Paisley Jnr should resign
During the St Andrews negotiations, when the DUP team was supposedly negotiating a "fairer deal" and "getting it right" for Northern Ireland, Ian Paisley Jnr was on a solo run for North Antrim.
We know it was a solo run because the DUP, very quickly as it happens, issued a statement saying that the issues were "not raised by or with the party, nor were they included on any shopping list considered and approved by the party officers". That statement itself raises the question of what was on their shopping list and whether or not the Government delivered the goods!
Side-deal
Now, everybody knows that political parties take the opportunity to conclude a side-deal or two at these sorts of events. It's hard not to when you have a couple of Prime Ministers close to hand, both of whom want something positive to show for their attendance and personal input. But in the past it has always been about matters which go a little further than the backdoor of one person; and, in my limited experience of these things, side-deal possibilities are usually agreed in advance by the team and then negotiated on their behalf. (Occasionally, too, it's about ensuring that key figures in the process are properly recognised and rewarded for their efforts.)
And that's the key difference this time: for Jnr decided that a negotiation process involving two sovereign governments and Northern Ireland's main political parties, was a suitable moment to raise issues that applied only to his own constituency. Two had connections with Seymour Sweeney; another one was about planning approval for a spa and two hundred houses; one was about dropping a judicial review; and one was about funding for a motorcycle event!
Odd
The odd thing about that list is that it doesn't include health, or education, or the housing and drug problems in Ballymena. It isn't so much about promoting the needs of his constituency as about promoting needs which are close to him. Had there been a huge constituency issue – particularly an issue which was of concern to all of the parties in North Antrim and the electorate in general – then no-one would have blamed him for having a quick word with the Prime Minister. We might even have praised him!
He now insists that the only thing he was guilty of was "eagerness in resolving my constituency cases" and that none of this is a "political issue or a matter which causes me any embarrassment". Let's be clear here, Prime Ministers do not normally concern themselves with this sort of parochial stuff, particularly when it isn't even a constituency represented by a member of their own party. By raising these issues, at that time and in those circumstances, it is very hard to avoid the conclusion that Jnr was creating a direct link between a successful outcome at St Andrews and a written willingness from the Prime Minister to "respond positively" to his requests. In that sense it was very obviously political.
The embarrassment lies in the fact that he is beginning to look very accident prone. At the end of last May he stood over his comments that he was "pretty repulsed" by gays and lesbianism. He got away with it because he wasn't a junior minister at the time he made the comments.
In September came the "I know of him" saga. If it looked bad then, it looks very much worse now; for we have hard evidence that he lobbied the Prime Minister in October 2006 on matters that involved a private developer who was also a member of the DUP. Did the Prime Minister know of that connection? Again, would it not have been appropriate to have informed Arlene Foster, as soon as she became a minister, of the link between himself and Seymour Sweeney and between Sweeney and the DUP? Or even to have informed his Party Officers – when the Sweeney story first broke – about his lobbying of the Prime Minister? Secrecy always fuels suspicion.
Indeed, it now looks so bad that both the Assembly's Environment and Enterprise Committees are asking for papers and background information. DETI took the very unusual step of agreeing to submit a series of Freedom of Information requests to Downing Street and the NIO, to find out what exchanges took place between Jnr and Blair and what action, if any, followed as a consequence. Arlene Foster has to face the fact that any decision she now makes on the Causeway has to have any hint of unfair or secret lobbying removed from it.
Untenable
It strikes me that his position as a junior minister is now utterly untenable. He used his presence at St Andrews to lobby the Prime Minister on issues which were mostly of personal concern or interest to him. He did so without the knowledge or authority of his party. Interestingly, no senior member of the DUP has supported him and Jeffrey Donaldson distanced himself on Thursday's Hearts and Minds. I think that the real weakness of his position lies in the fact that he is now openly talking about a successor to his father and publicly backing Peter Robinson. He sounded desperate; and with good reason.
Whether there was an intended link between his father being prepared to agree a deal and Jnr getting satisfaction on his own agenda, is something that only Jnr can know. But the very fact that no one but him can answer a question that should never have had to be raised in the first place, is probably the strongest possible reason for his resignation
He has never been a popular figure outside the DUP. That was okay so long as he served the interests of his party and served them well. But he is now bereft of credibility and tarnished by the suspicion that he has an uncomfortably close relationship with congenital misjudgment. He is now a liability to the DUP. Had he been any other MLA, and the son of anyone else, I suspect that he would have been shuffled sideways. If it looks like his survival is now entirely dependent upon his father's posts as party leader and First Minister then both men look weak.
Errors
All politicians make "errors of judgment" and have to apologise for them. But when the errors start piling up then we have a right to raise questions about the competence of the individual. Resignation does not spell the end of a political career. It can indicate a sense of honour and dignity and in many cases the door is left open for a return to office. Hanging on by your bootstraps because your job is in the gift of your father serves only to highlight the absurdity of your position. If Jnr can't see that he needs to stand down, and his father hasn't the heart to push him, then the DUP's Assembly Group should make the decision for them. Let's face it, if this was any other minister in any other party, it would be the advice that Jnr himself would be hollering from the rooftops!
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Tuesday 29 May 2012
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