Fianna Fail are set to contest May’s local elections in Derry, according to a report in the Belfast Telegraph today.
There has been a lot of talk about the rise of All-Ireland politics in the wake of Sinn Fein’s growth in the Republic. This would be the first concrete sign of it.
The interesting thing about this report is that it’s suggests Fianna Fail are not going to try and integrate the SDLP organisation, but instead will bypass them completely.
That could clear the way for the Irish Labour Party to strengthen its links with the SDLP.
It’s alo worth noting that this development comes a few days after some interesting comments in the Irish Times by the Taoiseach’s former peace process advisor Martin Mansergh on the Northern Bank robbery:
perhaps a different republicanism needs to be brought together, one with wide appeal and less baggage, and more closely associated with the much denigrated but far the most successful part of the whole republican project, the independent State to the south.
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