Unionists may be about to turn their backs on the Belfast Agreement

During the hoopla for the Belfast Agreement’s 25th anniversary a few months ago we witnessed lots of well-rehearsed emotion, self-congratulatory back-slapping, upbeat assessments about the future and the incessant clicking of “oh-look-at-us” photo-opportunities. It was very surreal. The Assembly was mothballed at the time: as it had been in 2018, the 20th anniversary big-ticket jamboree. Indeed, the Assembly has been mothballed for almost five of the last seven years and previous to that it was, for most of the time, propped up on the governmental equivalent of a Zimmer frame – albeit with two people trying to push it in different directions.

Having observed the peace process very closely since the original IRA and loyalist paramilitary ceasefires in August and October 1994, I can’t now avoid the conclusion that it will be impossible to put in place a stable, genuinely co-operative, powersharing government in Northern Ireland. I write that with a heavy heart, because I supported the Belfast Agreement and dared to hope that, with enough good will and trust, “we would learn to do our political business differently and better”.

I was never naive enough to imagine that it would be a hop, skip and a jump to harmony, but I did believe that a moment that had never existed before in my lifetime might be monumental enough to persuade well-practised political opponents to underpin the hope of April 1998 with a multiparty executive working together in common purpose. Sadly, that didn’t happen and by May 2007, after they had eclipsed the SDLP and UUP, the DUP and Sinn Féin cut their own bespoke arrangement and created a structure that was, to all intents and purposes, two opposing governments in the one executive.

Even if the DUP and Sinn Féin manage to reboot the Assembly and executive in the next few weeks it is unlikely to deliver either stability or collective responsibility. We are doomed to endure conflict stalemate

Ironically, I still think it likely that the DUP will U-turn its way back to the Assembly fairly soon, not least because the Windsor Framework is here to stay no matter what the party does and direct rule – which won’t exclude input from Sinn Féin and the Irish Government – will do no favours for unionists. In fact, it would probably increase their present sense of isolation and betrayal.

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But even if the DUP and Sinn Féin (which might now have a problem with the legacy/reconciliation legislation being pushed through Westminster) do manage to reboot the Assembly and executive in the next few weeks it is unlikely to deliver either stability or collective responsibility. So, the evidence suggests, we are doomed to endure conflict stalemate because the route to conflict resolution is blocked at just about every turn.

The biggest problem of all is that the shadow of a Border poll – which I think is inevitable – will continue to hang over everything for years. Leo Varadkar’s intervention a few days ago – “I believe there will be a united Ireland in my lifetime” – carried the hint that he might be willing to sign off on a Border poll at some point. Fianna Fáil, which might also consider a coalition with Sinn Féin after the next election, could also be tempted to make its own, closer to Sinn Féin, noises on unity and Border polls fairly soon.

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This is the sort of thing that spooks unionism: so much so, in fact, that Varadkar had his knuckles rapped by Northern Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris on Monday, telling him he needed “the clearest pitch possible to get the executive up and running”. The need for the very public rap may be an indication of how close he believes the DUP is to a deal.

Against this background, it will be impossible for the DUP and Sinn Féin to work together in an executive – assuming they agree to reboot it. And the greater the noise about Border polls and potential unity, the harder it will be for a centrist party like Alliance (now in advance of the UUP and SDLP in votes and seats) to play the agnostic card on the constitutional question. Particularly if Sinn Féin has scored the double whammy of taoiseach in the South and first minister in the North. Also, I think that very obvious instability in the Assembly and executive will see nationalism/republicanism prioritise an All-Ireland “new” Ireland project above everything else. Again, how does that encourage powersharing and consensus?

If there is a way out of this present mess, I don’t see it

Crucially, we might be close to the point at which a clear majority of unionism/loyalism will step back from supporting the Belfast Agreement and devolution structures – even if the DUP does choose to return to the executive. A number of factors are in play: their sense of serial betrayal by UK, particularly Conservative, governments (stretching back to 1972); what they view as the “granny-flat” status forced upon Northern Ireland by the protocol/Windsor Framework; a growing perception (heightened after unionism lost its overall majority in the Assembly in 2017) that the Belfast Agreement structures are of more benefit to Sinn Féin than to them; a further growing perception that the entire local media/academia/judiciary is against them; a series of legal cases lost at the high courts and UK supreme court fuelling the fear that their sense of identity as UK citizens has been undermined; and a new PSNI crisis that suggests to them the police are doing Sinn Féin’s bidding.

If there is a way out of this present mess, I don’t see it. The most important thing about the Belfast Agreement in 1998 was a palpable sense of both hope and change. The original hope (the SDLP/UUP version) exploded around 2005. The second version, kick-started by the DUP and Sinn Féin in 2007, has also exploded. Brexit changed the dynamics, but even without it we would have reached the present impasse. Hope had already drained from the process by 2015, one of the main reasons Sinn Féin collapsed the Assembly in January 2017.

It used to be argued that the Belfast Agreement was “too big and too important” to be allowed to fail. But if it isn’t serving or delivering on its original purpose why continue with the pretence it can yet do things differently and better?

Alex Kane is a commentator based in Belfast. He was formerly director of communications for the Ulster Unionist Party