With Sinn Féin in driver’s seat, what’s next for Northern Ireland?

The Explainer

When Sinn Féin won 27 seats in Northern Ireland’s May parliamentary elections, it marked a historic turning point. That total gave the Irish republican party the largest number of seats in Stormont, the Northern Irish parliament, the first time a nationalist party has done so in the region’s centurylong history. While the now-second-largest party, the loyalist Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), has put the brakes on the formation of a new government, Northern Ireland is at a turning point.

What does a Sinn Féin-led Stormont mean for the United Kingdom?

For the moment, mostly a big bother.

Under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, power in Northern Ireland must be shared between (mostly Catholic) Irish nationalists and (mostly Protestant) unionists who wish to remain a part of the United Kingdom. Introduced as a means of reconciliation following decades of violence between sectarian groups and British law enforcement, the agreement ensures neither side can wield power over the other.

A drawback is that the Northern Ireland Assembly often collapses when the two sides cannot agree. The DUP dissolved Stormont in February this year in protest over Brexit rules that they believe separates Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. Northern Ireland trades under European Union rules in order to keep goods moving across the largely invisible border between the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland, but the staunchly unionist DUP is opposed to any policy that might distance Northern Ireland from the rest of Britain.

The British government, which also dislikes the current Northern Ireland trade rules, will likely be torn between backing the DUP’s resistance and reconciling the DUP and Sinn Féin in Stormont.

In the longer term, Sinn Féin’s victory brings the prospect of a united Ireland a step closer, adding more uncertainty to the future of the U.K. at a time when Scotland, under the rule of the Scottish National Party, also appears at risk of leaving the union. 

Though Sinn Féin dialed down the rhetoric on uniting Ireland during the election campaign, it has made no secret about its desire for Irish unification. Newly named Northern Irish First Minister Michelle O’Neill, Sinn Féin’s vice president, recently stated that she believes the U.K.’s exit from the EU will lead to a referendum on reunification in the near future.

How does the vote affect Ireland?

Sinn Féin is unique in that it is represented on both sides of the Irish border. 

In the Republic of Ireland, it stands as the opposition to the governing centrist coalition. For decades, Sinn Féin has been viewed as a pariah by the mainstream, due to its historic links with the Irish Republican Army. But a surge of younger, urban voters attracted to policies tackling Ireland’s spiking housing prices and cost of living has given new life to the party. It also appealed to a liberal, young base by dropping its former euroskepticism and embracing the EU. 

While a vote on the future of Northern Ireland still remains some way away, Sinn Féin’s victory means the republic must weigh whether it can afford to absorb its northern neighbor into its health care and education system. Northern Ireland consistently has the U.K.’s highest rate of economically inactive people, including those needing long-term care.

Is Northern Irish politics all sectarian?

While Sinn Féin and the DUP took the two largest numbers of seats in May’s election, it was the centrist Alliance Party that arguably made the greatest strides, more than doubling its seats from last time.

The Alliance Party was founded in 1970 in the belief that a new cross-community party was needed to heal deep-seated religious and political divisions in Northern Ireland. Though unionist when founded, the Alliance Party has become neutral on unionism, and now appeals to Catholic voters too.

“It will take further elections to ascertain whether the massive jump in support for the Alliance Party is just a temporary bounce, or whether it represents a real and lasting change in politics in Northern Ireland,” says Elaine Loughlin, deputy editor of the Irish Examiner newspaper. 

In some respects, the growth of a new, centrist political ground is the “start of the normalization of Northern Irish politics,” says Jonathan Powell, formerly chief British government negotiator in Northern Ireland.