Owen Polley: Julian Smith is appalling as secretary for state but even so he is not to blame for the politics mess at Stormont

It seemed impossible that the Conservatives could appoint a worse secretary of state for Northern Ireland than Karen Bradley, but Julian Smith is giving her stiff competition.
As the talks on restoring devolution failed to conclude before Christmas, Julian Smith put the blame squarely on the DUP. But blaming Smith for the mess that our politics has become is a tactic used by politicians and commentators who want to insinuate that the responsibility for our problems lies outside Northern Ireland, or that the British government’s role here is simply to arbitrate and cajole.As the talks on restoring devolution failed to conclude before Christmas, Julian Smith put the blame squarely on the DUP. But blaming Smith for the mess that our politics has become is a tactic used by politicians and commentators who want to insinuate that the responsibility for our problems lies outside Northern Ireland, or that the British government’s role here is simply to arbitrate and cajole.
As the talks on restoring devolution failed to conclude before Christmas, Julian Smith put the blame squarely on the DUP. But blaming Smith for the mess that our politics has become is a tactic used by politicians and commentators who want to insinuate that the responsibility for our problems lies outside Northern Ireland, or that the British government’s role here is simply to arbitrate and cajole.

The Tory minister had scarcely got off the plane in Belfast when he created serious misgivings among unionists by mishandling a story about the Queen’s portrait being removed from NIO buildings.

They were even more appalled when he implied that the government might change the British Nationality Act in line with nationalist demands that automatic UK citizenship should not apply in Northern Ireland.

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Then, as talks on restoring devolution failed to conclude before Christmas, he put the blame squarely on the DUP.

Almost three years after Sinn Féin collapsed the Assembly and issued a series of demands for its re-entry into government, no Conservative minister had uttered a word of condemnation for its behaviour. The lack of insight, diplomacy or even-handedness was startling.

None of which means I blame the secretary of state for the mess that our politics has become. That’s a tactic used by politicians and commentators who want to insinuate that the responsibility for our problems lies outside Northern Ireland, or that the British government’s role here is simply to arbitrate and cajole.

This type of thinking was evident when local parties wrote to the secretary of state, urging him to avoid NHS strikes by meeting the demands of nurses and other health staff. The idea that this action could be taken in isolation, without affecting the rest of Northern Ireland’s budget and without a discussion about its impact, is a good example of politicians who want influence while always making sure the responsibility stays elsewhere.

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We keep hearing that we need power-sharing back to solve the crisis in the health service.

Perhaps a devolved executive could stop the strikes by restoring pay parity with the rest of the UK and cutting something else. However, we forget that waiting lists are so long and conditions for staff so bad because successive health ministers at Stormont failed to reform our version of the NHS, despite commissioning a series of reports that spelt out exactly what needed to be done.

Policy reviews in 2011, 2014 and 2016 made broadly the same recommendations. We needed to concentrate expertise in fewer acute hospitals and shift resources from hospital care to community care. But, far from planning to make these changes before its suspension, the Executive was further away than ever from taking action.

The Donaldson Review, published in 2014, gave specific advice about which services and hospitals needed to close. Yet, when Michelle O’Neill became health minister in 2016, rather than take responsibility and implement the report, she simply commissioned another one. The Bengoa Review made largely the same points but replaced concrete suggestions with general statements of principle.

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Back to the current negotiations, and last night the two governments tabled a text for an agreement that the parties will consider before deciding whether to resume their duties today.

The main obstacle to restoring Stormont throughout this process was Sinn Fein’s insistence on an Irish Language Act. Remember, this ‘red line’ was previously bundled up with demands for same-sex marriage and abortion reform, to lend credibility to the notion that it is a ‘rights issue’.

Amid all the discussion about whether Irish language legislation was necessary, whether it should comprise a standalone act and whether it was part of the St Andrews Agreement, there’s was very little debate around what it might contain. The detail will gradually be teased out, but the new text seems close to what the DUP was reportedly close to agreeing in February 2018.

A separate Irish act is not mentioned, but the text includes a measure to repeal the requirement for courts to operate exclusively in the English language. The practical difficulties such a reform could create and the malign ways it could be used to undermine the justice system can be easily imagined.

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Equally seriously, new commissioners are proposed, dealing with the Irish and Ulster Scots languages. The Irish language commissioner is to be granted sweeping powers to ‘introduce…. best practice standards’ and ‘provide official recognition of the status’ of Gaelic in Northern Ireland.

This provision will trigger unionists’ worst fears about language legislation, because it creates a powerful body whose entire purpose is to generate more demands for Irish. It raises the possibility that the practical business of delivering services will be complicated by imposing legal obligations on public bodies to promote the cultural aspirations of Gaelic enthusiasts.

When the DUP was seemingly looking at ways to balance out Irish language laws with more unnecessary legislation dealing with ’unionist culture’, perhaps it should have been asking what it could accept from an ILA.

It might have suggested formalising existing entitlements and offering support for Gaelic in the cultural sphere. That approach may have ensured that public bodies were left to offer services efficiently and cost-effectively in a language that people understood.

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Instead, the DUP failed to explain clearly what it wanted out of negotiations or communicate effectively its position on the issues it finds most difficult. It may be unfair, but that’s the reason that Julian Smith and his ilk find it easy to blame the party.

It’s easier than asking why power-sharing in Northern Ireland repeatedly stalls or why it’s always republicans making demands.