For the first time, unionist parties do not hold an overall majority in Northern Ireland following the recent election. But although the result confirms that Sinn Féin has transformed into an electoral force, is advancing a united Ireland still central to its agenda? Matthew Whiting writes that the promise of a united Ireland looks more like a victim of Sinn Féin’s success than the next step in their ever conquering rise.
Twenty years ago, Irish republicans took the gamble that they were more likely to achieve their goals through peaceful elections than violence. This decision did not entail Sinn Féin changing its ultimate goal of a united Ireland, but rather it represented an adaptation of tactics to achieve this goal. This raises the question of whether the recent election results for the Northern Irish Assembly represent a vindication of republicanism’s electoral gamble and, given the strong results for Sinn Féin, whether Ireland is one step closer on a gradual path to reunification.
Clearly, the election results will have made the bodhrán that sounds the heartbeat of Irish nationalism thump a little louder and faster. Sinn Féin now hold 27 seats compared to the DUP’s 28 seats (in 2016 the DUP held 38 seats compared to Sinn Féin’s 28 seats) – a steep loss given the DUP only shed 1.1 per cent of its vote share. But reducing every constituency from 6 to 5 seats in a bid to create a smaller Assembly cost the DUP more than other parties.
The UUP secured 10 seats, losing 6 seats despite largely keeping its vote share the same, while the SDLP retained all of its 12 seats. This now means that the combined seat share of Unionist parties (38 seats) is smaller than that of nationalist parties (39 seats). Meanwhile the Alliance Party, which attempts to sit outside the unionist/nationalist divide, fared well, retaining its 8 seats and increasing its vote share. Significantly, almost 70 per cent of voters supported a party that endorsed ‘remain’ in the Brexit referendum, perhaps signalling a coming headache for Theresa May.
The vote share (%) of the major parties since the endorsement of the 1998 Belfast Agreement peace deal
Note: The years where elections were held are marked either ‘A’ for an Assembly election or ‘W’ for a Westminster general election. Assembly elections are based on percentage of first preference votes in STV elections.
If Sinn Féin’s transformation is judged by its ability to become an electoral force, undoubtedly this election is a great success. In a conversation I had last year with a leading SDLP official, they rather cynically declared that achieving a united Ireland does not actually matter to Sinn Féin as long as it does not hurt their vote share. But I’m not so sure this is true – at some point, to retain their credibility and to meet demands of grassroots supporters, they will need to deliver on their united Ireland rhetoric and show some tangible gains. The party has long argued that many of the ills facing (Northern) Irish society stem from an illegitimate colonisation that needs to be undone, and that true democracy can only be realised in Ireland when its people have full self-determination.
When I interviewed Matt Carthy recently, an impressive member of the ‘new guard’ of Sinn Féin and head of the party’s Uniting Ireland strategy, he made it clear that advancing a united Ireland remains central to the party’s medium-term goals. The strategy to achieve this is to open up a dialogue with unionism and seek to persuade key groups in Dublin, London, and Belfast that this is the best way forward for all of Ireland’s inhabitants.
When assessed against the criteria of advancing a united Ireland, the 2017 election results do not look quite so rosy for Sinn Féin. In this campaign, the desire for a united Ireland featured very little. It came up indirectly at times when politicians argued about not wanting to be ruled from London, but this is very different from calling for a united Ireland. Instead, much of the electoral campaign was about making a judgment on the competence of the rulers of the Northern Ireland Assembly, especially Arlene Foster’s role in the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme scandal.
This is not to say that voters in Northern Ireland are free-floating and untethered from any ethno-nationalist cleavage (typically, over 90 per cent of Catholics vote for nationalist parties and even more Protestants vote for unionist parties). But today’s Northern Irish voters (especially younger ones) think in terms of capability and competence to promote prosperity and welfare. From this perspective, it appears that the Assembly election was more about bedding-down better functioning Northern Irish institutions than moving closer to all-Ireland ones.
Additionally, the DUP’s decline does not actually represent an endorsement of the competing vision of Sinn Féin. Instead, it is more about the DUP misreading the unionist electorate and Sinn Féin being better at energising its base to turnout. The DUP suffered because it appears to be increasingly out of step with the Northern Irish electorate. It was the only major party to back Brexit in a territory that voted 56 per cent to remain. It also continues to argue against gay marriage and abortion on the basis of religious belief, despite the strikingly secular and modern feel of Belfast, Derry and most other towns throughout Northern Ireland.
