Madam, - From time to time some columnist in some of our national newspapers gives the impression that Sinn Féin is moving ahead of the SDLP because of some radical new policies. They seem to think a new political dispensation exists and that the people are following this and moving away from something outmoded.
This is nonsense.
The present policies of Sinn Féin are a repackaging of the SDLP's positions created 30 years ago and worked on ever since. The SDLP has set the bottom line for nationalist aspirations. These policies remain a United Ireland by consent through the working of an assembly at Stormont, the creation of North-South bodies - a policy as old as Sunningdale - and equality of opportunity and aspiration in all fields.
There are two major reasons why Sinn Féin has been in the ascendancy in recent times. The first is that many people want to support them in moving away from 30 years of violence into constitutionalism. Secondly, Sinn Féin is infinitely richer than the SDLP and when it comes to setting up full-time constituency offices, issuing daily press releases and running elections, money is no problem. The party's rise has nothing to do with any new policies, because these don't exist.
Whereas an SDLP councillor, MP or MLA will get their work done with the minimum of fuss as they have been doing for 30 years, their Sinn Féin counterpart will do the same thing marching behind a band with flags waving, long speeches and press releases to every part of the world. Sinn Féin dramatises everything as if the work has never been done before or as if the people have never been represented before.
When commentators say Sinn Féin is taking over from the SDLP they are correct: they're taking over their policies and re-wrapping them as a new brand. Where Sinn Féin has been in power in councils and constituencies, can anyone notice any difference on the ground for all the bluster? Are people being any better represented? Hardly.
But crime and social unrest are on the increase all over, the drugs scene is rampant, politics are at an impasse, the British presence is still here as large as life, the towers and look-out posts in South Armagh are still there, and right-wing unionism is taking over. These are the realities.
This is not to say that people don't appreciate the efforts made by Gerry Adams and others to draw Republicans into normal politics, and the difficulties he faces on so many fronts. But their supporters are in for the quare gunk if they think that something radical and new is on the way. - Yours, etc.,
JEROME MULLEN, Seafields, Warrenpoint, Co Down.