BRITISH Conservative spokesman on Northern Ireland Owen Paterson reaffirmed his party’s commitment to the Belfast Agreement when he spoke yesterday during the House of Commons debate on the Bill to enable the eventual devolution of policing and justice powers to the Northern Executive.
Mr Paterson, during a visit to Northern Ireland last week for the formal sealing of the new link with the Ulster Unionist Party under the banner Ulster Conservatives and Unionists – New Force, spoke of how, ultimately, he favoured a voluntary coalition at Stormont rather than the current powersharing arrangement.
He was careful to qualify his remarks by stressing this could only happen over time and with the agreement of the Northern parties. Such a “normal democratic arrangement”, he said, could be “years away”.
Nonetheless, his comments raised some concerns in Dublin and in nationalist quarters. Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, in response to similar comments from the UUP and the DUP, warned that such a move would not be tolerated because he believed voluntary coalition would be tantamount to a return to unionist majority rule.
At Westminster yesterday Mr Paterson repeated his support for the 1998 agreement which set out the powersharing structures.
“At the outset, I would reconfirm that we support emphatically the Belfast Agreement and the current devolved institutions which followed on from it,” he said. “We would like to see the institutions established by these agreements working effectively for the good of all the people of Northern Ireland.”
Mr Paterson said the Conservative Party supported the devolution of policing and justice powers. “But it is for the Assembly to decide when all parts of the community consider the time to be right,” he added.
He said powers could only be devolved to Stormont when three criteria were satisfied: that all parties in the Executive were committed to pursuing their political objectives by exclusively peaceful and democratic means; that all parties fully supported the criminal justice system, including the police and courts; and that such a transfer commanded support across the community.