To the extent that Sinn Féin’s vote share increased, this was not necessarily because its manifesto is winning over new voters who see austerity, Brexit, and civil rights best protected within a united Ireland framework. Instead it was most likely as a result of higher turnout and successfully getting traditional supporters to bother to vote.
The gap between moderate unionism and Sinn Féin still remains vast, and securing this community’s consent will be necessary to move closer to a united Ireland. Indeed, Mike Nesbitt, the leader of the UUP who resigned in the wake of his party’s poor performance, declared he would transfer his vote to the SDLP. This was too radical for many unionist supporters who rounded on him for transferring to any nationalist party, even one without the radical legacy of Sinn Féin.
Although the two Unionist parties have now lost a majority in the Assembly, the Alliance Party is currently committed to retaining the Union and creating a federal UK. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a vote for Sinn Féin simply cannot be equated with a vote for a united Ireland – opinion polls tell us that Catholic voters in Northern Ireland are less committed to a United Ireland than Protestant voters are to remaining in the UK. Competent devolved government trumps changing constitutional status quo.
So what now for Northern Ireland? The parties have three weeks to kickstart the process of consenting to form a government using d’Hondt rules for allocating ministerial portfolios. This looks decidedly tricky given that the issues that led to the Assembly’s collapse in the first place are yet to be resolved. This will be a tough job given that Arlene Foster’s position is damaged within her party, while Sinn Féin’s leader, Michelle O’Neill, has not actually served as deputy First Minister yet.
But recent history might have some sage advice for James Brokenshire, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I previously interviewed Peter Hain, the Secretary of State who first struck a deal to bring the DUP and Sinn Féin together in government in 2006/7, after years of stalemate. Hain threatened Northern Irish politicians with cuts to their budgets and wages, and greater intervention from Westminster unless they agreed a deal. It worked!
One thing the DUP and Sinn Féin have in common is that both want devolved rule (albeit the DUP will not have this at any cost and Sinn Féin only want it temporarily before transitioning to a united Ireland) and supporters of both parties clearly want competent, not petulant, leaders. Votes and money are always good ways to focus politicians’ minds and this may be the best leverage Brokenshire has in the next three weeks.
For Sinn Féin meanwhile, the message is mixed. Their new leader, Michelle O’Neill, while being from a staunchly republican family, has played very well with her electorate, reinforcing the decision to reject armed struggle. The party also continues to do well in the Republic of Ireland, building its desired all-Ireland dynamic. Competence and working within the ruling institutions has been the basis on which Sinn Féin built its vote share, not aspirations for a new constitutional settlement.
Electoral success requires compromise in hardline goals (as the history of socialist and Christian Democratic parties throughout Europe tells us) and Sinn Féin’s goal of a united Ireland sometimes looks like a victim of their success rather than the next step in their ever conquering rise. The 2017 Assembly Election confirms this trend.
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Matthew Whiting is a Research Associate in the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations at the University of Coventry. His book entitled ‘From Revolution to Moderation: The Transformation of Sinn Féin and the IRA’ is coming out with Edinburgh University Press later this year.
An enjoyable article over all. i would argue that the pbp seat is nationalist therefore makin it a 40/40 seat split. sinn fein are the master strategists . They knew that there support for Same sex marriage , abortion rights and an Irish language would get under the thin skinned unionist. This coupled with the fear of a hard border followin brexit , the DUPs perceived arrogance over the handling of RHI and mcguinness’ illness made it a perfect storm for them. I doubt they will be able to achieve this level of success in the next election cycle..
“In this campaign, the desire for a united Ireland featured very little. It came up indirectly at times when politicians argued about not wanting to be ruled from London, but this is very different from calling for a united Ireland. Instead, much of the electoral campaign was about making a judgment on the competence of the rulers of the Northern Ireland Assembly, especially Arlene Foster’s role in the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme scandal.”
I’m not sure what campaign you were watching, but the real story was how little RHI was the focus. Immediately on the calling of the election, Sinn Féin moved away from the ‘normal’ politics of policy and efficiency, and used the Irish language rights as a way to get the DUP as the enemy for old-fashioned reasons, tribalism.
The danger was that SF, already losing popularity in grassroots nationalists for being seen to kow-tow to the DUP, would suffer further cutbacks if the campaign were fought on the details of the RHI scandal or the performance of the executive. With the SDLP in opposition, Sinn Fein was in a more dangerous position than usual.
