[Oisin Kearney]
As a fragmented Labour finds in the equally shattered economy a reason to keep its tragic hero Gordon Brown at the helm, the topic of the Northern Ireland peace process has been forced to the periphery of the government’s concern.
Tuesday 23rd September began like any other day in Ireland: cold. But as I headed to Stormont with an MLA (Assembly Member) from a neighbouring constituency, the sun came out, the weather warmed up and I was filled with optimism. I was there to see how the Assembly functioned, but after I shook hands for the twentieth time and was introduced to yet another whiskered MLA as a Politics student, my diplomatic chaperon announced, “He wants to see how politics doesn’t work.”
As I viewed the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin members hissing and jeering at each other in the near-empty bearpit that is the Assembly chamber, I was reminded of David Cameron’s personal gibes during PM’s Question Time. This political point-scoring, though, was more sectarian in character.
Gregory Campbell, Minister for Culture, Arts and Leisure, was attacked by the committee chairperson, Barry McElduff, for his delay in forwarding legislation to promote minority languages such as Irish and Ulster Scots. Mr Campbell bounced back with a sardonic response pointing out that it was Mr McElduff’s party, Sinn Féin, that was delaying the work of the executive.
The Executive has not even met since June, while the Scottish Cabinet has met at least nine times in the same period. Bitter disagreements and infrequent meetings can be explained by the nature of the NI executive.
Ministerial positions are allocated so that the four main parties are represented in a power-sharing government, forcing the diametrically opposed DUP and Sinn Féin to work together as truculent bedfellows. Currently, they can find no common ground over the devolution of policing and justice powers.
When Ian Paisley, then leader of the DUP, finally agreed to a power-sharing government with Sinn Féin, he lasted only a year before stepping down as First Minister. Paisley’s successor, Peter Robinson, was dismayed by Brown’s suggestion that a date for devolution of justice powers be set, and consequently snubbed the Labour conference, while accepting an invitation from its Conservative counterpart. Instead, junior minister Jeffrey Donaldson represented the DUP’s views in Manchester, stating that the party has “consistently said we will not agree to a set timeframe, timetable or deadline for policing and justice.”
Unlike Sinn Féin, which wants to end British involvement in the running of the police and courts, the main unionist party argues that policing is just not relevant at a time of global economic meltdown, when other issues should take priority.
The leader of the non-sectarian Alliance party, David Ford, opines that the Executive is not ready to take on “such a sensitive issue” as policing and justice. He fears that if the executive does not meet to focus on imminent issues such as fuel shortages and water rates, paramilitary dissidents will exploit the political vacuum and “Sinn Féin and the DUP will push Northern Ireland once again towards the abyss.”
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was correct in his diagnosis of a “tense period”, but to say we are teetering on the edge of a bottomless chasm would be a tad dramatic. There is no sword of Damocles dangling over Northern Ireland. Things at Stormont are…a little more mundane.
When I was roasting in the extremely hot BBC studio during a broadcast of Stormont Live, the political correspondent Martina Purdy pointed at me and said with her Canadian twang, “Our audience is falling asleep!” Although I blamed the heat, it has to be said that there was little at Stormont compelling enough to keep me awake.
It was in the afternoon that my eyes were opened. I sat in on a meeting of the All Party Assembly Group on Autism, and watched as politicians from the different parties sat around a table, listening to experts on educating and developing the needs of autistic children. What struck me was the informality of the meeting: phones rang, doors opened and closed, and the politicians drank tea and ate triangular sandwiches. They were putting politics aside to deal with real and pressing affairs.
So despite the wrangling of the Assembly, the sectarian jokes and frosty relations between steadfast nationalists and staunch unionists, the peace process is struggling onwards, and a decade after the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland is beginning to look like a democracy. Still, the institutionalised conflict that produces the petty squabbling on Stormont Hill will continue to undermine the progress that is made. Most would agree, however, that the war of words is infinitely better than the war of bullets.
