Whither Sinn Féin?
Our regular semi-annual temperature taking of the broader political scene in Ireland will be along soon.
This week though, some reflections on Sinn Féin.
The party will know exactly how Rory McIlroy felt as he trudged off to the club house at Pinehurst having completed his final round in the recent US Open. In the lead and in charge of his destiny with three holes to go, Rory left the title behind him.
Sinn Féin’s opinion poll ratings over the period since the last general election in February 2020 peaked during the summer of 2022 when it measured 35% or slightly more in a sequence of 12 polls between May and October. It enjoyed comfortable double digit leads over both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil who languished in the doldrums between the mid-teens and the low 20s.
Sinn Féin seemed a nailed-on certainty to be the largest party in the next Dáil and to have a decent chance of leading the next government. The party’s support ebbed only a little over the following 12 months from a trend level of 35%+ to 30%+. But the pace of downward drift accelerated in 2024 to the extent that in the last national polls before the recent European and local elections it was registering in the low 20s and was running “neck and neck” with Fine Gael.
Nonetheless, the dismal results of the local and European elections on 7 June probably exceeded its worst fears.
In the local elections it secured 11.8% of the vote, 2.3% more than it secured in the equivalent elections of 2019. In the European elections, it won 11.1%, slightly below the 11.4% won in 2019. By those yardsticks, it could (and did) claim plaintively to have held its own.
But its vote in both cases was less than half the 24.5% secured in the last general election of February 2020 — and about a third of its peak poll ratings in the period since.
By contrast, the Jurassic relics of the civil war achieved vote shares in the recent elections close to the percentages each achieved in the last general election. Fine Gael won 23% and 20.8% in the local and European elections respectively compared to 20.9% in 2020. The equivalent figures for Fianna Fáil in this year’s elections were 22.9% and 20.4% compared to 22.2% in 2020. So it would be fair to say that the “establishment” parties’ vote held up decently compared to the last general election.
Sinn Féin’s performance in 2019 was seen as disappointing because their vote share in both elections in that year was below the 13.8% share it had achieved in the previous general election of 2016. But that disappointment was emphatically erased by its stellar performance in the general election nine months later in February 2020. Compared to that election, the elections this June were worse than a disappointment. They were a disaster.
The euphoria of February 2020 (Mary Lou for Taoiseach anyone?) has evaporated — for the time being at any rate.
There is some symmetry between the circumstances of 2019–2020 and today. Back then, Sinn Féin managed to turn the situation around (and then some) within nine months of the mediocre European and local elections of May 2019. Today, the next general election is at most nine months away but may be called for a few months earlier.
The turnaround in Sinn Féin’s fortunes between May 2019 and February 2020 is an indication in itself that the mix of local and European elections are more pointers than proxies for what will happen at a general election to follow shortly after them. They are elections to different kinds of institutions and fought on a smaller canvas in the case of the locals and a larger one for the Europeans. It is not surprising at all that Derek Blighe, President of the far-right party, Ireland First, won 25,071 votes in the European constituency of Ireland South and survived until the 16th count before being eliminated, but secured only 915 votes in the local authority area of Fermoy and failed to win a seat. In the former, Blighe had vague celebrity status. In the latter, voters knew exactly who he was.
Nonetheless, while anything is possible in theory, Sinn Féin would be unwise to presume that the transformation in its fortunes between May 2019 and February 2020 will simply repeat itself unaided just because voters can be relied upon to make different (and more serious) choices in a general election.
I am going to take the liberty of offering some gentle advice to Sinn Féin about how it might improve its prospects for the general election.
One piece of advice that I am sure is superfluous is to prepare carefully for the four by-elections that might flow from the election of four current TDs (including Kathleen Funchion of Sinn Féin) to the European Parliament. If the government adheres to its current commitment to run its full term, these by-elections must be held before the end of this year.
