Opinion

Patrick Murphy: Sinn Féin already looks like it needs a new leader

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy is an Irish News columnist and former director of Belfast Institute for Further and Higher Education.

With its northern strategy failed and its southern strategy at risk, it is time for fresh thinking from Sinn Féin - and perhaps a new leader. Picture by Hugh Russell
With its northern strategy failed and its southern strategy at risk, it is time for fresh thinking from Sinn Féin - and perhaps a new leader. Picture by Hugh Russell With its northern strategy failed and its southern strategy at risk, it is time for fresh thinking from Sinn Féin - and perhaps a new leader. Picture by Hugh Russell

WHILE British politics continued to wrestle with insanity this week - and insanity appears to be winning - a hugely significant event in Irish politics received scant attention.

Leo Varadkar told his party's national conference: "Under no circumstances will Fine Gael enter government with Sinn Féin."

He claimed that Sinn Féin had "toxic" values and that it did not respect the courts, the Gardai and democracy. His statement was unexpected and surprisingly strong.

Fianna Fáil has already ruled out coalition with Sinn Féin, so its most likely way into office in Dublin was through coalition with Fine Gael.

Until recently, both Sinn Féin and Fine Gael avoided offending each other and this column had suggested that Stormont's revival depended on Sinn Féin entering the Dublin cabinet.

But now that the Dublin wedding is off, Sinn Féin's strategy is unclear.

Although the two big Dáil parties can change their post-election minds, Sinn Féin is now voluntarily excluded from government in Belfast and compulsorily excluded from government in Dublin.

It is hardly the ideal situation for a party advocating Irish unity.

So what prompted Leo to speak out, how did Sinn Féin arrive in this position and where does it go from here?

The Taoiseach's criticism arises from Sinn Féin's mixed messages, particularly relating to what it used to call British rule in Ireland.

The problem stems from the 1994 ceasefire when, to avoid a 1921-style split which led to the civil war, the IRA leadership began its contradictory messages to keep all its members onside.

So it claimed victory in the war for a united Ireland, while administering a partitionist Stormont and assuring its members that the IRA had not gone away, you know.

The organisation's strict discipline allowed the leadership to sell such contradictory messages to the membership, especially in the north.

But while Gerry Adams had both the political charisma and the historical background to sell mixed messages, Mary Lou McDonald has neither.

Her Tiocfaidh ár lá makes her look like someone cheering at an All-Ireland final, even though she had not been to a match all year.

She does not have to do her "Up the rebels" bit, because most of those who did the fighting in places like west Belfast have now drifted away.

They are so disillusioned that they drink in pubs, rather than the plush republican drinking centres designed to shepherd them into paramilitary retirement.

When the split finally came, it was just about where to drink.

Mary Lou's mixed messages are just political therapy for a new generation.

But while they are popular in the north, they do not go down well in the non-sectarian south.

There, any hint of disloyalty to the institutions of the state leaves Sinn Féin open to the type of attack which Leo Varadkar made last week.

Leo's poor performance in government has left him vulnerable to Fianna Fáil, which adopted the electoral strategy of distancing itself from Sinn Féin some time ago.

Now he is playing catch-up and Sinn Féin has made it easy by allowing him to become the anti-Brexit champion of nationalist Ireland.

Sinn Féin needed to distance themselves from Leo's nationalist posturing by challenging his over-reliance on the EU regarding Brexit and his failure to directly engage with the British and the DUP.

Sinn Féin should have filled the gap which Leo left, by trying to shape the direction of Brexit in Westminster - and what a platform they would have had there - and working to achieve some form of accommodation with the DUP.

That would not have lost them votes in the north - nothing ever does - and it would have moved them out of Leo's shadow and into the limelight for the forthcoming southern general election.

Instead, the party now has an over-reliance on Mary Lou's aggressive political utterances, most of which are counter-productive.

These include her comments on the PSNI's new chief constable, which were a serious breach of fair employment legislation; her refusal to immediately leave the Dáil when suspended by the Ceann Comhairle, which was a breach of parliamentary procedures, and her 'England, get out of Ireland banner' - an inappropriate slogan during inquests into the deaths in two Birmingham pubs of 21 civilians, killed by four men, recently identified by the IRA as its members.

Now Leo is able to portray himself as the champion of respectable nationalism, as opposed than Mary Lou's more rowdy and inconsistent version.

She has allowed him to outflank her. In response, some suggest that Sinn Féin needs a new leader.

It does, but the problem is more serious than that.

The party's northern strategy has failed and its southern strategy is at risk. It is time for fresh thinking and straight talking and right now there is little evidence of either.