The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) stands in isolation amongst all political parties – with no exceptions. It stands alone. Its demands are irreconcilable. It is holding to ransom the future of Northern Ireland and is wearing very thin any possibility of more concessions from Westminster and Whitehall.
Democracy in stasis
The last Northern Ireland Assembly election was held nearly two years ago and Sinn Féin became the largest party. Since then, the DUP has refused to re-enter the power-sharing agreement – citing objections to the Northern Ireland protocol and the Windsor framework. Though they may deny it, the real reason the DUP refuses to enter the executive has little to do with the protocol or the framework. With the still deeply entrenched religious and political dividing lines, the DUP remains resistant to Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill, a catholic republican, becoming the first minister.
Even though all the other parties still have issues upon which there are remaining problems to be resolved, at least they have been prepared to return democracy to its proper place in Stormont and take their responsibilities as democratically elected representatives. The DUP so far has not agreed to do so unless its demands to remove the NI protocol are met.
Under the Good Friday (Belfast) agreement, there can be no power-sharing executive – and hence no government in Northern Ireland – unless both unionists and republicans both agree to enter mutually into the arrangement.
It is true that Northern Ireland no longer commands much attention in the British media and almost none elsewhere. The conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine have seen to that but for those dwindling few who think about Northern Ireland at all in Britain, they are appalled at the unresolved circumstances of the recent failure of the talks.
They know that the £15bn Northern Ireland has received from Britain per annum in recent years, as well as the recently pledged additional £3.3bn, is about 20% greater than any one of the British regions receive, per head. They also read that this colossal amount of taxpayers’ money has been subject to irresponsible spending as in the renewable heat incentive (RHI) scandal and in the current absence of proper ministerial supervision. They look at these figures while confronting a freeze in their own local council budgets as increasing numbers of local authorities in England, such as Birmingham, are going broke.
DUP and ERG alignment
What might be done as the New Year commences? The DUP are twisting in the wind, divided internally and without any evidence of leadership to rescue them from implosion, although they may still have allies in the Conservative Party.
The current secretary of state, Chris Heaton-Harris, has been a chair of the European Research Group, as was his current minister of state, Steve Baker. The ERG remains a small but influential group of largely anti-EU, right-wing English nationalists who have been and remain influential at Westminster. Boris Johnson was influenced by them in his many prevarications on Brexit. The ERG still have the DUP in their claws even though they no longer need to rely on DUP voting with them in parliament – at least for the time being.
It is very difficult to see any other DUP allies anywhere. A general election is expected in the next year with opinion polls pointing to a Conservative defeat, it is unlikely that a Labour government would wish to continue to prop up the grouping.
It is also entirely possible that if there is no resolution of the current impasse, there will be a Northern Ireland election after 18 January. Whether this would radically change the electoral outlook is questionable. This is because more and more people in Northern Ireland are fed up with negative politics. There is some movement towards the Alliance Party who are not so interested in the fundamentals of the constitution as are the DUP or Sinn Féin. But there is little sense of great change and people are likely to vote largely as they always have.
General election 2024: a new beginning?
So can the current situation continue? It is expensive. It is unstable. Inward investors would remain uneasy at taking the risk. And even if an executive was to come about, the ugly face of bigotry is not far beneath the surface.
That is why more voices are being raised in favour of a new beginning after the UK general election. In the intervening period a review of the Belfast Agreement is gaining substantial support. The current veto in favour of the DUP and Sinn Féin has served its purpose. But a more even-handed approach involving both the British and Irish governments may be required, much along the lines of the original intentions on that famous Good Friday.
This article has been adapted from the original published version in The Irish News.
