Alex Kane: Sinn Féin is badly damaged – but unionism shouldn’t relax

These are troubling times for Sinn Féin. On both sides of the border. But whether it’s long-term troubles we’re talking about, we won’t know until after the general election in the Republic on November 29.

Meanwhile, on this side of the border, a LucidTalk poll will give some indication of whether – and on what scale – the party has been damaged in terms of the popularity gap between itself and the DUP.

In July’s general election, Sinn Féin had a 4 percentage point lead over the DUP, winning almost 40,000 more votes and finally, in Westminster terms, nudging ahead by 7 seats to 5.

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So, Gavin Robinson would be delighted if the gap were closed and Sinn Féin severely discomfited.

He’d be even happier, of course, if the party took a whopping hit in the south’s general election and found itself reduced to a parliamentary rump at a long, long distance from a position in government.

None of this would stop Sinn Féin from rabbiting on about ‘a nation once again’ being right around the corner; but doing it from a post-having-been-electorally-pounded position on the Dáil’s back benches, rather than a ministerial foothold in the next coalition, would be viewed as a very welcome development by unionism in general.

Sinn Féin annoys unionism because it always seems to get its own way. A few years of Mary Lou squirming – or even booted from the leadership – would be the best news unionism has had for years.

Whether Sinn Féin actually saw anything coming down the line is hard to tell. That said, it should surely have had some inkling about some of the problems at least.

Mind you, it has made such a dog’s dinner – in both Stormont and the Dáil – over the last month that one has to question the reputation it once had for internal management and crisis-handling. Or maybe it was simply better at what might be described as legacy crisis management, rather than what might be described as personal, individual crisis management?

Coming in from the political/electoral cold seems to have been easier for it than dealing with child protection issues and not noticing what some of the gatekeepers in its press office structures were doing without either consultation or leadership approval.

Indeed, the very fact that one of the crisis-management problems could be traced back to one of the most influential figures in the press office meant that there was no-one of sufficient authority to take over and provide the crisis management at that point. A classic example of quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

There will be a temptation, I suspect, for other parties – especially Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the DUP – to both gloat and count their chickens. That would be a mistake.

Sinn Féin remains a very tightly organised, single-minded political/electoral machine and its base tends to be pretty forgiving of indiscretions (as long as the culprits are isolated and removed fairly quickly). It may not reap the dividends it thought were on offer a year ago, but I think it’s likely that it will do better at the next election than its enemies hope right now.

But it is damaged. Badly damaged. There is nothing more important for a political party than perception: the perception its own members and voters have of it and the perception the wider public and electorate have.

Mary Lou McDonald in particular has been damaged and unless the party does do better than expected in the next election, then I don’t see how she survives as leader.

She owes her role to Gerry Adams and succession planning; but I’m not sure what succession planning is in place for someone who does badly on the back of a series of scandals which seemed to take the party completely by surprise and the handling of which has been a textbook exercise in management stupidity.

Northern Ireland unionism will, as I’ve said, be keen to breathe a sigh of relief and hope that border poll pressure will ease for a few years. It won’t.

The border poll pressure is going to come from non-Sinn Féin sources and vehicles instead – in which Leo Varadkar is likely to be a key player – and may, in fact, be a greater problem for unionism than anything Sinn Féin would be doing.

This is not simply a case of Sinn Féin’s misfortune being unionism’s opportunity. Which means that unionism can’t and shouldn’t relax – no matter how hard the party might be hit.

Because one thing is certain: no matter how bad it gets, Sinn Féin will not collapse, rollover or splinter.