This was always going to happen when the unionists didn’t have a majority.
In fairess the system only works when both sides buy into it. Now, however, one side has thrown their toys out of the pram.
Let the 3rd biggest party (Alliance) have a shot as junior partner as the DUP have now refused to enter. The same should happen to any party that doesn’t negotiate in good faith to be junior partner, skip them over and let then argue from opposition.
Time to look at amending Northern Ireland’s political system, says Taoiseach, in last few weeks of job.
If you have a setup where a party that gets a quarter of the vote can collapse the government, it’s always going to be unstable
That would be case even if the DUP &SF weren’t utterly useless and incapable of governing well
I think we need to look at some of weighed majority. Where a government that has 60% or so of MLAs behind it can be set up. Which then by necessity couldn’t be made up of one designation
Easiest reform without throwing the entire powersharing concept out the window would be to keep it broadly as it is now but with the following reform. I’d have it so in the first instance both ‘majority’ parties on either side are invited to join but if either/both refuse then it reverts to ‘normal’ whomever can form a coalition type politics.
In the existing scenario if the DUP refuse to play ball the other parties can fire ahead.
If that’s not acceptable the alternative has to be direct joint administration by the UK and Ireland…albeit no idea how that would work in reality.
We should do the same here in the republic after they ignored the electorate and banded together to close up shop
He’s dead right. People of NI have decided against a two party system so it makes no sense that DUP should be able to prevent a government from forming. For whatever it’s worth, here’s how I think it’ll play out: DUP will remain as stubborn as ever and won’t compromise. There will be violence from the working class UVF/UDA gangs, involving poor young lads who don’t know any better. Violence will be strongly opposed by the vast majority of people in NI and IRA won’t need to retaliate like they did in the last century, so it will be a less intense and shorter lived content as DUP and associated paramilitaries and their sympathisers are a significantly lower fraction of the population now than during the last war. Therefore, their violence will be easier to contain and stamp out. Angry loyalism will continue to bubble away in the society after this and that should hopefully have little to no consequences as they will see that a different political system in NI isn’t actually that bad. May e they’ll wonder wtf they got so worked up about in the first place.
11 comments
It’s a broken system
Time he was fired by FF.
says head of government from a minority party
This was always going to happen when the unionists didn’t have a majority.
In fairess the system only works when both sides buy into it. Now, however, one side has thrown their toys out of the pram.
Let the 3rd biggest party (Alliance) have a shot as junior partner as the DUP have now refused to enter. The same should happen to any party that doesn’t negotiate in good faith to be junior partner, skip them over and let then argue from opposition.
Time to look at amending Northern Ireland’s political system, says Taoiseach, in last few weeks of job.
If you have a setup where a party that gets a quarter of the vote can collapse the government, it’s always going to be unstable
That would be case even if the DUP &SF weren’t utterly useless and incapable of governing well
I think we need to look at some of weighed majority. Where a government that has 60% or so of MLAs behind it can be set up. Which then by necessity couldn’t be made up of one designation
Easiest reform without throwing the entire powersharing concept out the window would be to keep it broadly as it is now but with the following reform. I’d have it so in the first instance both ‘majority’ parties on either side are invited to join but if either/both refuse then it reverts to ‘normal’ whomever can form a coalition type politics.
In the existing scenario if the DUP refuse to play ball the other parties can fire ahead.
If that’s not acceptable the alternative has to be direct joint administration by the UK and Ireland…albeit no idea how that would work in reality.
We should do the same here in the republic after they ignored the electorate and banded together to close up shop
He’s dead right. People of NI have decided against a two party system so it makes no sense that DUP should be able to prevent a government from forming. For whatever it’s worth, here’s how I think it’ll play out: DUP will remain as stubborn as ever and won’t compromise. There will be violence from the working class UVF/UDA gangs, involving poor young lads who don’t know any better. Violence will be strongly opposed by the vast majority of people in NI and IRA won’t need to retaliate like they did in the last century, so it will be a less intense and shorter lived content as DUP and associated paramilitaries and their sympathisers are a significantly lower fraction of the population now than during the last war. Therefore, their violence will be easier to contain and stamp out. Angry loyalism will continue to bubble away in the society after this and that should hopefully have little to no consequences as they will see that a different political system in NI isn’t actually that bad. May e they’ll wonder wtf they got so worked up about in the first place.
C’mon Data T.N.G! 2024