Gavin Robinson suggests rivals want to take away minority protections at Stormont now that unionists are the ones in minority
The leader of the DUP has said he will not accept the removal of measures to protect the minority at Stormont, which people had been happy to keep in place during 20 years when nationalists were that minority.
Gavin Robinson was speaking at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in Westminster after a row flared up over his party’s use of the petition of concern to thwart a bid to raise the age of criminal responsibility.
The petition means that a vote cannot pass unless majorities of both unionists and nationalists are in favour; this will scupper a motion that is unfavourable to one side or the other, even if a simple majority of MLAs in the Assembly support it.
Alliance, the SDLP, and Sinn Fein have this week all savaged the unionist parties for signing the petition of concern, with a number of MLAs accusing them of “abusing” the system.
Mr Robinson told MPs on the cross-party committee that the DUP is not against reform of the institutions of government, having backed the St Andrews amendments, a reduction in the departments and MLAs, and the measure to stop ex-paramilitaries being paid advisors, among others, saying “those are all aspects of reform that were capable of providing consensus”.
However, he added, the DUP “believe that no reform should undermine the fundamentals that exist within the Belfast Agreement, and [that we must] ensure that we have a system that reflects suitably and appropriately the community balance within Northern Ireland”.
He said: “We cannot countenance a scenario where, for 20 years, unionists were told you cannot take decisions that are a detriment to a minority, only to find unionism in the minority and find those protections are no longer suitable.
"We cannot agree to that.
"We also think that there's a need for reform within our civil service and the effectiveness of information available to government departments.
"So, there are many aspects of areas where I think there can be consensus, but not if they undermine or remove the fundamental structures that are there that ensure us community consensus and therefore the greatest ability for government to reflect the needs and the wishes of our community that respect our past and that deliver for the future.”
He went on to add that people “can hear very clearly this majoritarian approach, which is about shutting down and shutting up the people I represent, saying to them that in the past when unionists were in the majority, they had to compromise, they had to concede, they had to engage, they had to reach consensus – but if the shoe’s on the other foot those standards don’t apply”.
He said that other proposals for reforming Stormont by, for example, creating a joint first ministership instead of first minister and deputy first minister, or altering how the speaker is chosen, would make “absolutely fundamentally no difference and no impact” to the running of the Province day-to-day.
“The greatest reform has to be internal,” he said.
"It has to be in attitude, in will, it has to be in the desire for elected representatives and leaders to work together to deliver.”
Speaking earlier in the week, DUP education minister Paul Givan had said of the petition of concern: “The intention is to have a cross-community, powersharing executive and assembly that operates on consensus.
"That was good enough whenever unionists were in the majority but now, whenever we have a Sinn Fein/SDLP/Alliance coalition, they’re the majority of parties, they would be able to vote through everything on simple majority votes.”