Owen Polley: Burnham and Bryant already seem worse than Starmer and Benn
No-one can claim credibly that Keir Starmer was a good prime minister or that Hilary Benn made a success of being secretary of state for Northern Ireland.
As a result, it was understandable that many unionists could not wait to get rid of Starmer’s government.
I’ve always insisted in this column, though, that a new administration could be worse.
It is still very early to judge Andy Burnham as prime minister. But there are already reasons to worry about his approach to Northern Ireland.
The incoming NI secretary, Sir Chris Bryant, has made a particularly uncertain start to his new job. In fact, so far, he has made his predecessor look reassuringly confident and reliable.
Before Labour came to power, some unionists, including the DUP leader Gavin Robinson and the then UUP leader Doug Beattie, implied that the party might actually strengthen Northern Ireland’s place in the Union.
That idea disintegrated quickly and the charges against Starmer and Benn started to mount.
The Conservatives may have agreed to the Irish Sea border, as a way of securing Brexit for the rest of the UK, but the Labour government implemented it with an enthusiasm and rigour that we had not seen before.
Perhaps that should not have been a surprise.
It was Benn, in league with the hardline Conservative ‘remainer’ Alistair Burt, who co-sponsored the law that prevented the UK from leaving the European Union with ‘no deal’.
Former Brexit secretary, Lord Frost, and other Brexiteers, insisted that this legislation undermined the government’s negotiations with the EU and forced Boris Johnson to accept the NI protocol.
They have an incentive to play down Johnson’s culpability, but the Benn-Burt act certainly contributed to cutting us off from the rest of the British economy and subjecting us to Brussels’ authority.
On an equally important theme, Starmer and Benn refused to defend the Tories’ Legacy Act, which tried to stop soldiers from being pursued through the courts and republicans from using lawfare to distort the history of the Troubles.
As an alternative, Labour co-designed its proposals with the Republic, which had taken a shamelessly hypocritical legal action against the UK in the European Court of Human Rights.
Starmer effectively granted Dublin a veto over British legacy legislation, despite its deeply partisan stance on the Troubles. This shocking capitulation has actually been underplayed by unionists.
Why, then, do I maintain that Starmer and Benn may have been better than Burnham and Bryant?
To cite one example, the former NI secretary at least gave a clear message on a potential ‘border poll’ on Northern Ireland’s annexation by the Republic.
Benn consistently argued that a referendum was not justified.
Significantly, he also defended the secretary of state’s power to make a decision on whether a poll was necessary, citing the provisions of the Belfast Agreement.
In addition, Starmer and Benn voiced support for Northern Ireland’s place in the Union. Indeed, in opposition at least, they suggested that they would campaign for us to remain part of the UK, if a referendum ever took place.
Compare that record to the halting, evasive answers Bryant provided to similar questions, in his first round of interviews.
He did not even deny that he supported a so-called ‘united Ireland’.
This floundering performance only contributes to the arguments that Sinn Fein could benefit from pulling down Stormont.
Last week, a nationalist commentator even encouraged the party to refuse to operate power-sharing unless the government published specific criteria that triggered a border poll. In other words, Sinn Fein should only participate at Stormont if our government unveils a plan for Northern Ireland’s destruction.
Benn could at least be relied upon to handle such nonsense. Who would predict that Bryant will be so dependable? He cannot even state openly that he supports the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The new secretary of state was on more similar ground to his predecessor when he claimed that the Irish Sea border was ‘pretty much settled’ and should be ‘exploited’. This iteration of the ‘best of both worlds’ lie, though, was particularly unnuanced and crude.
At least the previous government claimed that its ‘reset’ deal with the EU, including a proposed agreement on agriculture, would ease Irish Sea border problems. It went so far as to encourage agrifood businesses to prepare for easier lives.
This line may have been unconvincing, but it acknowledged that there were issues and that progress towards resolving them was desirable.
Starmer seemed to believe that if he gave the EU everything it wanted, its bureaucrats would shower him with goodwill, generosity and reasonableness. This strategy failed spectacularly, but, if anything, Burnham seems even keener to grovel to Brussels.
The bloc’s negotiators halted its talks with Britain recently, because it assumed that the new prime minister would be more accommodating than Starmer.
On this evidence, the idea that Burnham will ask the EU to make meaningful concessions, like allowing free movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland or loosening its grip on our laws, is vanishingly improbable.
This unfortunate picture carries with it a useful lesson for the future.
It is easy and tempting to call for constant change and many politicians love to make those demands. Before we join them, though, it is worth considering what is likely to come next.
It could always be worse than what we’ve got.