Editorial: Education funding saga is an illustration of the dysfunction of Northern Ireland politics

To get a glimpse of how Northern Ireland could become almost ungovernable, consider what happened yesterday in education. The Department of Education permanent secretary, Mark Browne, said he won’t proceed with proposed cuts to Youth Services, Early Years programmes etc. Dr Browne said such decisions should be taken by a minister and not a civil servant.

Eyebrows will be raised at government level at Dr Browne not taking such a decision when his political masters will have been expecting him to do so, yet his refusal is logical. It is completely unacceptable to ask civil servants to take major departmental decisions that have political implications.

How did this happen? Well the chorus will say it is because the DUP collapsed Stormont. But the problem has its origins in an Irish Sea border that it damages the integrity of the UK and rips up the consent principle of the 1998 Belfast Agreement.

It should be obvious to a Conservative and Unionist government that when, through the dysfunctionality of mandatory coalition, devolved government becomes impossible then unfettered power should return to London until resumption of Stormont rule is feasible. The government would not do that, because Dublin, Sinn Fein, and a range of local parties told them not to. Now we are in a situation in which a civil servant is not playing ball.

But that was not the most extraordinary thing that happened yesterday. Just as remarkable, local politicians including the DUP welcomed his decision. So London won't take charge, leaving it to civil servants – but one civil servant won't. And when he doesn't local politicians who, when Stormont sat, were incapable of taking difficult decisions to balance the books, then come together to welcome the civil servant refusal when they can't come together to form an executive.