Time to burst the policing bubble
WE get the politicians we vote for, but sometimes it appears as if, once they are at Stormont, they operate in a bubble.
The concerns they express, the great issues on which they are prepared to sacrifice everything, just aren't the issues you hear people talking about on the streets.
The Americans call it a "beltway agenda".
The beltway is Interstate 495, the orbital motorway which surrounds Washington DC.
Inside the beltway lobbyists, politicians and their advisers are imagined living in a world of their own.
Northern Ireland should be too small a place to have a beltway agenda, but how else could you describe the current fixation on the devolution of policing and justice and the status of the parades commission?
Senior members of both Sinn Fein and the DUP who have assured me there could be a real crunch coming.
Yet these are two issues about which there have been no demonstrations, no mass petitions and no threats of violence.
They are seldom mentioned except by the politicians and commentators who operate within the Stormont bubble.
It is hard to see how the devolution of policing became such a republican cause that Sinn Fein held up Executive meetings for five months over the head of it.
Whatever happens, the Chief Constable will retain operational independence and the Policing Board will hold his force accountable.
The minister will do little more than administer the budget, though there may be more work on the justice side.
When Sinn Fein and the British government made it such a big issue that gave the DUP leverage which Peter Robinson used to extract concessions.
It all happened inside the beltway, with relatively little public interest in the outcome, but the money was real enough.
The budget extracted from Gordon Brown, and guaranteed by David Cameron, is a triumph and is terror proofed with an undertaking that we can call on the UK Treasury reserve funds if the security situation deteriorates.
There is even a side deal on retirement packages for members of the part-time police reserve.
The future of the 450 members of the PSNI full-time reserve and the policy on the granting of permits for personal protection firearms are in the gift of Matt Baggott who won't want to be the man to block a deal during his first few months in office.
This is as good as it gets.
So why, at the last moment, did Robinson elevate the abolition of the Parades Commission, long a policy objective, into a deal breaker?
Statistics would suggest it isn't such a do or die issue as all that.
The Omnibus Survey, conducted by the NI Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) shows growing acceptance of the Commission.
Just over half the population (56 per cent) now believe that the Commission has improved the situation overall compared to 20 per cent in 2001.
For Protestants alone, approval for the Commission has gone up from eight per cent in 2001 to 39 per cent this year.
That is a fivefold increase and it is on a rising trend.
People have other concerns.
Membership of the loyal orders is falling and parading causes less trouble each year.
The great virtue of the Commission was that it took the decision out of the police's hands.
Some areas remain problematic.
At Drumcree, once a nightmare every summer, there is peace but nationalist residents refuse to meet the Orange district on an open ended agenda.
On the other hand the District has moved from refusing to discuss the issue to being willing to talk to anybody – most recently they met Rena Shepherd, the Commission chair, on July 15.
She has been trying to arrange a meeting with the residents who have so far rejected opportunities for dialogue in the belief that they have the advantage.
The parade was originally banned because the Orangemen refused dialogue, so they naturally expect some recognition for their change of stance.
They have a point but it would be neither worthwhile nor effective to collapse Stormont and risk our policing budget over a standoff which could continue regardless.
If it is not resolved through dialogue, someone will have to adjudicate; if not the Parades Commission, then some similar independent body.
Since there is no agreed successor to the Commission, attention should centre on getting a statement from them, or any successor, that if the residents continue refusing dialogue, a parade may be allowed to proceed in a form deemed acceptable.
Meanwhile let's burst this daft Stormont bubble, bank the gains that have been made by the DUP in negotiation and move on.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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