Sam McBride: A year in which politics went backwards, with the slow degradation of Northern Ireland in prospect

This time last year, contingency plans were being drawn up to finally implement direct rule in Northern Ireland.
It is civil servants, not politicians in Stormont, who are now running Northern Ireland  and that has created profound problemsIt is civil servants, not politicians in Stormont, who are now running Northern Ireland  and that has created profound problems
It is civil servants, not politicians in Stormont, who are now running Northern Ireland  and that has created profound problems

After almost a year without any devolved ministers to run Stormont departments, officials from the Northern Ireland Civil Service, which staffs the devolved administration, and civil servants from the Northern Ireland Office held a series of meetings to plan what would happen on day one of direct rule.

But early on it became clear to some of those in the room that there was no political will from the government to formally accept the reality that devolution no longer existed in Northern Ireland and that therefore the only realistic alternative was for Westminster to step in to appoint direct rule ministers until the DUP and Sinn Féin could agree to share power.

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For that reason, their work – which the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, David Sterling, revealed publicly in January – was largely academic. But quickly even that perfunctory contingency planning for direct rule came to an end.

Perhaps a factor in the government’s thinking was its knowledge of behind the scenes contact which brought the DUP and Sinn Féin leaderships to the brink of a deal to restore Stormont in February.

Unfortunately from the government’s point of view, the DUP talks team was so out of touch with the rest of the party and Arlene Foster was so weakened by the RHI scandal that the proposed deal – which would have involved the Irish language act which Sinn Féin demanded before it would return to Stormont – was quickly abandoned when the scale of internal party opposition became apparent.

Since then, the government has increasingly failed to even pretend that there is any prospect of devolution returning in the near future. It is now 10 months from the point at which the DUP and Sinn Féin were even in negotiations about re-entering power-sharing.

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The removal of the government fig leaf that devolution may be on the cusp of returning has confirmed what had been apparent to the civil servants involved in the direct rule planning a year ago – there was never a serious commitment by Theresa May to take on responsibility for running Northern Ireland.

Although the government has an understandable concern that direct rule by an administration propped up by the DUP could enrage nationalism, there is scant evidence of Karen Bradley seeking creative alternatives to the current quagmire.

She could have suggested direct rule ministers for a limited period of time, with additional transparency around decision-making to address concern about DUP influence.

Or such a move could have been considered solely in the health department, the least controversial area and one where it would be difficult for Sinn Fein to argue against pragmatic decision-making.

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Instead, Ms Bradley has been largely stagnant, taking almost a year even to agree to cutting MLAs’ pay in the absence of an Assembly – something which her own official advice was in favour of and which every party publicly endorsed.

The resultant vacuum has meant that 2018 has been a year in which civil servants have from beginning to end ruled Northern Ireland with no democratic accountability, with no clear rules as to what they can do and with confusion both inside the civil service and among those lobbying them about their powers.

Where civil servants have done little of note, keeping things ticking over but not taking any of the controversial decisions which are necessary in any government, the situation has largely gone unnoticed to many of the public.

But on several occasions where civil servants have attempted to act like politicians they have come unstuck. The decision of senior civil servant Peter May in late 2017 to grant planning permission for a huge incinerator outside Mallusk led to a High Court challenge which he lost. After appealing to Northern Ireland’s highest court, he lost again, with withering comments from Court of Appeal justices.

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Lord Justice Treacy said that “If Parliament had intended to introduce such a radical and anti-democratic departure from the constitutional norms which apply elsewhere in the UK it would have said so in clear and express terms.”

Secretary of State Karen Bradley responded by asking a largely empty Commons chamber to legislate to give civil servants the powers which the court had found they did not have. MPs duly obliged.

Some senior civil servants did not welcome Ms Bradley’s move, seeing it as an attempt by her to avoid having to take the difficult decisions herself and putting them in the deeply problematic situation of making political judgements.

And the move raised profound questions about democratic accountability. If unelected civil servants handling a multi-billion pound budget take major political decisions, how can the public democratically overturn those decisions or even hold them to account?

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As it has turned out, the civil service has largely adopted a minimalist interpretation of its new powers. Despite the new legislation, there is still no certainty about how far the powers of civil servants extend and a major controversial decision would likely be challenged in court, thus delaying the decision and potentially overturning it.

In the meantime, the situation is contributing to a slow degradation of Northern Ireland. From the economy to the health service to the school estate to safety improvements at football stadia to environmental controls and restrictions on the sale of e-cigarettes to children, Northern Ireland’s law and public administration is now stuck in time.

Many of the decisions not being taken either affect only a small section of the population or will take years to be noticed by the public.

There are well-placed reports of investors threatening to pull out of vast financial deals in Northern Ireland if government cannot take decisions necessary for them to proceed. Various sources cite decisions worth between £1 billion and £2 billion which have now been held up for almost two years.

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On the other hand, far-reaching and ultra political decisions about the outworking of Brexit are being taken by civil servants who have no democratic authority to do so and are - through no fault of theirs – being placed in a dangerously politicised situation, vulnerable to accusations of bias from either unionists or nationalists.

There will be a practical impact of this period of administrative turmoil. But there will also be a political impact.

With Northern Ireland now just over two years from its centenary, unless something radically changes there is a the prospect of that seminal moment being marked while Stormont lies empty, the reputation of the Northern Ireland Civil Service is shredded, politicians are widely held in contempt and the practical effects of having had no government are by then inescapable.

As well as the likely drop in Catholic support for the Union in such a situation, the international scorn and calls for a border poll would leave unionism acutely vulnerable.

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But there are risks in such a scenario for republicans as well. With many in the south already viewing Northern Ireland as a basket case which threatens to destabilise a settled and prosperous southern state if Irish unity were to happen, an amplification of that message would be the opposite of what Martin McGuinness said was his goal for a decade at the top of Stormont - that Northern Ireland needs to work.

Even a year ago, it would have seemed far-fetched that by 2021 Northern Ireland would still be without any government.

But with every month that has passed since then it seems like the government has no alternative policy.