’s amusement.’