Stormont reform was the dog that did not bark at last weekend’s British-Irish Association conference in Oxford.
Tánaiste Micheál Martin said there should be a greater role for Dublin in Northern Ireland if the DUP continues blocking devolution. He conceded this might breach the Belfast Agreement, but said the Government could look “creatively” at the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, the agreement’s main east-west institution, to gain influence on issues such as health and education.
It would have to be very creative, as the intergovernmental conference is not meant to discuss devolved issues. A radical improvement in Anglo-Irish relations would also be required. Leo Varadkar has been complaining all year he can barely get London on the phone. The Government is threatening to take legal action against the UK’s Troubles amnesty bill. These are not two governments on the cusp of an innovate partnership.
The SDLP went further in Westminster on Monday, proposing Dublin be consulted on Northern Ireland’s budget. “The DUP can’t be allowed to call the shots any more, they need to understand that powersharing will endure, whether they like it or not and whether they take part or not,” SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said.
“In the absence of an executive, the spirit of the [Belfast] Agreement must be facilitated by enhanced co-operation between the British and Irish governments.”
This implied a new definition of powersharing, requiring a new agreement. Nationalism appears to be making the agreement up as it goes along, or even to be in post-agreement mode.
All these flights of fantasy ignore a solution that is straightforward, obvious and sitting on the table. Alliance has proposed an adjustment to Stormont’s rules whereby the largest two parties would still be entitled to the top two places in the executive but they would not have to accept them. This would preserve powersharing in principle, as no large party would be excluded, and in practice, as neither the DUP nor Sinn Féin would ever walk out again if they knew devolution would carry on without them, as Alliance leader Naomi Long has observed.
Reform would comply with the letter and spirit of the Belfast Agreement, which stipulates regular and ongoing reviews of its institutions. The British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference has scope to oversee reform, provided it does not “override” the agreement’s “democratic mechanisms”. This is where Dublin’s influence is meant to apply.
The rules of powersharing have already been adjusted many times, most notably at St Andrews in 2006. This involved a degree of strong-arming by both governments of the DUP, in particular, ironically by threatening more Dublin involvement in Northern Ireland.
If a better British-Irish relationship is possible, it should be working in that direction.
There is sympathy for Alliance’s proposal within the Ulster Unionist Party, giving the idea unionist cover and providing a hypothetical unionist presence in an executive without the DUP.
There ought to be sympathy within the SDLP. Its former leader, Mark Durkan, famously called for reform in 2008, describing it as removing Stormont’s “ugly scaffolding”.
Reform is opposed by Sinn Féin and the DUP, yet neither has a leg to stand on. Both have recently collapsed Stormont, the DUP demanded an end to mandatory Coalition until it ceased to be the largest party and Sinn Féin looks ridiculous defending the DUP’s veto. A LucidTalk poll this April found two-thirds of people support Stormont reform, including 83 per cent of Sinn Féin voters. Only DUP and TUV voters were opposed to reform by a majority.
Alliance’s proposal was slapped down last month by Steve Baker, minister of state at the Northern Ireland Office, who said his Government would never impose a change to powersharing without cross-community consent.
That cannot explain Dublin and the SDLP ignoring reform, as the impositions they are proposing are far more aggressive.
With the SDLP at 6 per cent in the polls, there may be a concern nationalism no longer has even a hypothetical alternative to Sinn Féin. However, there seems to be a more basic reluctance by the Government and the SDLP to support something the republican party is against. This is touching solidarity, given Sinn Féin’s ruthlessness in supplanting its nationalist rivals.
Officially, Sinn Féin opposes reform because it does not believe an executive would be inclusive or stable without the largest parties of nationalism and unionism.
While this is a legitimate argument, Stormont is demonstrably unstable under existing rules, and inclusion does not have to mean vetoes. It would be naive to assume Sinn Féin is sincere: the party has cynical reasons to enjoy the current collapse, with unionism hoist by its own petard. It may also have sinister reasons for wanting the option to collapse Stormont again.
Why should everyone else accept this as unavoidable? The large-party vetoes are a detail of the Belfast Agreement, not its foundation, and some scheduled maintenance is overdue.