Asked about the prospect of joint authority after the failure of a final attempt on Thursday to restore the Northern Executive and Assembly and thereby avoid a Christmas election, Alliance leader Naomi Long came back to the Belfast Agreement.

“When it comes to joint authority, I advise people go back and read what it says in the Good Friday [Belfast] Agreement about the future of Northern Ireland, about the involvement of the Irish government in its future affairs,” she said.

It is wise advice. The foundation document of Northern Ireland’s system of political power-sharing, it enshrined a consultative role for the Irish government in Northern affairs, but also the provision that the North’s constitutional position as part of the UK can only be changed through the consent of a majority of people in Northern Ireland.

Any prospect, therefore, of joint authority over Northern Ireland shared between Dublin and London would have to fit with the provisions of the agreement – a point made by DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson on Thursday when he emphasised that any such change would constitute its “abandonment”.

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“The Irish Government needs to hear this loud and clear – unionists will never accept joint authority,” he said.

“If the Irish Government thinks that by threatening me or my party with joint authority that will help us to get to a solution, that it will move us forward on the basis of mutual respect and understanding, then I’m afraid the Irish Government is deluded.”

‘Active role’

In fairness to the Government – which has also stressed repeatedly that its preference is for the restoration of the Assembly – it has not suggested any such thing.

The phrase seems to have originated with Sinn Féin, with its president, Mary Lou McDonald, talking on Monday of “joint partnership” and, a few days later, “joint authority”; the SDLP leader Colum Eastwood has also called for joint authority as an acknowledgment of the “active role the Irish Government currently plays in the North’s affairs”, a solution which he believes is “in keeping with the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement”.

Both Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar have talked of a different approach in recent days, saying there can be no return to the “direct rule of the past”.

Yet this must be within the existing structures; asked for his response to joint authority, the Taoiseach said there would be “meaningful engagement between the British and Irish governments in the context of the Good Friday Agreement. We don’t want to overstate that but that’s the context that exists.”

This would take place through the existing mechanism of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, which facilitates engagement and discussion between the two governments on non-devolved matters; the absence of a devolved government at Stormont “broadens what non-devolved matters mean and can encompass”, he said.

Joint authority

According to Government sources, joint authority is not something that has been discussed in detail – nor are there any worked-out plans for it – but the prospect of alternatives was about putting pressure on the DUP to go back into the Executive.

By that rationale, it has failed; the DUP did not appear remotely under pressure on Thursday, with the phalanx of MPs around Donaldson cheering him with a hearty “hear, hear” as he emphasised his rejection of joint authority.

It fell to the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) to attempt to draw a line under it on Thursday evening, stating that “joint authority is not being considered” and the UK government would “not countenance” any arrangements which are inconsistent with the “consent principle [that] governs the constitutional position of Northern Ireland”.

Yet this is the problem with a political vacuum, particularly the prolonged kind people in Northern Ireland are used to; eventually, something emerges to fill that vacuum, and it is no surprise that other options are being considered.

“Don’t point the finger at me if we end up either with a form of direct rule – not joint authority, but a form of direct rule, which involves the Irish Government, either in a capacity of advice to the British government or in partnership,” warned Naomi Long.

“This is an inevitable consequence of not allowing devolution to function.”