This embarrassing, unfunny DUP-SF farce has run its course '“ end it now

All of which made Hain’s job reasonably easy. Yes, he still had to get them over the line – by way of side deals and nods-and-winks – but they all knew where the line was and what they were prepared to do to cross it.

More important, having replaced the UUP and SDLP as the lead parties (on the back of a relentless campaign about how useless Trimble/Mallon/Durkan were), neither Paisley nor Adams could afford to fail. They had to prove they could do what the others hadn’t been able to do.

We are in a totally different place right now, with an entirely different background and dynamic. Ten years after the excitement and self-serving hubris of May 8, 2007 – when McGuinness and Paisley sealed their deal – it has become blindingly obvious that the two parties cannot work together. They will argue that they sustained an Executive for a decade; but while that may be true, it is also true that it was only sustained after a series of crises and never ending stand-offs and down-to-the-wire summits. And, at the end of that decade, none of the big-ticket problems (legacy, paramilitarism, integration, victims et al) has been resolved.

Neither of them will take personal responsibility for this failure, but are quite happy to lay the entire blame upon the doorstep of the other. Yet, last November, Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness put their name to a joint article:

‘We made promises to voters that we will keep – taking on the heavy responsibilities that come with elected office, governing in their best interests, tackling head-on the tough decisions. Others decided to duck the challenges and retreat to the Opposition benches. That is a matter for them. We are getting on with the work. There will undoubtedly be some difficult choices ahead. Coalition government is a challenge in itself.

‘It’s hardly a secret that our two parties come from very different places and have very different ideologies. However, that should not and will not stop us working together on day-to-day bread and butter issues. We firmly believe that a devolved Executive, with ministers working together effectively and collectively, is in the public interest.

‘Imagine if we had followed the example of others and decided the challenges of government were just too daunting. That would have opened the door to years of direct rule – Conservative ministers ruling over us without a mandate. Rest assured, this Executive is not going to abandon you to that. We are in this for the long haul.’

Within weeks those words had been reduced to mere confetti. McGuinness’s last political act – albeit on the back of the RHI debacle – was to crash the institutions in January by way of a resignation letter that accused the DUP of having little interest in respect, equality, Irish culture, keeping pledges or even of supporting the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement. Yet not one word of that criticism was contained in the joint article he had signed in November; and not a word of criticism from Foster, either. In other words, they had signed an article that they both knew to be nothing more than spin.

But how could it be anything other than spin? They don’t trust each other. They don’t want to govern together. There’s practically nothing on which they agree. Lay the blame where you want; cut the cookie how you want; take whichever side you want; the fact remains that the DUP and SF will not be able to reach an agreement that will withstand contact with the next problem which raises its head (and I could give you a lengthy list without having to pause for breath or thought).

So, maybe it’s time to put them out of their misery? Maybe it’s time for the secretary of state to realise that it isn’t his job to stand around with a cliché, a chequebook and a few rolls of toilet paper, waiting to clean up their latest mess. Maybe it’s time that he made them aware that there are consequences for serial failure. And maybe it’s time for the rest of us to face the fact that the political process begun in the early 1990s has run its course.

The DUP and SF haven’t been mandated to create cooperative, consensual government. Their mandate is for two governments in the same Executive, countering and stalling each other at every turn. But that sort of government cannot work; and it certainly cannot deal with most of the non-economic issues. Let it go. Pull down the shutters. If the parties – under their own steam – can come up with something better further down the line, let’s put it to a referendum and try again. Meanwhile – end this embarrassing, unfunny farce.