Sinn Féin stakes a claim to the New Ireland

The writer is an economist, author and broadcaster

It’s a political expression every Irish person knows: Tiocfaidh ár lá. In this Twitter age, it has that essential three-word snappiness, up there with “Take back control”, “Drain the swamp” and “Get Brexit done”. But it comes from a darker era. The slogan was coined by IRA hunger-striker Bobby Sands, used by his clenched-fisted colleagues and spray-painted on gable walls in west Belfast. Last year, it was publicly invoked by Mary Lou McDonald, the new, urbane leader of Sinn Féin. This heavily loaded expression is the mantra of Irish Republicanism. It means: “Our day will come”.

It looks like that day might be here.

Sinn Féin, the political wing of the IRA during its terrorist campaign, leads in the polls ahead of Saturday’s Irish election. The country talks about little else. For traditionalists this has been unimaginable, but we live in a New Ireland now. The past is another country.

Sinn Féin is picking up votes in areas it wouldn’t have dared tiptoe a few years ago. The party was at 25 per cent in one survey last week, followed by 23 per cent for Fianna Fáil with Prime Minister Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael party on 20 per cent. Polls overestimate the left: politically engaged younger people respond while the older, Mass-going voters keep their counsel. Even so, Sinn Féin’s breakthrough means it will be at the table in tortuous coalition talks. Horse-trading begins on Monday with no clear path to government. Proportional representation means that in Ireland there’s as much politics after the election as before it.

To outsiders, it seems strange that the fastest growing, best-educated country in the EU, a liberal democracy run by a competent, gay, mixed-race Taoiseach should lurch so suddenly to the ethno-nationalist left. It would be lazy to lump Ireland in with nativist trends elsewhere, so before we explain what is going on, let’s explain what is not.

Despite wanting a united Ireland and calling for a referendum in Northern Ireland on reunification, a vote for Sinn Féin in the Republic is not, as in Catalonia, an endorsement of narrow-gauge nationalism. Sinn Féin supports the Good Friday Agreement. Despite being a nationalist party, this surge in support is not, like the Brexit vote, a vote against the EU. Sinn Féin is committed to the EU as are more than 85 per cent of Irish people. Despite sounding tribal, this vote is not, like Matteo Salvini’s constituency in Italy, a vote against immigration. One in six Irish residents are foreign-born. Sinn Féin embraces multiculturalism.

In the US, nativism is fuelled in part by economic nostalgia. Ireland doesn’t do economic nostalgia. We’ve never had it so good. National income has never been higher, unemployment never lower. Economically, our past was a catastrophe. “Make America Great Again” might fly in the States; “Make Ireland Great Again” doesn’t cut it here.

The Sinn Féin surge is not an old-fashioned Catholic vote against liberalism, as in Poland. It supported both gay marriage and abortion rights. In contrast to the UK, where Brexit was an elderly phenomenon, Sinn Féin is the biggest party for under-30s. The older you are, the less likely you are to vote Sinn Féin.

Sinn Féin offers something else: change, and a protest vote against the establishment for voters who feel they don’t have a stake. The party are outsiders; the established duopoly are the insiders, with one propping up a government led by the other.

Will these voters stay with Sinn Féin? My sense is they will not. Sinn Féin was a working-class party; today, it is picking up support in the critical 30-45 age group, the commuter classes of Leinster and Munster. The big issues there are housing, transport and childcare.

Sinn Féin promises rent freezes and an expansion of public housing. It will tax corporations, particularly multinational companies. It offers a typical, left-of-centre shopping list, financed by borrowing and higher taxes on the rich.

And what about the IRA? In the past days, the connection between the IRA and Sinn Féin in the North has dominated headlines, but most voters in the Republic are weary of the past. One in four are prepared to give Sinn Féin a chance. It would be completely wrong to equate Sinn Féin’s votes with support for the IRA. There was never more than fractional support for the armed struggle in the Republic. Relations with the UK were, until Brexit, as close as they’ve ever been. But Brexit altered the mood. Irish people disliked the way Brexiters disregarded Irish concerns. English nationalism has consequences far beyond Irish support for Scotland in this weekend’s Six Nations rugby match. At the margin, this may help Sinn Féin, but it’s not behind the surge.

Longer term, demography is destiny. The main parties are dying, literally. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, who have dominated politics for 100 years, can claim only around 25 per cent support among the under-40s. Politically, New Ireland is up for grabs and Sinn Féin’s hat is in the ring.