Even if Michelle O’Neill stepped aside for a PSNI probe into the Bobby Storey funeral breach it would just pave the way for a return to normality

Only Paul Frew MLA said there must be resignation over Tuesday’s conduct in west Belfast on the day itself.

The Ulster Unionist Party leader Steve Aiken’s first response to the Bobby Storey’s funeral was stronger than the near silence of DUP leaders, but it was hardly robust.

Since then the UUP has called for Michelle O’Neill to quit and the DUP wants her to step aside, pending a PSNI investigation into the affair. This is something that neither Gregory Campbell nor Sammy Wilson thought to say in their first comments on the crisis. It is telling that even those outspoken voices only expressed indignation at the disgraceful breach.

The DUP knows that if Stormont fell it would be blamed on unionists — it always is — but despite this well founded concern it is not possible to overlook Tuesday. Nor is it even enough to say Ms O’Neill temporarily step aside.

While the terrorist funeral clearly broke social distancing guidance, there is dispute as to whether it broke the law. Stepping aside for a PSNI probe just paves the way for a return to normality.

But what happened on Tuesday was an outrage for two key reasons.

The first is obvious: the size and proximity of the crowd was a stark rejection of everything the people of Northern Ireland have understood and obeyed about social distancing. Michelle O’Neill had instructed them so daily. That is clear, whatever technicality Sinn Fein tries to hide behind.

But the second element to the outrage is just as bad — the context of republicans pulling down Stormont in 2017 and keeping it down until their ransom was paid (as it was).

We cannot keep relying on Jim Allister to express what people across Northern Ireland can see (many of them non unionists) about Sinnn Fein.

Many MLAs will want to return to normality in a few days, waving through a fudge on both victims’ pensions and legacy to keep the IRA happy, and with Ms O’Neill back on the podium and tell us all what we can and cannot do.

Instead of that, London needs to engage with the core of this crisis: how Stormont can ever work when a party at its helm wants Northern Ireland to fail, yet has to be in power at all times, regardless of what it does.

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