Sinn Féin’s sudden switcheroo on refugees
A capitulation to racism
2 August 2024
Sinn Fein president Mary-Lou McDonald.
On July 23rd Mary-Lou McDonald announced what was essentially a 180 degree turn on the issue of refugees. She said:
"Our communities said to us: You are not speaking for us, you do not have our backs and you are not reflecting the reality on the ground," said Ms McDonald. "I would accept that we were not doing that with sufficient vigour."
Sinn Féin is calling
for an immigration system that would require consultation with communities,
an audit of local services such as health, housing, transport and education
to be completed before any accommodation centre for asylum seekers is located
in a community.
Sinn Féin claims that the newly published policy focuses on moving away from a system of private profiteering, recommends auditing areas before choosing locations for accommodation centres, and engaging in meaningful consultation with communities.
In their usual doublespeak the new policy is peppered with calls for fairness, equity and transparency. Criticism is aimed at the system of direct provision which bankrolls private landlords. Migrants should be housed in middle class areas where resources are plentiful, rather than working class areas.
This language is mirrored in the rhetoric around the burning of a homeless drop-in centre off the Lower Falls Road in Belfast following a long campaign by the IRSP (Move them to the Malone Road). It is also mirrored in a Loyalist campaign in East Belfast against an Irish school (not enough resources – move them to an Irish area).
This fake leftism cannot conceal one basic reality. A refugee crisis can be solved by blaming the refugees or it can be solved by a united fight in defence of the whole working class. Sinn Féin has fallen to the anti-migrant right and is capitulating to the racist mobs. It is not alone. One day after the November 2023 riots the trade union leadership held a short lunchtime protest and then handed the whole issue over to the state’s forces.
The left groups have tried to preserve a defence of refugees but have done so from a liberal perspective. (Refugees are welcome here), rather than a defence of a united working class. They are unable to break from the union leaderships or stray too far from Sinn Féin because their perspective is reformist and electoralist, focusing on the alliances that will win them seats in the Dáil. The most recent statements highlight an electoral alliance to include Sinn Féin.
It’s important to understand the mechanism here. The chief driver of repression of migrants is not the far right. It is the Irish government that denies them basic rights to distract from their failure to solve the housing crisis and provide a decent living for Irish workers. It is they who sweep them from tents along the Liffey to the top of local mountains. The right come in as scavengers in their tracks and the union leaderships and Sinn Fein capitulate to the right.
In an unprecedented action, following a case taken by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, the High Court ruled that the Government’s failure to provide for the needs of homeless asylum seekers is a breach of their fundamental rights.
Who will be shocked? Who will take up the case?
The need for a new socialist and anti-imperialist movement us overwhelming.