Sinn Fein remains trapped in the past
Is Sinn Fein still serious about the Assembly and the political process which supposedly blossomed from the Belfast and St Andrews' Agreements? I only ask because its present behaviour suggests that it is, at best, ambivalent and, at worst, actually determined to run the whole thing into the ground.
Now, while the DUP clearly deserves some of the blame, the fact is that it is Sinn Fein which is primarily responsible for the ongoing failure of the Executive Committee to have met since June 19. Northern Ireland is in the grip of an economic downturn which will hurt rich, poor, unionist and republican alike; and public confidence in local political institutions and elected representatives is collapsing by the day.
From what I understand there appear to be a number of issues which Sinn Fein want addressed and resolved – the Irish Language Act, policing and justice, a national stadium and the transfer test being key among them. But why hold the Executive Committee to ransom (and there really is no other word for it)? There is a mountain of other issues which need an official go-ahead from the Executive and there are many elements within Northern Ireland's business, planning, housing and educational sectors which are being seriously inconvenienced by this lack of progress.
If Sinn Fein were serious about reaching agreement on a range of issues wider than their own personal agenda and cooperating with, rather than facing down, their political opponents, they might discover that it was easier to reach deals on the more controversial matters. Indeed, it's hard to escape the conclusion that confrontation and crisis are the deliberately chosen features of their present strategy.
It strikes me, too, that their approach to next Sunday's Homecoming Parade is calibrated to no higher purpose than that of offending the pro-Union community. The DUP and UUP, along with the broader unionist electorate, has accepted that policing and justice should be devolved to the Assembly, and has even accepted that the Department could one day be headed-up by a Sinn Fein minister. But that unionist electorate also wants some pretty convincing evidence that they could have real confidence in Sinn Fein's ability to handle the role.
But how, exactly, can they have that confidence when Sinn Fein is determined to politicise a Homecoming Parade and turn what should be a quiet tribute into a focal point for tension, hostility and potential violence? Republicanism has a veritable pantheon of "heroes" whom they commemorate and celebrate on a regular basis; so why their difficulty with a welcome home for the Royal Irish, many of whose members are drawn from Roman Catholic backgrounds and from south of the border? And where, for example, would a Sinn Fein Minister for Policing stand on the issue of policing this Sinn Fein protest?
As it happens, I have no difficulty with dignified, silent protest. It is an important and cherished right in a democracy. And I know that there are many people in the pro-Union community who have personal reservations about our troops being in Iraq or Afghanistan. But those reservations should never extend to the Services' personnel themselves, who are members of an internationally recognised and legitimate standing army. If Sinn Fein has been so concerned about Iraq all this time, then why weren’t there regular protests in Belfast and around the Province?
The truth is that Sinn Fein’s protest has nothing to do with the rights and wrongs of British involvement in these wars. And let’s be brutally frank here, Sinn Fein, with its links to terrorist killing machines at home and abroad, is in no position to take a moral stand at all! All of which suggests that it is merely parading its own republican credentials and flexing its muscles to impress a grassroots that is increasing sceptical about a process that has put Sinn Fein into government in this part of the United Kingdom. Their position is fundamentally disingenuous and utterly immoral.
What real purpose, then, is served by the non-meeting of the Executive Committee and the tension-building around a Homecoming Parade? The underlying problem, of course, is that the DUP and Sinn Fein negotiated a carve-up at St Andrews, rather than a mutually advantageous sharing of power. Too many issues were left unresolved: and instead of the language of agreement we have the language of veto and triple locks. Neither of the two main parties can carry the show alone, and neither seems to have the inclination to carry it together.
All of which leaves two possible routes for them; a summit or a snap election (or maybe even both). Yet the very fact that a summit is required is a psychological victory for Sinn Fein. The DUP had us believe that the days of stop-start government were over and that concrete accountability had been placed at the heart of government. But that is clearly not the case. If Sinn Fein gets a summit, it will get concessions. More worryingly, though, there will be no effort to address the structural and institutional faults which led to the summit; which means that there will be more stalling and stalemate further down the line.
An election won’t solve the problem, either. Whilst I think it likely that the DUP would remain the largest unionist party (even though it could lose between five and eight seats to the UUP and TUV), Sinn Fein would probably pick up two or maybe three seats from the SDLP. In other words, there is a chance, albeit a slight one, that Sinn Fein would emerge as the largest party and claim the post of First Minister. That being the case, they need not fear an election. The very fact that, at worst, they would remain the largest party within nationalism means that they would still exercise a veto over the post-election Executive.
Whatever Sinn Fein’s real motives, be it the destruction of the process or cynical, self-serving brinkmanship, it is a particularly dangerous and thoroughly destabilising strategy. I said, above, that there were two possible routes, but there is a third one: Sinn Fein accepts the thrust and spirit of what was agreed in 1998 and 2007, and begins to exercise a less hostile influence at the heart of government.
Given the sheer scale of the problems that Northern Ireland’s economy and people could face in the next few years, it surely makes sense for Sinn Fein to put aside the myth and deal with the here-and-now realities. Their willingness to exploit the downturn for their own self-serving purposes suggests, however, that they remain trapped in the past and wrapped in hypocrisy.
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Thursday 09 February 2012
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