We need to seriously think through the likely consequences of no deal

The Barry McElduff video (a monumentally stupid stunt, irrespective of whether or not you thought it was deliberately offensive) and the cartoon from Brian John Spencer (which made me very uncomfortable), lined up unionists and republicans on opposite sides. On opposite sides and very angry with each other.

Yet the response summed up a point I first made on these pages about 15 years ago: the past is always in front of us here. How could it be otherwise, when we don’t agree on the present or future; when one crisis and stand-off follows another across the years; and when reconciliation remains a contested definition rather than a reality.

Reconciliation – or rather, the lack of it – is our biggest stumbling block. Its absence makes progress impossible, because its absence ensures that there is no trust, no forgiveness, no joint understanding of how we ended up where we are, no collective responsibility for the wrongs done and hurt inflicted and, crucially, no genuine desire to work together in common cause.

And its absence is why a single incident has the potential to push us closer to the final tipping point; because that single incident clarifies the sheer scale of the chasm which separates us.

It’s interesting that both Sinn Fein and the DUP were aware of how dangerous the political atmosphere had become; and even more interesting that on last Thursday’s The View John O’Dowd and Edwin Poots made a genuine effort to lower the tension. That’s because both parties know that crisis at the centre is often reflected on the darker fringes of a divided society, leaving them with problems beyond their control.

But let’s not kid ourselves that the O’Dowd/Poots ‘moment,’ important though it was, means that a broader breakthrough is on the cards anytime soon.

The parties still dislike each other. More important, the reaction to the video and cartoon indicates that their voting bases remain as divided and stand-offish as before.

At the first Assembly election in 1998, Sinn Fein and the DUP accounted for 36% of the vote. That’s now grown to 66%. And it’s grown because they have toughened rather than softened their respective stances. Toxicity, it seems, reaps electoral dividends.

The new secretary of state will want to kick start a new round of talks as soon as possible. She seems to have had a reasonably good conversation with Simon Coveney last week; while Arlene Foster – as I predicted – used a speech in Killarney on Saturday to repair the pre-Christmas spat between Dublin and the DUP. Again, though, this sort of thaw doesn’t mean that the ice will be melting between Foster and O’Neill.

It has been suggested that an ‘outsider’ be brought in to chair the next round of talks. Why bother? George Mitchell left us with nothing more than ‘constructive ambiguity’. Others have come and gone, leaving us with new layers of fudge. Some have suggested moving the talks to a ‘big house’ location. But again, why bother? St Andrews was a big house and, according to Sinn Fein, the DUP ignored everything supposedly agreed there.

In fairness, though, when the DUP left those talks, they issued a document – which I still have – confirming that St Andrews was just a deal between the two governments. That said, I quite like the idea of sending them all to Cluedo Mansion, with the diplomatic equivalents of Sheerluck Holmes and Hysterical Parrot. And if there is to be an ‘outsider,’ let it be someone from Dignitas.

Let me offer a suggestion. Before a new, formal round of negotiations, it might be an idea if just a few people gathered together: O’Neill, Foster, Coveney, Bradley and a couple of advisors each. And just one subject on their agenda – the consequences of the Good Friday Agreement finally collapsing.

I know that some of you think that I’m being unduly pessimistic when I’ve argued that the GFA is, ‘to all intents and purposes dead’, yet it seems to me that we are very close to that point. The level of community polarisation and political poison strikes me as being higher than it was before the GFA; and if it continues to rise then it will become impossible to draw back from the brink, because there won’t be enough fudge or linguistic trickery to hold the pages of a deal together.

So, let me be unambiguously blunt: if the DUP and Sinn Fein cannot cut a deal (and I don’t just mean the usual sticking plaster guff) and restore the institutions, then the Good Friday Agreement will be no more.

The name may still linger on – but that’s all. And once it’s gone no one – and I really do mean no one – knows what will follow. Sinn Fein and the DUP may believe that the dynamics will shift in their favour – but that’s mere guesswork. A return to terror cannot be ruled out. Talks will be on hold for years. Polarisation will cement new and nastier barriers into place. There will be an exodus on a scale we’ve never seen before.

Lay the blame for the present failure where you like, yet the fact remains that the collapse of the GFA would hit all of us – and hit us hard. So the DUP and Sinn Fein need to focus on the consequences of not cutting a deal. That’s all that matters now.