Harking back to 2019, three of four by-elections held on 29 November that year were to fill Dáil vacancies arising from the election of outgoing TDs to the European Parliament six months earlier. At that time, there was no certainty that there would be a general election within three months. But Sinn Féin slightly outperformed expectations in the by-elections, winning two of the four seats, giving them a spark of momentum for the general election when it came.
If this autumn is a rerun of five years ago, Sinn Féin had better organise itself to make the most of the upcoming by-elections. Their vote in the four constituencies in 2020 ranged from 15% (Clare — to replace the independent, Michael McNamara) to 30% (Dublin Bay North — to replace Labour’s Aodhán Ó Ríordáin). Winning one seat would be a decent result. The real benchmark will be how close they come to their vote share in 2020. Beat it and they are back on the horse and galloping. Fall short though and the signs are ominous.
The second piece of advice is that Sinn Féin should behave more like a party of government. Obviously, it is not in government, but it could do more to present itself as having positive credentials to be entrusted with government.
Thus far in the current Dáil, Sinn Féin has been projecting a sense that ruthlessly criticising everything the current government is doing will be sufficient to establish itself as a credible alternative governing party. Sinn Féin have been coming across as the political equivalent of Stadtler and Waldorf in the Muppets, shouting to be put on the stage because of the quality of their heckles from the gallery.
Indignation, anger and protest have their place but, when they are the default reflex, they lose a lot of their potency. Shouting it louder doesn’t make an argument any more convincing. If the recent elections have told us anything, it is that there is no great groundswell to “kick the bastards out” — even if it is also true that the government isn’t universally loved. Sinn Féin might do better to dial the volume of rhetoric down and, dare one say it, occasionally endorse specific things the government might be doing, within a continuing overall attitude of strong opposition. A softer voice is often more persuasive than a harsher one.
A related third piece of advice is that they need to do better at explaining what they would do differently and better. For example, I suspect that many voters are willing to imagine that Eoin Ó Broin might do a better job of getting more homes built and maybe even at keener prices than Darragh O’Brien is doing.
But simply asserting that Mr. Ó Broin could hardly be worse than Mr. O’Brien barely qualifies as limp. Sinn Féin need also to be able to communicate in credible but also easily digestible terms how exactly Mr. Ó Broin would do the better. Again, simply restating ambitious targets won’t cut it. The “how” it will all be done matters at least as much as the aspirational “that” it will be done. Being less trigger happy to vote down planning applications for multi-home developments in their own backyards might help too.
Fourth, Sinn Féin has got to settle on whether its best route to government is to tack towards the centre or the left. The recent elections have reinforced the likelihood that participation by at least one of Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil will be needed to ensure stable government in the next Dáil. A broad coalition of the left spectrum remains possible. But the archipelago of parties that make up that spectrum are less likely to have the numbers and, with so many variants of “left” from the soft end of Labour and the Social Democrats to the true believers of People Before Profit, less likely to be stable — that is if they can be regimented into government together in the first place.
Finally, Sinn Féin must establish a consistent and coherent position on asylum related immigration — and one that does not run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. It must encompass honouring our obligations but not being a soft touch, being brisk and efficient in the processing of asylum applications, being fair and firm but not heartless. I suspect immigration worked against them in the recent elections not because they had the “wrong” position, but because it was unclear what position they had. They were not central to the “debate” (such as it was) as an aspirant governing party must be. With hindsight, the party might have been wiser to embrace and take cover behind the new European migration pact rather than dismissing it vaguely and theologically as amounting to a violation of national sovereignty.
Of course, we are all adept at hurling from the ditch. It is much harder on the pitch. But, if Sinn Féin finds itself after the general election with fewer seats than currently and still in opposition, it is the end of Project Mary Lou. And, after the heady heights of poll ratings earlier in this Dáil, deep disillusion and disappointment will reign, to put it mildly.
Can the party survive if its “lá” in government in Dublin is postponed for up to another five years?
