If Sinn Fein is to edge the SDLP into the dustbin of history, it will be necessary for the Adams led party to take account of the views of that significant number of people who currently vote for the SDLP. Until a few years ago it might have been possible for Sinn Fein to argue that this would require little more than a recognition of their rival’s distaste for a physical force campaign plus some judicious back-peddling on left-wing rhetoric. In the light of recent happenings, it might not be that simple. Sinn Fein may well have to bend ever further in order to secure the elusive prize.

When Sinn Fein embarked on its ‘parliamentary path to the Republic’ in the early 1980’s, the party began to use the loaded term ‘nationalist’ to describe itself and its constituency. A title, that had long been despised in republican circles for its association with the worst aspects of toadying to clerical domination, adherence to the AOH and support for political clientelism, was adopted for its all-embracing properties. Sinn Fein strategists reasoned that using the catch-all title would in time make it easier to blur the edges between their own policies and those of the SDLP and thereby enable it to entice their supporters. For a number of years Sinn Fein’s public spokespersons repeatedly referred to ‘nationalist areas, nationalist youth, nationalist working–class etc’ and only relatively recently have they again started to use the term republican.

With its electoral successes in recent years, it appeared that Sinn Fein’s mellowing down had worked and many within the non-unionist electorate seemed to move away from Hume and Mallon. There is no doubting the evidence of the last general election that a majority of ‘nationalist’ voters opted for Sinn Fein. Yet the majority is too slim for complacency in Connolly House. More must be done and more votes secured if the party is to achieve a position of total dominance.

A major difficulty will lie in wooing the hard core of residual SDLP support. This is not merely the catholic, professional upper class but what might also be described as the ‘County Down GAA voters’ – a category not confined to the geographic entity either. These are the people who are at best unenthusiastic about ending partition, anxious to get involved in every profitable aspect of the British state including participating in its policing and who ultimately demand stability at whatever the cost. They do not dislike Southern Ireland or its institutions since given the opportunity they will aspire to its highest office. What they will not countenance though is any serious talk of political unity if it threatens their comfortable circumstances.

Evidence that this section of Northern society was determined to flex its muscles emerged last year when they strongly advocated the ending of the ban on British military and police playing GAA sports. What was in practical terms an irrelevancy (since few British troops or policemen wanted to play Gaelic football or hurling) became something of a crusade for those wishing to put down a marker on behalf of compromise with if not outright assimilation into the northern state.

This drive acquired even greater momentum recently during the visit of Queen Elizabeth 11 to the North. Not since Victoria visited Dublin at the beginning of the 20th Century has a British monarch met so many obsequious Irish nationalists as catholic clergy and SDLP members flocked to greet the royal visitor. Anticipating some amount of criticism, the ‘Stoops’ put out the old story about respecting institutions and traditions cherished by unionists and repeating the old cliché about being courteous to ones guests.

Making such excuses is simply being disingenuous. Mark Durkan and his supporters are too long in the tooth not to understand that to meet and greet a reigning British monarch in Ireland is to acknowledge not just the constitutional position vis-à-vis Great Britain and Northern Ireland but also to endorse the British class system and its operation in the North. For many SDLP members, that acknowledgement is the price they are happy to pay in order to secure their goal of comfort-maintaining stability.

Ominously, Sinn Fein felt unable to protest at the royal visit. The contrast with 1977 was incredible as the party merely absented itself from Stormont and other venues. The difficulty now for Sinn Fein is that it is afraid to risk a meaningful challenge to the current political consensus in Northern Ireland and this includes raising a rumpus over a royal visit.

It all begs the question about what will happen if demographics do change in favour of the catholic population. How many of them will turn out to be royalist and, maybe more to the point, how many of them will simply not wish to rock the boat by demanding stability endangering changes? Sinn Fein will have to make a major adjustment to win these hearts and minds and it may come only at the cost of quietly dropping any insistence on an end to the Union.