Irish person here: sadly Sinn Fein are a neolib party nowadays, they've toned down their anti-imperialist rhetoric in recent years and now espouse "big tent" politics. They're basically a husk of a party now that anyone can find something in, hence their success recently both North and South of the border.
There still exists genuinely anti imperialist parties out there which you can and I recommend reading up on but sadly a lot of the former "anti imperialist republican" parties are either neolib now or drug dealers
EDIT: also understanding Northern Irish politics is essential, Sinn Fein are not "coming to power" they were already in power, due to peace agreements both loyalist and Nationalist parties get equal say, both the DUP and SF have had an uneasy alliance the last 25 years where each party has veto power. The current campaign of smaller parties has been to end the hegemony of the SF-DUP rule
: I also see a lot of non-irish comrades thinking sinn fein are some sort of party of the working class, which is also false. They're filled to the brim with landlords and business owners.
Norn Irish boyo here. Just want to add that the demographic data on Northern Ireland is fascinating when it comes to the topic of reunification. The Wikipedia pages on both united Ireland and Northern Irish demographics are surprisingly detailed if anyone is interested.
It's true that votes for Sinn Fein have been steadily increasing for years, but it's also true the demographics of N.I have been slowly shifting in their favour for years as well. The amount of people that consider themselves Irish or catholic have increased, and those that consider themselves British or protestant have decreased. The writing has been on the wall for the unionist parties that this was coming for a long time.
It's also of note that big support for Sinn Fein and even republican parties doesn’t necessarily translate to big support for Irish reunification. I believe polls show it getting closer but they'd still almost certainly lose a border poll if they called it anytime soon. Unionist voters are obviously staunchly against it but I think many Republicans get cold feet when thinking of it happening right now and not "sometime in the future".
Irish person here: sadly Sinn Fein are a neolib party nowadays, they've toned down their anti-imperialist rhetoric in recent years and now espouse "big tent" politics. They're basically a husk of a party now that anyone can find something in, hence their success recently both North and South of the border.
There still exists genuinely anti imperialist parties out there which you can and I recommend reading up on but sadly a lot of the former "anti imperialist republican" parties are either neolib now or drug dealers
EDIT: also understanding Northern Irish politics is essential, Sinn Fein are not "coming to power" they were already in power, due to peace agreements both loyalist and Nationalist parties get equal say, both the DUP and SF have had an uneasy alliance the last 25 years where each party has veto power. The current campaign of smaller parties has been to end the hegemony of the SF-DUP rule : I also see a lot of non-irish comrades thinking sinn fein are some sort of party of the working class, which is also false. They're filled to the brim with landlords and business owners.
Norn Irish boyo here. Just want to add that the demographic data on Northern Ireland is fascinating when it comes to the topic of reunification. The Wikipedia pages on both united Ireland and Northern Irish demographics are surprisingly detailed if anyone is interested.
It's true that votes for Sinn Fein have been steadily increasing for years, but it's also true the demographics of N.I have been slowly shifting in their favour for years as well. The amount of people that consider themselves Irish or catholic have increased, and those that consider themselves British or protestant have decreased. The writing has been on the wall for the unionist parties that this was coming for a long time.
It's also of note that big support for Sinn Fein and even republican parties doesn’t necessarily translate to big support for Irish reunification. I believe polls show it getting closer but they'd still almost certainly lose a border poll if they called it anytime soon. Unionist voters are obviously staunchly against it but I think many Republicans get cold feet when thinking of it happening right now and not "sometime in the future".