Kate Hoey: Sinn Fein wants Northern Ireland to fail, which means forced power sharing at Stormont is dysfunctional and cannot work

Since retiring as a Vauxhall MP and spending lockdown here I have genuinely been shocked at what passes as government.

The events around the funeral of the former IRA chief intelligence officer Bobby Storey have only been, to put it crudely, the final nail in the coffin of what is a pretend system of government.

Underpinning our assembly and executive is the mandatory coalition principle which in theory was designed to bring everyone together and ensure that the opposing political viewpoints would somehow merge into a friendly working relationship.

Now it is true that in the early stages of the Covid 19 pandemic the first and deputy first minister, Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill, seemed to be putting aside personal animosities and uniting to fight what was without doubt a real danger to the public.

However, even then the Sinn Fein leader went against the collective responsibility code, first in abandoning an agreed position on school closures and then when criticising the health minister, as she tried to portray everything in the Republic as so much better.

A basic principle of democracy is a strong opposition and that is what the assembly lacks.

For whatever motive all the big parties took positions in the executive.

The only credible opposition comes from one MLA Jim Allister who manages to scrutinise and criticise remarkably well despite his being alone.

But the question that needs to be asked is how can mandatory coalition work when one of the two parties in power, Sinn Fein, doesn’t just want to see Northern Ireland successful but actually wants to destroy the country as it exists?

The Ulster Unionist Party which seems to have become more credible under its current leader Steve Aiken arguably made a big mistake in taking a ministerial job in the executive in January (that is not to criticise Health Minister Robin Swann who has done a fine job in difficult circumstances.)

There is a perception – perhaps unfair – that for many politicians the prize of extra salary, chauffeured cars and the distinction of being a minister has overridden the need to take on the executive in the normal way as an opposition.

Sinn Fein and the DUP need each other to stay in power so for example we get the ridiculous sight of DUP MLAs voting a former IRA member to be speaker when a credible alternative was a candidate from the SDLP.

Now SF/DUP are apparently going to oppose the very much needed private members bill to make more transparent the way special advisers are regulated to prevent the abuse of the system shown during the RHI debacle.

The decision recently by the assembly to take back control of their own expenses suggested their unwillingness to have independent monitors as do other parliaments in the UK and elsewhere.

Victims of terrorism and of historic institutional abuse have been treated shabbily and have been made pawns in the bigger game of political chess played in Stormont.

The leader of the DUP is in a tricky position. If she brings down the government she will be pilloried by many.

Even when republican actions twice caused the executive to fall, due to both IRA conduct prior to 2002 and Sinn Fein’s decision in 2017 to collapse devolution, it wasn’t long before unionists got the blame.

There were all the problems caused by republicans pre 2002 including the years-long delay to decommissioning.

Then when Stormont was down there was the Northern Bank robbery, and other IRA outrages.

There were also other crises that led to Stormont almost falling, such as over devolution of policing and justice prior to 2010, over welfare reform, over the On The Run secret scheme, and the 2015 killings and paramilitary report.

Leadership means taking hard decisions. Despite the united calls for Michelle O’Neill to apologise over her behaviour at the Storey funeral I suspect that a fudge is likely be found and business will carry on as normal. However normal is not good enough and people here deserve much better.

For too long the established media, with a few exceptions, and all public institutions including our churches have adopted the mantra of ‘don’t rock the boat’ and ‘we must protect the peace process’. Well, I for one reject this.

I don’t want to live in a sham democracy where the threat of a return to violence means we all have to put up and shut up.

It really is time for all who genuinely love Northern Ireland to speak out and say enough is enough.

The executive is dysfunctional and prolonging its life will serve no one.

Direct rule is needed with a beefed up ministerial team giving priority to getting the economy boosted and our health and education services supported. That cannot mean an increased role for an Irish government that does not want Sinn Fein anywhere near power in Dublin.

Until we reshape the institutions and radically reform how we run our government local politicians will not be trusted to govern over us.

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