With so much going on at Westminster it tends to be forgotten that the Northern Ireland Assembly hasn’t been functioning for four of the past six years.
The assembly elected in March 2017 didn’t meet until January 2020 and then collapsed again just over two years later when the DUP withdrew its first minister. The Assembly elected in May hasn’t met – other than for a couple of abortive attempts to appoint a speaker and pay tribute to David Trimble. Another such attempt is scheduled for Thursday.
On Friday the parties run out of the official time allowed to reboot the executive and appoint a first and deputy first minister.
The existing legislation requires the Secretary of State to set the date for yet another election (which would be the fourth one in six years) and December 15th has been pencilled in. He insists that he will call one, arguing that it’s only right that the “people have a say”.
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Maybe so, but the people have been saying mostly the same thing since 2007, which is that the DUP and Sinn Fein should occupy the roles of polar opposite governments in the same executive.
There is a growing feeling that an election wouldn’t, in fact, resolve the ongoing impasse. Most of the anecdotal and polling evidence suggests that the DUP and Sinn Féin would remain the largest two parties. In May Sinn Féin finally eclipsed the DUP, giving it dibs on the first minster post and leaving Jeffrey Donaldson with a massive psychological headache.
The DUP insists it will not return to the Assembly until the Northern Ireland protocol has been removed or, at the very least, resolved in its favour. That’s not happening any time soon.
The Northern Ireland Protocol Bill (introduced by Liz Truss when she was foreign secretary) is stuck in the parliamentary process, with months to go and may even fall altogether if there’s an early British general election – which there may well be.
Even if there isn’t, the House of Lords will maul the bill, meaning the prime minister would have to deploy the rarely used Parliament Act to get the bill through in its original form. That can’t happen until next June and at this point there is no guarantee the prime minister would be prepared to use the act.
Meanwhile, the DUP shows no signs of backing down in the event of an election. According to its leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, if the new prime minster wants to see a fully functioning Stormont, he “will have to deal with the protocol once and for all. You can’t proceed with power-sharing if one community is not on board. It doesn’t work”.
The party doesn’t particularly want an election, but nor does it fear it. It looks unlikely that it can return as the largest party overall, but it will certainly be the largest unionist party and will probably do better in terms of seats and votes than it did in May.
In other words, it will have confirmed the mandate it has for its continuing boycott and keeping its veto, as well as weakening the hand of the Northern Ireland Office and UK government when it comes to pressure and criticism. Nobody wins when nothing changes.
Which raises the question of what the British government – if it does go ahead with an election – would want to change. Or, putting that another way, is there a result which would shift the dynamics enough to persuade movement from the DUP? There are three possibilities:
The DUP could do unexpectedly well and return as the largest party overall, as well as recovering votes lost to the more hardline TUV in May and maybe pick up a couple of seats from a presently deflated and demoralised UUP.
That would give Donaldson some wriggle room to look at possible routes back into the executive. It would involve risks for the party, but it has proved itself capable of taking considerable risks in the past if it suits party interests. The British government would, almost certainly, offer a financial package and the UUP would come on board, meaning over 90 per cent of unionist MLAs buying into any deal. Crucially, though, there’s no guarantee Sinn Féin would join the love-in.
There’s also a possibility, although I think it’s a very slim one, that the Alliance Party, which has been enjoying an electoral surge since 2018/19, could nudge ahead of the DUP if the UUP implodes and the TUV continues its own surge. That would leave the DUP in a very weak position; the same sort of position which almost destroyed the UUP in 2005. But it might make it easier for the government to face down unionism on the protocol.
Or the DUP – whose leadership isn’t particularly trusted by the TUV, the Orange Order and a new generation of loyalist activists – could take an ever bigger hit from the TUV, leaving Donaldson in a hostage position. But that’s also a difficult position for the government because it would probably lead to unionism abandoning the Assembly altogether.
The problem with all four possible outcomes (the most likely of which is a continuation of the status quo and impasse) is that none guarantee the rebooting of the executive, leaving us hanging about for another few months until another election would have to be called.
More embarrassing for the remaining champions of the Good Friday Agreement is that it raises the likelihood of the 25th anniversary party and conference planned for next April being an enormous damp squib.
So, what to do in the meantime? Don’t bother with the election (it will only make things worse). But do find a way of putting representatives of the Irish and UK governments, the EU and the main political parties in Northern Ireland around the same table for a few months to thrash out a way forward on the protocol issue. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll surprise themselves, along with the rest of us.
Alex Kane is a commentator based in Belfast. He was formerly director of communications for the Ulster Unionist Party