“Sinn Féin simply means nothing to the bulk of people in the South.”

In this recent post, World By Storm looked at some of the problems facing Provisional Sinn Féin, and discussed Eoin Ó Broin’s analysis of his party’s election results. Ó Broin has on a number of occasions written articles questioning the direction and focus of his party. Now we have another candidate from the recent elections, and a higher profile one, offering her thoughts. Toiréasa Ferris surprised lots of people with how well she did in the EU elections, although she then expressed some doubts about a career in politics. She is exactly the sort of face that is needed if her party are to make the leap forward that they are seeking in the south. So what does she have to say?

Something has been bothering her for some time she says – “As a party, what are we at and where are we going?” She notes that activists

the length and breadth of this country put in Trojan work over the last few months. The anger of ordinary citizens was palpable on every doorstep and the kind of economic policies we have long called for were not just being considered but demanded by the people. This should have been our election but it wasn’t.

Being what those from across the border like to call a nordie, I always blanch when I see the south referred to as the country, and the fact that it could appear in a column in An Phoblacht demonstrates the extent to which an unconscious partitionism is deeply-rooted in the south. I’d be surprised if the paper under Danny Morrison would have published this wording, although someone may come along to correct me. And of course the phrase illustrates the biggest problem that Ferris says her and her colleagues face in the south.

If we are honest with ourselves we will admit that the majority of those who we need to put a 1 or a 2 after our logo on a ballot paper unfortunately see us as a Northern-based party, irrelevant to the everyday concerns of people in the 26 Counties. Voters are unclear about what we stand for, which is not surprising as I’m sure many of us are starting to wonder about this also. We have been trying to appeal to too broad a spectrum of people and as a result have lost touch with our base. For this reason, amongst others, we were seen as neither a credible alternative to the Government nor a party of protest.
After more than a decade working for the party down this end of the country, it hurts to say it but the fact is – Sinn Féin simply means nothing to the bulk of people in the South. We therefore need to stop asking ourselves ‘Why don’t more people vote for us?’ and start asking ‘What must we do to win people’s support?’
This debate needs to take place now. It’s more than four weeks since the election and we, the activists, are waiting. The party is suffering an identity crisis – what are we trying to achieve in the 26 and what do we stand for besides a united Ireland

It is probably never a good sign when a high-profile member who enjoys the clear backing of the leadership says that party activists are unclear as to what their organisation stands for. Her critique bears some similarity to that of Ó Broin. To paraphrase it, it is that in the hunt for more votes, the party has lost what made it distinctive, with the result being that voters who might be expected to look to it have looked elsewhere. Unspoken here too is also the fact that with the peace process having bedded in, the party has lost its Unique Selling Point and also its newsworthiness and some of its dynamism. However, whereas Ó Broin advocates a clear shift to the left, Ferris is offering a different solution that has more in common with Eamonn Gilmore the Leader of the Labour Party than Eamonn Gilmore The Workers’ Party TD.

Abstract talk of ‘Left’ or ‘Right’ is meaningless to ordinary people. We need to translate the broad terms ‘republicanism’ and ‘socialism’ into a more modern language of ‘decency, of looking out for each other, of a sense of community’ – a language ordinary people understand.
Let’s get clear on who our potential supporters are and give them meaningful reasons to vote Sinn Féin.

I’m not sure that when class and political contradictions have been sharpened by the economic crisis and the government spending cuts that ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ are as abstract as Ms. Ferris thinks, but this passage gives an interesting insight into the driving force here. Although she talks about the need to build a party around councillors who are community activists and not politicians, this strikes me as the language of Blairism.

The recent Ard Fheis motion on bloodsports and constant ‘rights talk’ by our national spokespeople show the party to be out of touch with its base. We need to involve councillors and local organisers who have their finger on the pulse of public opinion in the formation of policy and in setting the direction of publicity.
We need to carve out a political space for ourselves that is distinct from that of the other parties – and we need to articulate that politics with confidence and conviction.
If we have learnt anything over the last few months it is that we need to change the way we communicate. People have a short attention span and are not interested in abstract ideas or policy details. We need a simple message communicated in language people understand. I’ve written nearly 1,000 words and I bet some of you remember that I was at the cinema and I’m wondering what we as a party stand for but most won’t remember exactly what suggestions have been put forward. Don’t worry as I’m sure you will after your second read.
Remember the passion, the self-confidence, the enthusiasm there was in Sinn Féin at the time many of us joined? We need to get back that self-belief.

I think there is more than a hint of confusion in this section, and it might shed some light as to why it is that some of the passion and self-confidence seems to have drained over the last decade. Not only is the party caught between two stools, but so is the article. Note the bit about people not being interested in policy details. Yet at the last general election, it is pretty universally believed that Adams’ inability to deliver on policy detail as opposed to rights talk on vital issues like the health service cost his party dear in terms of credibility. She says that there is a need to carve out a distinctive space but at the same time both abstraction and detail must be eschewed.

She says that people are unlikely to remember the proposals put forward. Reading this article, I was struck by the lack of concrete proposals. For example, she says “Let’s get clear on who our potential supporters are and give them meaningful reasons to vote Sinn Féin.” Yet she never mentions who these people might be. She doesn’t identify the areas in which her party has something distinctive to say, nor even say what its distinctive message is. Decency is something used by everyone from Brown to Cameron, Hume to Trimble. It hardly cuts it.

I would though agree with her basic analysis, which is that her party no longer stands out in the public mind in the south as representing anything particularly distinctive. If we look at the successes and failures of equivalent sized parties (at least in terms of the Dáil if not council seats, where PSF has a larger number than these equivalents) the thing that made them stand out was a strong and distinctive message. For The WP of the 1980s, it was class politics; no-one can be in any doubt where the priority of the Greens lie; the Progressive Democrats had a clear thatcherite message, even if it got them rejected and led to their downfall. 10 years ago, perhaps even five, the Provos had a distinctive message – they were the hardline party of a united Ireland, and they looked like serious players, an impression heightened by their being on the TV about the North almost every night, and meeting governments, US Presidents, and people like Mandela. Now, Adams increasingly looks out of touch, in the south, though not the north where he maintains his popular touch. A united Ireland is so far off as to be irrelevant to the party’s popular image. The TDs have not been effective performers. We don’t even need to look back to The WP or the PDs for how small parties can make a bigger splash through effective Dáil performers, we need only look at Joe Higgins. The PSF TDs have had nowhere near the same impact.

I am not saying PSF faces a crisis. I don’t think it does. Its position in the north is assured, it is likely to maintain the rough number of TDs it has (plus or minus one or two), while its local council base seems safe. What is happening here is not a party in crisis but rather the shattering of expectations that had risen way too high. And what that has done is cause some people within the organisation to panic. Especially, might I suggest on the basis of some of the comments quoted above, some of the people who joined more recently expecting to be part of a serious player in politics in the south. With no distinctive economic or environmental ideology, it might be that some of these people prove hard to hold if say Labour grows in strength over the next decade. Then there might really be a crisis.