UCL’s Constitution Unit has done something remarkable. They’ve produced a report on the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, Towards a Programme of Reform that’s understated. Perhaps they think that NI politics is no longer quite the glaring anomaly compared to the upheavals across the water? But no. The litany of failure is fully recognised. The perverse creation of power sharing as a brake on progress not an accelerator. The Assembly sitting out for five out of nine years, the evasion of huge problems, a reluctance to raise extra revenue even in better times to make an impact on the appalling hospital waiting lists, crumbling infrastructure, polluted water sources. Blame the system, the Brits, the Irish, certainly the other guy across the big ministerial table. Anybody but themselves. This is what cuts through to the public who despite it all nevertheless still broadly support communal or sectarian politics, though with declining enthusiasm. Ultimately it still makes them feel safe. The tradition of sharing out between unionist and nationalist rather than genuinely sharing has proved remarkably robust in the new era of equality and equal treatment. A third way led by the Alliance party remains in third place with no sign of breakthrough into left -right politics. The mind numbing complexity of the processes passes most people by. So we are left trying to make the existing system work better. Can an elite debate within the political class broaden and deepen beyond it? This appears to be the hope. And this report is billed as a new start.
On the one hand, a urgent debate is needed says the CU, to ease rising tensions in the Assembly. While on the other hand, don’t for heaven’s sake try anything ambitious. It’s like a doctor listing the patient’s multiple ailments to their face and suggesting an aspirin. So leave the big reforms alone. Direct rule, joint authority aren’t even mentioned. Everyone’s favourite idea outside the two main parties , a voluntary coalition with or without a weighted majority is definitely ruled out; going with it would only make things worse. This is a pity. Commentary and analysis are all very well but the time for prescription is long overdue. “ Compulsory” power sharing deprives the people of the main catalyst for change, elections that “throw the bastards out,” rather than the paralysing effect of perpetually voting them into government and offering only a choice of prizes. For the “essential review” the CU wants to see, they recommend just a nudge here, a nudge there, hoping that the logic of the situation will work wonders with just a little more effort and a few more ideas. But when you survey the wreckage of past reviews with their pathetically optimistic titles like the government sponsored Stormont House Agreement: Fresh Start in 2015 and New Decade new Approach in 2020 you may wonder why the CU want to leave it to themselves this time. Cunning plan or counsel of despair?
And yet.. Suppressed at the back of their minds they all know the score. It appears in every Assembly mandate as a Programme of Government wish list that’s never implemented. There is no measure or reform under the sun that hasn’t be aired, starting in about 2002 when Mark Durkan the SDLP’s then DfM wanted to start dismantling “ the ugly scaffolding” around the structures. Why should it be different this time?
One big thing is different this time. The looming threat of a Budget crisis is real. Westminster’s custom of bailing out the Executive’s budget is over. Rachel Reeves’ iron- clad fiscal rules won’t allow it. A legacy premium will no longer subsidise the disappointingly small economic peace dividend . Northern Ireland still enjoys a 124% level of English spending according to the Barnett formula. But 124% of what? The English fiscal floor of 100% starts a continuous decline this year. Experts agree that the level of need NI ranges from 128%- 132%. And the Executive is heading for a £400mn overspend they’ll have to pay back from reducing resources. So how do they fill the gap? Even if they try to evade it they’ll be held responsible for it anyway. The Executive is confronted with a choice of raising extra revenue at a difficult time or savage cuts, probably both. The choices mean trade -offs and setting real targets across the piece with outcomes described, a change in the practice for half a lifetime. Faced with the choices, precedent suggests that rather than dealing with them they will walk away. This I suspect is the Constitution Unit’s unspoken fear.
Up to now the Assembly has been only too happy to divert to the identity issues of confidence, like the present rumbling dispute over dual language street names, regarded by Sinn Fein as a test case for parity of esteem and the DUP as an alien encroachment on their space. Is there another motive here, that by boldly entering unionist territory in this way they are provoking unionist intransigence and show the limitations to making the northern state work? We can probably dismiss the unworthy thought that Sinn Fein are seeking a pretext to quit the Assembly and stake all on working for a border poll. Far too much of a gamble And they need to show consistency north and south whatever the impatience within their northern core, in order to impress southern voters with their enthusiasm for winning office. But there you have it, the state of mutual trust and collaboration after nearly thirty years of peace.
Yet all may not be lost. Tucked away is a modest proposal from the SDLP that might trigger a new approach. Reverse the disaster of the St Andrew’s Agreement of 2006 to nominate the First and deputy First Ministers separately as the price of the DUP’s full participation in the Executive so they didn’t have to vote for Sinn Fein. That worked well for them didn’t it? it produced the unforeseen consequence of a Sinn Fein First Minister in fifteen years even without a nationalist bloc majority. The proposal argues that the restoration of joint nomination of FM and d DFM by the parties, rebranded as joint first ministers, would cascade jointery down the line, preventing a single party from collapsing the Assembly, begin merging in effect two governments into a single Executive, promote collective responsibility and provide the mutual cover for difficult decisions, so essential for effective government. The Justice department should no longer be subject to mutual veto but made eligible to all parties like any other department. This deceptively simple reform could contribute mightily to effective government.
