Sinn Fein ambitions face reality check at Irish local and EU elections

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By Padraic Halpin

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Sinn Fein’s ambitions of governing Ireland for the first time and advancing a bid for unity with Northern Ireland are facing a potentially huge setback in local and European elections on Friday as their commanding poll advantage melts away.

The former political wing of the Irish Republican Army has seen a huge and near three-year unbroken lead almost completely disappear in most recent polls as immigration challenges the housing crisis at the top of the list of voters’ concerns ahead of a general election due by next March.

The most recent survey put the left-wing Sinn Fein level with Prime Minister Simon Harris’ more moderate Fine Gael on 22%, a drop of 7 points in less than a month. Harris’ main coalition partner Fianna Fail stood on 17%.

    Ireland’s already large block of independent candidates, many of whom have staked out the hardest lines on migration, have again been the biggest beneficiaries of Sinn Fein’s slide, becoming the biggest group on 23% in Sunday’s survey.

    “Based on the current numbers, I think Sinn Fein’s chances of leading the next government look pretty slim,” said Kevin Cunningham, a lecturer in politics at TU Dublin, who helped compile the Ireland Thinks survey.

Sinn Fein’s problem is that Fine Gael and Fianna Fail want to govern together again without Sinn Fein, who likely need to be back up around the 30% mark that they were averaging six months ago to cut off their two centre-right rivals’ path to re-election.

A Sinn Fein-led government would turbo-charge the party’s chief goal of seeking a referendum on unifying with Northern Ireland, the British region where it is already the lead party. 

It would also mark a swing to the left from the pro-business policies that have made the economy so reliant on foreign multinational investment and jobs.

IMMIGRATION IMPACT

While Harris’ coalition is struggling to deal with record numbers of refugees, immigration’s emergence as a key issue has taken voters’ focus away from the severe lack of affordable housing that had helped catapult Sinn Fein up the polls.

Analysts see the party as far less sure-footed on immigration, caught between its traditional working class voters who are more sceptical on the issue and its newer, younger middle class supporters concerned about migrants’ rights.

An Irish Times/Ipsos B&A survey last month suggested Sinn Fein supporters held the toughest line on immigration, with 70% of them wanting to see a tighter border policy and support for more deportations.

Eoin O’Broin, Sinn Fein’s spokesman for housing, said that while immigration is playing a part in this campaign in a way it has not done previously, it is “nowhere near the top of the list of issues.”

    He also cautioned against reading too much into the local and European polls.

    “This will give us a temperature gauge but only a temperature gauge, and anybody who is either saying something is inevitable or unlikely this far out from a general election I think is foolish,” he told Reuters. 

    The party’s support sank to a mere 9% in a 2019 local election before Sinn Fein shocked the establishment by securing 25% – the most for any single party – at the last general election, held nine months later.

“Sinn Fein are falling victim to the latest manifestation of the extreme volatility in Irish politics for 15 years since the economic crash,” said Dublin City University politics professor Gary Murphy, who described its chances of leading the next government as “ebbing away.”

“All isn’t lost either. We saw them make a miraculous comeback before. If it can happen once, it can happen again.”