David Thompson: Sinn Féin may regret getting itself up to high doh over Drumcree, but the old politics of the 1990s still excite it
Sinn Fein may live to regret its over the top response to the idea of an Orange parade on the Garvaghy Road, with a procession now looking more likely than at any point in the past 28 years.
The party, struggling with the mundanity of government and trying to balance its populism with balancing the books, has come alive over the idea of getting stuck in to a decades-old row with the prods.
On Thursday, it posted video from a packed meeting in Belfast where the First Minister said a Drumcree parade would not be allowed to happen – presumably regardless of what the Parades Commission determines.
By its own admission, the activists came from all across Northern Ireland, but it was undoubtedly well-attended. The purpose – “to plan for the months ahead”. The main issue – the Garvaghy Road, according to the party’s social media.
Not the state of the health service. Not their government briefs to grow the economy or build the A5 road. Not even saving rural public transport as its minister starves Translink of cash through populist fare freezes.
No, Sinn Fein is up to high doh about a Protestant organisation having a parade on a public road it has decided belongs to nationalists.
If you look at the census data and adopt a crude sectarian headcount based on religion or national identity, you could safely conclude that the areas off the Garvaghy Road have nationalist majority. But there are also significant numbers of Protestant and British people – and parts of the area where anywhere between one fifth and one third of the population are foreign nationals. Most of these people are clearly not Irish nationalists. It’s unlikely they care one way the other about a parade.
But for Sinn Fein, whose attitude to the issue is firmly rooted in the language and attitudes of the late 1990s, this is a nationalist road and they will decide who goes down it. Or at least, that’s the position they’re trying to convey. Breandán Mac Cionnaith – a residents’ spokesperson and former SF man who defected to dissident party Éirígí – may have other ideas.
“What we have witnessed over the past week is a dangerous attempt by unionism to reignite the closed issue of an unwanted march on the Garvaghy Road”, Catherine Nelson said this week.
The Orange Order has been trying to get down the road for 28 years – for them the issue had never been put to bed. It may have taken decades, but loyalism has woken up to the fact that the only way that is going to happen is to play the system, and operate within the law.
The judicial review over the Parades Commission’s decision to ban the parade earlier this summer came like a bolt from the blue for both the quango itself, and nationalism. Understandably, the latter had become complacent – believing that the issue was dead and buried.
Having spent years dismissing and ridiculing the protestor-turned-lawyer Jamie Bryson, they are now confronted with the reality that he’s dealt a devastating blow to the parades quango. And by extension, to the idea that Drumcree was settled.
For all the talk of wider unionism’s involvement in this issue – it was undoubtedly the brainchild of Mr Bryson. And it is he who is in the driving seat. He has persuaded unionists and loyalists, so often seen as the aggressors, to turn republicans’ language of rights and tolerance back on them.
It is awkward, to say the least, for Sinn Fein that despite all the inflammatory rhetoric, talks over a parade look more likely than ever. Wiser heads on the nationalist side than Ms Nelson see the game unionists are playing, and know they have to play it too.
The new Orange strategy around Drumcree has been a success thus far, for those whose primary goal is completing that parade after 28 years. But there is a lot of quiet concern within unionism about the consequences.
They are primarily about the wisdom of opening up parades disputes again – as Sinn Fein could very quickly resurrect other flashpoints across the province. There is also a fear about the image it sends about unionism, picking old battles.
Generally, the response by unionism has been quite cautious – and there have certainly been no slurs on the people of the Garvaghy Road, the like of which Sinn Fein has directed at their Orange neighbours. For a party which so often lectures everyone else about leadership, it has really ramped up the language in recent weeks – branding a prospective parade “sectarian harassment” and “supremacist”.
Gone was chat of shared space, respect, rights and tolerance – with concepts like “nationalist area” back in vogue. Ulster’s marching tradition, tolerated on the fringes of the Fleadh just last month, is back to being branded sectarian.
Despite much of the blame for Drumcree becoming such a live issue again resting with a faulty Parades Commission – SF condemned the government’s decision to review it. Sir Chris Bryant was “choosing to indulge the dangerous and reckless actions of unionist leaders”, by reviewing the operation of the body, Ms Nelson claimed.
Unionists and loyalists are as entitled as nationalists and republicans to a fair hearing under the law. The parades quango wasn’t doing that – and now it must.
If SF doesn’t get to grips with that, and tone down the rhetoric of the past, it may find it hard to control later.
Any ruling which allows a parade will have to be accepted. If not, the party would be admitting it wants to rip up the current parading architecture and get stuck back into the sectarian street politics of the 1990s.