Newton Emerson: Sinn Féin is not a radical party

Sinn Féin's rise in the polls south of the Border has nothing to do with Northern Ireland, or a united Ireland, let alone with developments at Stormont.

That is no excuse for not looking at the party’s record in Stormont to judge how it might perform in the Republic, either in government or supporting a minority government.

Some attention has been paid to Sinn Fein’s policy differences North and South but on its own this is facile point-scoring.

Different policies are frequently appropriate in two very different jurisdictions and it is a sign of responsibility to adopt them. Sinn Féin can be at its most irresponsible when attempting all-Ireland consistency. It effectively went on strike at Stormont between 2012 and 2015 to avoid southern criticism over welfare reform.

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Sinn Féin returned to Stormont in 2007 to lead the Executive with the DUP. It has since swerved around every difficult decision it could

Views are now being expressed in the Republic about the party’s potential danger and radicalism, which reveals how little notice the South pays to the North and how badly it needs an overall picture of Sinn Féin’s time in office.

Many people in Northern Ireland believed Sinn Féin would bring about dramatic change when it first entered Stormont 21 years ago but these hopes or fears were wildly misplaced.

The party’s record has been characterised above all by caution. As a rule, in policy terms, it moves slowly, springs no surprises and would rather do nothing than upset almost anyone who might ever conceivably vote for it.

Seek dramatic change

This is not explained by constraints in the Stormont system. There is plenty of money and scope to seek dramatic change within devolution’s remit.

A contradictory feature of powersharing is that it tends to turn each government department into a silo, with each minister largely free to attempt anything that does not require changing the budget or the law.

The DUP has long made an issue of Sinn Féin ministerial “solo runs”, claiming they were a basic flaw in the Belfast Agreement and that preventing them was the main purpose of the 2006 St Andrews Agreement.

Yet there has only been one significant Sinn Féin solo-run, in 2002, when the then education minister Martin McGuinness abolished academic selection.

Any surprises would be because Sinn Féin is inevitably a different party in the South

This was in practice a hit-and-run, signed off hours before a lengthy Stormont collapse. It exacerbated the problem it was meant to solve, with schools adopting their own unregulated entrance tests. Sinn Féin eventually abandoned the education portfolio and has never attempted anything like it again, in any department.

The 2002 decision was unpopular with many Catholic grammar schools and hence with many Catholics, making it a vanishingly rare case of Sinn Féin putting its progressive principles before electoral self-interest. Even then, McGuinness only approved it on his way out the door, perhaps thinking there might never be another Assembly election.

Sinn Féin returned to Stormont in 2007 to lead the Executive with the DUP. It has since swerved around every difficult decision it could but this is a characteristic it shares with the DUP.

Celtic Cuba

Policies that it has implemented with the DUP include devolving corporation tax with the intention of lowering it, reducing civil service numbers by 10 per cent through a generous redundancy scheme and using UK-imposed private finance schemes to build schools and hospitals, none of which indicates plotting for a Celtic Cuba.

It is true that when it all became too much for Sinn Féin it stalled Executive business, failed to produce a budget and finally walked out. Perhaps it could play similar games with a Dublin government. However, it would have far fewer options to do so without simply casting itself back into opposition.

It is also true that politics at Stormont is interspersed with divisive rows over nationality, identity and the legacy of the Troubles, sometimes stirred up by Sinn Féin for cynical purposes. But this cannot happen in the Republic, due to the lamentable shortage of Protestants.

Sinn Féin’s relationship with the IRA raises serious questions North and South, one of which is whether Provisional IRA membership should still be an offence. Legalisation might help sort out the political from the criminal, which will take on a new urgency if Sinn Féin is included in a sovereign government.

If other parties in the Republic believe Sinn Féin is run by a backroom Belfast cabal, northern precedent suggests it would not pursue subversion or extremism once in southern office.

Any surprises would be because Sinn Féin is inevitably a different party in the South, due to political and social circumstances. Broadly speaking, its voters are more motivated by bread-and-butter issues and its representatives and activists are more middle-class.

That might make for more radical postures in the conventional, left-wing sense. But the real danger is where some of Sinn Féin’s supporters might turn next, after a spell of power or influence reveals it is a party much like all the others.