Stormont is a huge estate in east Belfast featuring at its highest point Parliament Buildings where the Assembly, in cold storage for very close to three years, should sit.
And standing lower down at Stormont House the Northern Secretary Julian Smith looked to the building in the biting cold yesterday and said, “This empty symbol at the top of this hill cannot go on any longer. We have to govern.”
And all the five main parties who held talks with him at Stormont House on Monday agreed with him. Arlene Foster and Mary Lou McDonald of the DUP and Sinn Fein, Colum Eastwood and Steve Aiken of the SDLP and the Ulster Unionist Party and Naomi Long of Alliance were at one in saying now was the time to get the Northern Executive and Assembly up and running again – a message reinforced by Tanaiste Simon Coveney when visited Stormont later in the evening from Madrid.
Considering we have been at pivotal political moments so often here before, especially at Christmas time for some reason, none of the politicians was getting over excited about the prospect of a deal. Yet, the mood was reasonably optimistic.
Smith has warned the parties that if there is no agreement by January 13th then under legislation he then will be obliged to call new Assembly elections. And after the hit taken by the DUP, particularly in losing two Westminster seats, but also by Sinn Fein in witnessing a significant drop in its vote – its North Belfast success notwithstanding — the thought of an another election in late January or February is sufficient to concentrate minds, especially when the more centre ground parties are on the rise.
There is little doubt that Arlene Foster and Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill of heard the message from the electorate, that it wants Stormont back to tackle the health crisis, education, welfare, poverty and jobs.
There is general consensus too that resolving the Irish language question would be critical in bringing back Stormont. Mary Lou McDonald and Arlene Foster, while still at variance on this subject, were careful and even a little conciliatory when speaking separately to reporters outside Stormont House.
Yes, Sinn Fein wanted an Irish language act, agreed McDonald but it wasn’t in the business of setting down “red lines” because that wasn’t helpful. She would resist “going down the rabbit hole of using language that ultimately sets the process up for confrontation.”
Equally, Arlene Foster was measured in offering up the possibility of compromise or resolution on language. She said, “What we need to see is a new cultural and linguistic deal, one that recognises the rights, the security and confidence of everybody in Northern Ireland. We’re certainly up for that.”
If there is to be an agreement then the important players in achieving it are Arlene Foster and Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill. Northern Ireland politicians, as is well documented, have a cavalier attitude to deadlines, and January 13th is another one they might miss, but at least at the start of the negotiations, linguistically so to speak, they were talking the same positive language.
