Newton Emerson: If Sinn Féin is good enough for us, it’s good enough for you

Sinn Féin's latest rise in the polls makes its participation in the next Irish government look like a mathematical inevitability. The emerging pattern of Fine Gael objections to this train of thought is worth addressing point by point.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said Sinn Féin is "a Eurosceptic, high-tax, sectarian party." Senator Neale Richmond said Sinn Féin is "not fit for government" as a "hard-left party who haven't come to terms with their past". Brian Hayes MEP echoed both comments and asked, "How could an Irish government ever again be seen as even handed in its dealings with Northern parties were Sinn Féin to be in government? Our role as a government being one of the guarantors of the Good Friday agreement would be severely undermined."

Hayes’s point deserves a legal answer. The requirement for impartiality in the Belfast Agreement applies solely to the sovereign government – currently London – and is defined in effect as observing the agreement’s rights and equality provisions.

It is a matter of serious principle for most unionists that the Republic is a foreign country and its internal affairs are none of their business

Dublin has to be impartial only in the event of a united Ireland. The agreement places no restrictions on Northern parties participating in British or Irish governments, nor could it without breaching its own rights and equality provisions, by creating a lesser category of voter.

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Even the DUP-Tory deal does not undermine the agreement; a Fine Gael-Sinn Féin coalition certainly would not do so.

Varadkar’s striking use of the word “sectarian” implies an eye on deeper unionist concerns, yet this issue cancels out either side of the Border. Most Northern parties are sectarian to a degree, while there is no substantial part of the Southern population for Sinn Féin to be sectarian against.

The unionist perspective on a Dublin coalition is not a straightforward case of wanting republicans kept out. DUP and UUP politicians regularly note how insulting it is for Southern parties to say Sinn Féin is fit for government with unionists but not good enough to share power with Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil – two parties that presided over the winnowing of the South's Protestant population and have not noticeably come to terms with that past.

It is a matter of serious principle for most unionists that the Republic is a foreign country and its internal affairs are none of their business. From a more cynical unionist standpoint, every party in Dublin is republican, pro-unification and treacherous, so adding Sinn Féin to the mix makes little difference. In any case, under the Belfast Agreement Sinn Féin could win every seat in the Dáil and still not circumvent the unionist veto.

The second front in Fine Gael’s critique is that Sinn Féin is a hard-left, high-tax party. This was presumably the real meat in Varadkar’s comment, designed – along with the reference to Euroscepticism – to put some clear blue water between Fine Gael and a potential coalition partner. The critique flies in the face of Northern experience, however.

In the last full term before Stormont collapsed, apparently because Sinn Féin and the DUP disagreed on almost everything, both parties still managed to agree to devolve and slash corporation tax and implement a 10 per cent redundancy programme across the public sector to pay for it – a policy denounced by trade unions and social activists as a neoliberal race to the bottom.

That year also saw Sinn Féin sign up to Conservative welfare reform in Northern Ireland after blocking it for three years.

For Sinn Féin this was all about Irish unification. The party’s purpose in cutting corporation tax was harmonisation with the Republic’s flagship economic policy. Welfare reform was blocked over how it might play with Southern voters, then unblocked after the ensuing Stormont crisis appeared to play worse.

Look at how Sinn Féin has moved from ruling out junior membership of any Dublin coalition to wooing Fine Gael and the same pragmatism as in the North is evident

When forced to choose between its undoubted leftism and practical steps towards Irish unity, Sinn Féin will invariably choose the latter – and because hard-left politics is not a practical means to deliver anything, holding office inexorably pushes the party towards the centre.

It is true that Sinn Féin is more left-wing in the Republic, where it has a younger and more urban composition. Unification may also be a less pressing issue for its Southern voters and members. But look at how the party has moved from ruling out junior membership of any Dublin coalition to wooing Fine Gael and the same pragmatism as in the North is evident.

A theory once popular in the SDLP was that holding power would in turn help to reverse Sinn Féin’s fortunes – or at least to reverse them every so often, as democracy tends to expect.

According to this theory, the responsibilities of office would deprive Sinn Féin of eternal victimhood and expose its failings to electoral punishment.

As can be seen from the fate of the SDLP, this has not worked out – but that is the case in Northern Ireland, where blame can still always be ascribed to unionists and the British government.

Even Brexit cannot make these tribal bogeymen relevant in the Republic. Can it?