The CU report with its emphasis on structure and process leaves the vision thing to civil society. (That is, a vision of a better North not the dream of a united Ireland nor the illusion of a Union with a glorious past ). Vision is needed to inspire and create the elusive sense of common purpose so lacking in their shared political culture to focus on the right policies and win support for doing the right thing . What to do, raise more revenue or impose cuts alongside efficiency improvements or both? The choices have been available since the GFA nearly thirty years ago. Work for the common good, make people’s lives better, the slogans of reform. Meaning start to end double spend for Catholics and Protestants separately in a programme based on the common good, a better concept than ” efficiencies” Target the services most needing improvement that people can recognise. Convert some acute hospitals into primary care centres and expand specialisms in existing centres of excellence to improve treatment standards and reduce waiting times. Drop resistance to charging water rates in common with the rest of the UK to depollute Lough Neagh and increase water production and allow more houses to be built. End informal academic selection and transfer tests and co-site or integrate schools to save money for spending on the likes of “ poor Protestant boys” who are the single most disadvantaged group in society. Repeal the local climate change legislation that the court has ruled prevents the A5 from being rebuilt. Embrace the offer of I billion euros wholeheartedly from the Republic’s Shared Future Fund. Stop regarding is as the trojan horse to achieving unity. New Enterprise trains are on order at last.
To make the vision real, civil society needs to breach their reserve
and contribute ideas and pressure for change. The lobby they formed to cope with “the border in the Irish Sea” showed what can be achieved. Up to now the parties feared exposing bankruptcy of ideas and their control of policy and kept the people who really run affairs at arms’ length. That must change.
Next year’s Assembly elections will test what sort of appetite there is for change. Calls for Sinn Fein to pull out of the Assembly because of the DUP’s refusal “to agree on anything” will be ignored. In their manifesto Sinn Fein are likely to link support for the Assembly with demands for the British government to set criteria for a border poll and the Irish government to become persuaders for unity. They might even call for the size of the nationalist vote to become the criteria to maximise turnout. It isn’t unrealistic to suggest that the vote could exceed 40%. If Sinn Fein are tempted to rely on this beguiling scenario, the other parties including the SDLP should refocus on the public’s real needs for long overdue Executive action, without prejudice to any party’s constitutional preference. I realise as I type, that this would amount to a revolution in attitude. But hopes that the moment for constitutional change has arrived since the emergence of nationalist leaders in all three devolved jurisdictions are likely to be disappointed. Once the dust has settled and nothing much happens immediately over a border poll, the parties are left with their own problems to solve, for the very first time alone. The size of the challenge should evoke a radically different response from what has prevailed over thirty years. Failure will.disgrace the profession of politics and cast fresh doubt about northerners’ ability to organise themselves for government. The legacy of the Troubles is a fading excuse, when normal life outside politics has made some remarkable strides of renewal. Nor are the difficulties facing most western governments with divided communities. We have had more experience of division than most, and frankly less severe than some. The net effect of persistent failure would tend to weaken the unionists’ position more than the nationalists’ who have a wider canvas to draw on outside the state. Unionists should heed the warning. Reactive defensiveness is not the answer. Can it even be respectable, not to recognise each other’s strengths over their weaknesses, and fail to participate in each other’s traditions to which we all belong to a greater or lesser extent according to personal choice?
Surprisingly perhaps the Northern public haven’t given up on the Assembly. Polls over the past two years record 44% support for its survival but with changes but only 30% believing it’s functioning well. Most unsure or don’t know. Around evens or a slight majority support some form of voluntary coalition and for preventing the withdrawal of any single party from collapsing the Assembly.
The pitches that divided unionism are likely to make are still chronically uncertain. Will they group around making the Assembly work as their distinctive appeal or revert to tradition as the champions of the Union in its present state of flux? The comparative stability enacted but far from fully implemented of the Good Friday Agreement might appeal to unionists, the TUV aside, as a new departure with little pressure for Irish unity coming from governments in power in London and Dublin but distinct support for internal change coming from both.
If a border poll became a bargaining chip for supporting the Assembly with the threat of withdrawal in the background, the stick and carrot strategy created for New Decade New Approach should be applied. Single party withdrawal would fail to collapse the Assembly and if the Executive were not reconstituted within a stated time frame, elections would be called until the intransigents complied or the political map redrawn. So one way or another the Assembly and Executive seem set on survival, with the requirement to do much better than that. Wouldn’t it be great of the local parties chose to show the Brits how to operate a multiparty system?
Former BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London
Discover more from Slugger O’Toole
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.