So it did what it knows best, ably assisted by Foster, who was an effective recruiting seargent for nationalism, it made it an election of us versus them….equality, respect etc. were trotted out. The RHI was a distant memory.
I’m sorry to say that although you make some great points I feel that your conclusion is fatally flawed. Sinn Féin working within the current institutional framework successfully makes a United Ireland more likely, not less. This is borne out by the patient governance of the Scottish nationalists whose strategy is to govern competently in order to win over Unionists.
Albeit Sinn Féin are some way behind the SNP with regards to competence and political acumen, they are nonetheless coming across as more “competent” and “normal” than their DUP counterparts, which in turn will “normalize” a seemingly radical idea of a United Ireland.
The change is coming, how fast we get there will largely depend on how Sinn Féin and the DUP handle their responsibility. I suspect both parties as they stand are helping a United Ireland become a reality.
First of all nationalists do not hold a majority in the new assembly. As well as the two unionist parties (DUP and UUP) there are two other declared unionists – one TUV and one independent unionist. This gives the declared unionists a majority of one (1) over the declared nationalists.
At least part of the nationalist’s success is probably due to demography. Catholics (nationalists) out breed Protestants. Additionally young middle class Protestants typically emigrate to go to university in Britain and don’t come back. This is exemplified by the fact that Queen’s University Belfast has a large Catholic majority among its student body (although its workforce is overwhelmingly Protestant). With the high voting turn out by recent standards we could be seeing the first traces of the demographic time bomb facing unionism kicking in.
Very insightful piece but I question at least one small part of it. You buck the trend of equating Nationalism’s electoral gains with trends toward a United Ireland, but echo the conventional wisdom that the DUP’s stance on Brexit and marriage are harming it by putting it “increasingly out of step with the Northern Irish electorate.” I’m not so sure of that.
First of all, NI was one of the constituencies that most surprised observers with how **well** Leave did; the support for Remain in Unionist areas was especially disappointing. I hardly think that the numbers show that a pro-Brexit Unionist party would have a difficult future in the current climate. Gay marriage, of course, is vastly more popular, but here again I wonder if a socially conservative working-class party might have as much trouble as people imagine. Sinn Fein has abandoned traditional working-class politics, but that doesn’t mean that the DUP needs to in order to “have a future in the 21st century.” Electoral results in many countries seem to suggest that there is a future in this broad strategy.
I think the fact that the DUP is being hurt by its position on marriage has less to do with it being an inherently unviable strategy and more to do with the fact that it has just been very stupid this election cycle. Whatever happened, after all, to the attempt to reach out to conservative Catholics? After all the noise, it was nowhere to be found, and I don’t think it stood to gain much with hardline Loyalists for its tribal obnoxiousness. The language bill, for instance, if unacceptable to the DUP, should have been undercut with a rival, perhaps more efficacious (it could hardly have been less so) plan to promote preservation of the Irish language in the North. It’s commonly assumed that the DUP can only gain its share of the burgeoning swing vote with some sort of David Cameron like strategy. Everyone else is excluded from “the 21st century” on this view; again, results elsewhere in the world suggest the opinion-makers’ vision should not quite be so narrow.
So: Stupid handling of RCI fallout, needlessly exclusionary tribalism, temporary Brexit heat, and a seat shrinking whose details tended to harm them disproportionately all added up to a very bad election for the DUP. Other than that I agree wholeheartedly with your analysis. The real headline is a long-term trend not toward NI becoming more Nationalist in the traditional sense (less still heading toward a United Ireland) but toward it becoming more like a “normal country,” with an ever-increasing swing vote holding the balance of power. By the time the NI populace does go to referendum, it may end up–in the question of who is a “Unionist” and who is a “Nationalist,” and who votes “Yes” and who votes “No” in the referendum–having an air more like today’s Scotland than today’s Northern Ireland. Wouldn’t that be nice?
*RHI, of course. Apologies for that and other misspellings.
Hi Diego,
Thanks for this. I can certainly get on-board with a lot of what you said, but I still reckon Brexit matters for many DUP voters today – I guess the question is how much it matters. Perhaps if exit polls give some data on the salience of different issues for voters when they cast their votes, we will know better how much Brexit and social/moral issues counted. But, as you say, I suspect it was a combination of all of the above along with the constituency-size changes and a few bad leadership choices that account for the decline of the DUP this time round.