Mary Lou McDonald did not arrive at the RDS count centre as the victor in the byelection, but the Sinn Féin leader still claimed the spoils. Under strobing camera flashes, McDonald directed the attention of the assembled media away from what should have been the shock loss in her own political backyard, and towards the entirely predictable failure of the Government to retain its seat in Dublin Central.
McDonald, ever the skilled rhetorician, said it was “very significant” that her own constituency now had neither a Fianna Fáil nor a Fine Gael TD. “I think that is an image of politics to come. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that there is politics beyond Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. I believe at the next general election our job, as the largest and lead party of [the] Opposition, is to lead that politics that makes that possibility become a reality,” she said.
Within the Social Democrats, the party that had just beaten Sinn Féin in Dublin Central, the comments of McDonald felt a little rich. “It was like she was trying to own our win,” one said. While McDonald was talking about Government politics beyond Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the likes of the Social Democrats were starting to think about opposition politics beyond Sinn Féin.
The byelection results have brought an ideological fracture between Sinn Féin and the main left wing parties in Leinster House into sharp relief. It started two weeks ago when the Social Democrats were stunned by Sinn Féin abstaining on its abortion reform Bill.
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Holly Cairns’ party had given McDonald’s advance notice that the Bill was coming, and Sinn Féin responded by rushing forward with its own less liberal version in what the Social Democrats believed was an effort to give Sinn Féin cover. For parties who had worked together to elect President Connolly, in what was widely being sold to the electorate as a trial run for a left-wing Government after the next general election, the Social Democrats could not understand how a self-professed progressive party could adopt such a position on reproductive rights. This week, Cairns cited Sinn Féin’s position on the abortion reform Bill as an example of McDonald’s party needing to “figure out where they’re going”.
Labour has been openly questioning the left-wing credentials of Sinn Féin for a while, but the comments of Ivana Bacik were sometimes dismissed as griping from a party that is still unforgiven in progressive circles for its 2011 coalition with Fine Gael. But now the Social Democrats and People Before Profit are becoming more vocal about their unease over the policy positions of what was once cast as the lead party of Ireland’s putative first ever left-wing Government. There is also a deep concern that Sinn Féin would quickly abandon its left-wing colleagues if a new Fianna Fáil leader was open to a coalition.
Sinn Féin, for its part, is bullish. Key figures within the party argue that as an anti-imperialist, republican party Sinn Féin has a greater claim to being left-wing than some of its detractors. In Dublin Central, for example, it believes its position on migration – which has hardened over recent years – means that it is more in tune with the concerns of working class people.
However, Sinn Féin councillors across the country offered different perspectives on where the party should go next – which appeared to offer credence to the claims of Cairns and Paul Murphy that the main Opposition party is confused about its direction. Some were claiming that the aftermath of the byelection was an opportunity to adopt clearer, more left-wing and progressive policy positions; while others felt that Sinn Féin had to atone for mistakes it had made in the past by being too slow to listen to concerns about migration.
McDonald was all but crowned Ireland’s first left-wing taoiseach-in-waiting after last year’s presidential campaign. The parties that she would have to rely on for such power are now openly questioning how left-wing her government would really be.
