Editorial: Now that unionists are in a minority at Stormont​, Brandon Lewis is talking of reform

Why does he want this? Because, he says, the Alliance Party cannot be first or deputy first minister and the Belfast Agreement, while a “a brilliant framework ... is a poor foundation for effective government”.

Mr Lewis continues: “The question we must dare to ask ourselves is: what next?”

But it is that it is not a matter of ‘daring’ to ask ourselves this. The very same point is being suggested by Alliance politicians, Labour ones, Irish mainstream ones, nationalists, and, if not already, then soon by Tories such as Simon Hoare MP and Julian Smith MP.

There is, thus, nothing daring about it. It is just want the centre ground and Irish nationalism wants, because it would mean an end to mandatory coalition, and semi permanent Alliance-SDLP-Sinn Fein rule.

Mr Lewis: those parties are fixated on the Brexit that your party was so central to bringing about and which you have (quite justifiably) spent your recent career defending.

The Northern Ireland Office will never change when even Conservative and Unionist politicians show little grasp of the challenges facing unionism. The Tory establishment did even criticise Sinn Fein for its three-year Stormont collapse until it got its Irish language act, and certainly never talked of the sort of reform that might exclude SF from office. Suddenly it feels able to think of reform when unionism is in a minority – and when unionism has taken serious political action only because it supports the critique of the NI Protocol that was in Brandon Lewis’s own 2021 command paper.

Mr Lewis, ironically, is one of the few ministers who actually did at times criticise the Irish government during his time in office. He should know better than to issue a provocative call for reform at this time.