David Thompson: Could it be Sinn Fein's attitude to compromising with unionists that's undermining Stormont?
Whether Sinn Fein collapse Stormont before the next election or not, their attitude to power-sharing – essentially that unionists must just agree with them or get out of the way – is rotting the institutions from within.
Behind all the platitudes about progress and change – republicans appear increasingly frustrated that Northern Ireland doesn’t operate a form of minority rule, whereby less than a third of the popular vote gets you everything you want.
Perhaps Sinn Fein’s frustration is understandable, given the Alliance Party is on the same page as nationalists on most social and economic issues. Along with the SDLP, this has created an effective supermajority in the Assembly on many issues.
But for the power-sharing envisaged in the Belfast Agreement to work, there has to be compromise between unionists and nationalists.
What Sinn Fein has been doing over recent weeks and months is building a narrative that it’s just impossible to work with the DUP. To what end remains to be seen.
Perhaps it’s just a distraction from their own shortcomings on Casement Park, the A5 or the Magee campus of Ulster University in Londonderry – and they intend to plough on regardless, as the First Minister suggests.
Or perhaps Michelle O’Neill intends to quit in the coming months, saying it’s impossible to share an office with Emma Little-Pengelly any longer. Such a collapse could be timed to leave a zombie executive in place up until the next election.
That would free the Sinn Fein vice president from the drudgery of office, and give her more time to swan around Ulster shaking hands and kissing babies. All of this documented on social media, with groups of SF politicians inexplicably walking around silently behind her, in slow motion, as is their wont.
Such an approach was hugely successful last time round, when Ms O’Neill was promising to be a first minister for all and bemoaning the DUP’s decision to collapse Stormont. It seems unlikely her party can grow its vote by crashing government itself, as people are getting it tough heading into winter.
What is unlikely to happen, however, is any notion that Sinn Fein could better deliver for their voters by attempting to reach compromise with the DUP.
Take the party’s proposed employment reforms, what it calls the ‘Good Jobs Bill’. There are undoubtedly parts of that legislation that the DUP is willing to agree to – and parts they are not.
The DUP is essentially asking for trade union reforms to be split from the rest of it, or watered down. They don’t have the support of the business lobby – whose view unionists have broadly backed.
Sinn Fein won’t accept that, as is their right. But the alternative is none of it will go through. While it is not as simple as the DUP ‘blocking progress’ – that will become the narrative.
The legislation is another example of how Sinn Fein has managed to keep unions and the third sector on board, partly because they have ideological common cause, and partly because they never say no to them.
Sinn Fein has no serious political challenge from the left. They could compromise with the DUP on this issue, but won’t.
But would Sinn Fein’s approach be any different if it wasn’t the DUP that was its main partner? It is not beyond the realms of possibility that after the next election, unionism could have a new leader.
Ulster Unionist boss Jon Burrows has had a meteoric rise since he entered politics just over a year ago. He’s now the focus of as many attacks and briefings by the DUP as Jim Allister, a sure sign he’s rattling his rivals.
The problem for the DUP is that both these men offer a clear vision which appeals to the two main strands of unionism – moderates who want to keep Stormont and promise never to bring it down, and those who would bring it all crashing down tomorrow.
The steady rise of the TUV is due in some part to unionist voters simply having had enough of the arrogant dismissal of their concerns by republicans. For them, there is no point in trying to seek any accommodation with republicans – not that they’d even want to. But for now, most unionists accept Stormont.
Should Mr Burrows revive his previously comatose party and return with more seats than the DUP at a subsequent election, the same ideological divide with SF at the executive would persist.
It would be Jon Burrows ‘blocking change’ rather than Gavin Robinson or Emma Little-Pengelly. That republican narrative is fine if the best we are to hope for from a devolved government is this perma-crisis.
If Sinn Fein are serious about power-sharing, as they so often claim, they should get serious about compromise with unionists.
Despite their protestations, unionists have compromised on major issues to keep the Stormont show on the road. The devolution of policing and justice was once unthinkable. The DUP agreed to an Irish language act after SF made it a red line for their return to do their jobs.
The Irish Sea border was probably the greatest compromise of all, the constitutional equilibrium upended entirely – and Alliance forced off the constitutional fence to take a nationalist stance.
Despite all that, Sinn Fein is sabre rattling about the future of devolved government over what it hasn’t been able to reach compromise on.
Until republicans accepts that government here means accepting compromise with their unionist neighbours, there cannot be political stability.