'Sinn Fein has shouted people down on immigration for years and called them racist - now it is trying a cynical pivot' says DUP MLA

Jonathan Buckley said the party is now attempting to “cynically” reposition itself to align with the immigraiton concerns of many of its own voter base.

He was reacting to comments from Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald, who had told supporters in Malahide that “our communities reflected to us that they weren’t hearing loudly enough from us” on the “process of asylum seeking and the consequences”.

The party has “collectively” accepted this and she stressed that they want to “protect social cohesion and the rights and the respect that’s due to everybody”.

She also went on to tell the radio broadcaster Newstalk FM that Sinn Fein voters believed they had not heard enough from the party on the “mismanagement” of migration in general, adding that “we have to have a conversation about migration that is respectful” and is also “absolutely, avowedly and unmistakably anti-racist”.

Mr Buckley said: “Mary Lou McDonald’s admission is an extraordinary admission of failure but as a response to the concerns of ordinary people it is too little, too late.

"It isn’t just that Sinn Fein failed to listen to communities, they shouted down anyone raising concerns that they were wrong, or even racist to do so.

"Mary Lou McDonald’s words are clearly focused on a Republic of Ireland, where Sinn Fein have been trying to ride two horses on this issue for years now.

"It not only remains to be seen what practical change, if any, these words will represent, but whether that translates across the border to her party in Northern Ireland.”

In the year to April 2026, an estimated 110,600 immigrants arrived in the Republic, which has a population of about 5.5m.

RTE reported during July that the country saw 13,160 asylum claims in 2025.

According to the Republic’s 2022 census, about 77% of the country identified their ethnicity as “white Irish” (with about 13% of the country’s population being non-white).

In Northern Ireland, population 1.9m, the most recent immigration figures showed 30,500 people arriving to live in the country in the year ending mid-2023, of whom about 4,000 (13%) were coming to seek asylum.

The 2021 NI census showed the non-white ethinic minority population to be 3.4% (compared with 18.3% in England and Wales, and 12.9% in Scotland).

Mr Buckley said Sinn Fein’s pro-immigration rhetoric in Northern Ireland has been “even more strident” than in the Republic, adding that “they insisted there was no problem while ordinary people could see the pressures developing in their own communities”.

"Sinn Fein may be attempting to change their rhetoric, but they will not be able to erase their record,” he concluded.

"Most people will see this for what it is; a cynical and belated shift which is driven by concerns for themselves rather than the communities they admit were not listened to.”

During a debate on the June race riots in Northern Ireland, Mr Buckley had accused Sinn Fein of having a policy of “Brits out, everybody else in”.