Let's start this series by quoting legendary union leader Ronald Reagan:
There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers.
There's a very simple recipe for winning elections as a left-wing party: listen to the people and give them what they want.
Fundamentally, right-wing politicians have a more complicated task: they need to convince the majority to support the interests of a minority.
Of course, what makes the simple answer not so easy is that politicians of any stripe are generally part of the elite. As an extreme example, Nancy Pelosi or Joe Manchin have no interest in raising the federal minimum wage or enacting Medicare for All - it might hurt their investments. There's also a more subtle cultural issue: today's politicians tend to have a university education. Depending on the specific political system, politics might be their only career. It's also a high-pressure job where civil servants do their best to keep you busy reading documents. This all makes it hard to listen to the people you're meant to represent.
However, today we're looking at a positive example of left-wing politics: Sinn Féin winning Friday's elections for the Legislative Assembly in Northern Ireland.
Sinn Féin became the largest party by far in terms of first-preference votes, receiving 29% compared to 21% for the DUP which used to be the largest party.
Michelle O'Neill will become First Minister if an agreement is reached with the largest unionist party, the DUP. Otherwise, the province will be governed from London. It's a big if. She'd be the first representative of the nationalist community (not quite the same as the Catholics or the Irish) to lead Northern Ireland.
Since Sinn Féin is an all-Ireland party, O'Neill is the vice-president or deputy leader (translated from Irish). She's an impressive campaigner. As far as I can see in one day, she's an inspiring leader who did everything right. The historic result of a nationalist winning in the province that was created to keep them out of power is not what she focused on.
In her first response, she immediately mentioned two bread-and-butter issues:
She said that Sinn Féin wanted to "together work in partnership with others". "That is the only way we will achieve much, much more for people here, whether in terms of the cost-of-living crisis or trying to fix our health service."
That's message discipline. In her pinned tweet from April 30, she focused on the same two topics, as well as wanting to be a First Minister for all - a phrase which addresses social equality and peace between communities at the same time.
Here she goes into more specifics about health care, with passion and numbers:
Counting took a long time, it's not finished yet while I'm writing this. On both sides of the Irish border, elections are a complicated system with preferential voting for multiple candidates per constituency. This system combines the fair representation of PR with a direct connection between local voters and an MP (MLA in this case, Member of the Legislative Assembly). One downside is that parties need to be careful to select the optimal number of candidates per constituency. There are no lists, they compete with each other. In 2020, Sinn Féin failed to gain most seats in the Irish parliamentary elections because they didn't run enough candidates.
Colum Eastwood, the leader of their direct rivals, the SDLP, claimed nationalist voters had 'lent their vote' to Sinn Féin in order to win the top spot. If he wants to tell the voters he doesn't take them seriously in order to save face, good luck with that.
Another sign of disciplined politics: apparently Sinn Féin was not afraid to clear out the dead wood. The party effectively fired its assembly members for Derry, listening to unhappy local supporters. Even former hunger striker and MEP Martina Anderson, a symbol of their struggle, was not untouchable.
Unionism
The DUP lost a big chunk of votes, while holding on to most of their seats. Unionist parties still have slightly more votes than nationalists, but they're divided, thanks to the consequences of Brexit and various scandals. Meanwhile, the non-sectarian Alliance movement is growing - another indication that people are looking beyond The Troubles.
The unionists oppose the Northern Ireland protocol agreed between the EU and the UK after Brexit, but the DUP is also responsible for creating this mess by campaigning for Brexit and joining Theresa May's government. There has to be a border somewhere, and no sane person wants to close the land border between the North and South.
Another inconvenient reality on the other side: on a personal level, through migration and let's call it the shared history, the Irish people are just as closely connected to the English as the Scots and the Welsh. They either speak English or try to speak Irish for political reasons. Irish boys who dream of becoming a professional football player dream of playing for a club from Manchester, Glasgow, London or Liverpool.
Unionism seems to have become pointless. There's neither a danger of popish domination nor a chance to bring back a little apartheid state favoring Protestants. At the same time, there's no chance of a majority voting yes in an independence referendum, a so-called border poll, which would be allowed by the UK when there's wide-spread support for it. The stalemate will continue. Focusing on economic issues would be in the interest of people from both communities.
Let's take a break to appreciate another way to support public health:
Principles
I should probably mention here I don't support everything Sinn Féin and the IRA have ever done (yeah, that's a weak disclaimer, sue me). Their ideology has always been progressive and inclusive, though.
Is there a limit to listening to the people? Well, there's a second part to the Reagan quote I started with:
We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.
I mean you shouldn't vote for the death policy when that's against all principles you stand for, no matter how popular it is. And don't throw any group under the bus. Don't say "We can protect gay people against discrimination, but it would go too far to include trans people."
On the other hand, don't sabotage your chances by listening to fringe pressure groups either. 'Defund the police' was a stupid slogan which changed the debate in the US from police brutality and reform to a choice between anarchy or maintaining right-wing paramilitary death squads. Guess which side won. If you want to win in the US, don't be a gun-grabber. If you want to win in Germany, don't demand a national speed limit on the Autobahn. The most annoying pressure group I see on Twitter today is shaming Sinn Féin for allowing hunting with dogs in Northern Ireland. I don't know how popular that practice is there, but if not banning it helped to gain one rural seat, that was a wise choice.
For ideological background reading, I recommend Lenin on national pride or the most individualist of all thinkers, Max Stirner criticizing the liberal/Christian concept of an abstract 'Man', a harmless soul without any will or character that you could object to. Listening to the people means listening to people of flesh and blood who have been formed by a nation's history.
A simple lesson
Giving money to the people is popular. It's popular in Poland, where the conservative PiS party came to power thanks to generous child benefits. It's popular in China, where the Communist Party devised a devilish scheme to gain rural citizens' loyalty by lifting them out of poverty. It's popular in the USA, where large majorities support progressive programs such as government funding for maternity leave and childcare.
I'm no expert on politics and especially not on what goes on in Northern Ireland. There are old feuds there that affect everything. When politicians get into power they have to look after all the people and not just those who voted for them and that is not simple. A minority of the electorate actually voted for Brexit, but PM Johnson will go on forever about how he achieved it.
I think we need a more diverse selection of politicians. In the UK Eton school has had more prime ministers than the Labour Party and a lot of the current cabinet went to fee paying schools. I think Labour have good intentions, but people are confused about what those actually are and there is mistrust of them. People will worry about higher taxes, but then the cost of living is rising anyway.
Find policies that will get you elected, that are actually achievable is hard. Current 'populism' is all about over-promising.
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