Newton Emerson - Are we seeing signs of a generational shift for nationalism?
Newton Emerson wrote in the Irish News, May 12 2016: "AWAITING his fate at the Upper Bann count last Saturday, John O’Dowd warned the BBC that Sinn Féin was not about to “dry up and blow away.” This was straw imagery for a straw man argument. Of course Sinn Féin is not about to disappear. Major political parties are incredibly durable and Sinn Féin should be even more so, being both a party and a historical brand. However, the declining nationalist vote is about more than Sinn Féin - it is about the nationalist community itself. As a rough rule of thumb, northern nationalism changes its political project once a generation. This is hardly surprising - it is seeking the answer to an intractable problem, unlike unionism, which has the answer it wants already. Each new project does not necessarily require a new party. There have only been three dominant nationalist parties in Northern Ireland’s history, if the on-off record of the old Nationalist Party counts as one. But each new project does require the party of the day to keep up or face being ruthlessly ditched. Are we now seeing straws in the wind of a generational shift? Sinn Féin’s hypersensitivity to swings towards minor parties suggests it might think so, although it has a problem with electoral saturation even at high levels of success, as its project is premised on unstoppable momentum towards a united Ireland. Even Sinn Féin’s friends would concede it is an unusual political vehicle, for reasons that could see it date rapidly in normal times. It has also conflated itself with the cause of a united Ireland to an unwisely inflexible extent, making any setback for one an off-putting setback for the other. The obvious next project for nationalism is Fianna Fáil moving north. In fact, this has been the obvious next project for so long that it feels stale before it starts. Gerry Adams has been goading Micheál Martin and other southern political leaders to get on with it, which indicates that a contest with Fianna Fáail is Sinn Féin’s preferred - or least-worst - future. In the meantime, could northern nationalists pick a project of their own? People Before Profit and the Greens may designate as ‘other’ but they are all-Ireland parties. The former has an established presence in the Dáil and the latter has been in two recent Dublin governments. Both grew their Stormont vote last week almost entirely at the expense of Sinn Féin and the SDLP and their vote is more substantial than their seat tally reveals - it equals 13 per cent of nationalist first preferences. There is certainly enough of a swing here to recall nationalist experiments with the Northern Ireland Labour Party, in the 1940s and again a generation later in the 1960s. While it would under-rate People Before Profit to call it a protest party, it seems unlikely that a nationalist electorate over-served on the left is itching for Trotskyite representation. The swing to the Greens looks more sustainable, given the high calibre of activists it is attracting and the green movement’s broader appeal to young people. That appeal is a bit of a mystery to anyone over 40 - myself included - but that is precisely the point of generational change. However, the main change within nationalism is simply a declining turnout, initially affecting the SDLP and now impacting Sinn Féin in equal measure. Unionism is heroic to interpret this as nationalism becoming more comfortable with Northern Ireland. It could as easily indicate discomfort with Stormont, heralding trouble down the line. If the leadership of unionism had any strategic sense it would give nationalists some delivery from power-sharing before frustration produces unpredictable results. We will know soon enough if the promised ‘real Arlene’ has that kind of foresight. When it comes to strategy, unionism still struggles with hindsight. SDLP members joke darkly that unionists are forever ready to deal with the last leaders of nationalism. A constant subtext of the peace process was that failing to deal with Sinn Féin would just mean having to compromise a generation later with something worse, presumably the political wing of dissident republicanism. That prospect seems to have receded but this creates a new danger of unionism thinking it can wait Sinn Féin out for something better. If there is one thing our history teaches us it is that nobody wins when unionism deadlocks nationalism into political uselessness. The DUP must now be magnanimous in victory - because one-sided victory in Northern Ireland is always a passing illusion." See here: http://www.irishnews.com/opinion/columnists/2016/05/12/news/are-we-seeing-signs-of-a-generational-shift-for-nationalism--516074/?param=ds441rif44T
