Immigration latest: 'Sinn Fein is now feeling the backlash of its Europhile policies' after protestors chant 'Sinn Fein are traitors!'

​He said that the upswelling of sentiment against the party is a sign that Sinn Fein cannot “do government” effectively.

The demonstration in central Dublin on Monday was largely ignored by Irish state broadcaster RTE, whose website the following day carried no video of the protest (despite hours of footage being uploaded to social media) and instead ran a mere 129-word report, buried low down on its homepage.

The demonstration is a close echo of another one which took place on February 5 (and which got similar treatment from RTE).

Many protestors on Monday afternoon carried Irish tricolour flags, while some had banners or flags of The National Party and the Irish Freedom Party (two fringe right-wing parties).

Two of the former’s banners said: ‘House the Irish, not the world’ and ‘Ireland belongs to the Irish’.

Gardai would only say there had been no arrests, and would not give an estimate of the size of the protest – something which is notoriously difficult to do (as a guesstimate, the footage appears to show a crowd which is deep into four figures, at a minimum).

Whilst underplayed by RTE, the footage was shared online by massive American conservative accounts like Twitter’s End Wokeness (2.5m followers) and Wall Street Silver (1.3m).

Sinn Fein has been under increasing pressure over its stance on immigration south of the border, particularly given the critical shortage of affordable housing in the Republic of Ireland.

Whilst it is not in government it is the main opposition party – but it has been accused of acting more or less in tandem with the governing coalition in terms of some key policies, effectively depriving the country of an opposition.

Late last month Mary Lou McDonald, the party president, said it was “wrong” to believe Sinn Fein supports “open borders” (a remark the SDLP called “a dog-whistle to the far right”).

The Irish justice minister has also claimed there is an influx of asylum seekers coming from NI to the Republic.

Ian Paisley spoke about that in the House of Commons last week, saying the claim smacked of “Brit-bashing” as an attempt to deflect from Irish government failings.

Speaking of the demo and the anti-Sinn Fein sentiment on display, Mr Paisley said: “It certainly highlights the problem Sinn Fein faces.

“It can make all these outlandish promises to all groups, but sooner or later their lies and their spin catch up with them – and that's exactly what's happened here.

“They try to act progressive at one level; behind the scenes they've probably been saying the most outlandish and shocking things.

“Then when put to the test publicly they've obviously let a whole section of the Irish community down, and that's being exposed.

“Sinn Fein was originally an anti-EU party. It became a pro-EU party to make a cheap political point in the UK.

“Immigration problems that've affected many countries across the EU flow from the free entry people have across the EU – it started with that, and with a very liberal resettlement policy for refugees.

“That has obviously now all caught up with Sinn Fein.

“I just hope it gets a lot worse for them, and that they really do feel the heat, because they are a campaigning party – they're not a party that I think can do government in the way you'd expect a normal party to do.”

If that is so, why govern with them?

“At the end of the day, we also have to acknowledge their democratic bona fides,” replied Mr Paisley.

“They received a mandate. And I can't wish away a Catholic majority, or a strong vote for Sinn Fein – I wish I could. I wish I lived in Utopia sometimes. But I don't. I live in Ulster.”

Fellow DUP MP Carla Lockhart also said: “When there are 10,000 people parading on the street and chanting ‘Sinn Fein are traitors’ then simply bashing the Brits isn’t going to fix the problem.

“It is ironic and that voices in Dublin, across all parties, now seem to want border controls having argued against them for years. In October 2018 we were told a single camera would cause civil unrest in Belfast but today the unrest is in Dublin.”

RTE declined to comment on the content of its coverage, and as to why it was not more prominent, it said the website publishes about 60 stories per day.

Sinn Fein did not comment when contacted, nor did the SDLP, which had been asked to set out its policy on immigration.