Confrontational approach central to getting Stormont back working

Cartoons played their part in getting Stormont back. Sometimes they reach parts that words could never touch. Snarling dogs, people and whips driving the politicians up the steep slopes to Stormont Buildings was one take after the Westminster election.

An elderly woman pushing an even more elderly man in a wheelchair on to a pedestrian crossing about to be run over by a “cultural” steamroller was the depiction in the last few days.

Throw in the election past and the election that is to come, and you have many of the reasons the deal is being done, with the two main parties indicating that they will accept it.

The election past deprived the DUP of its special status in Westminster, driving it off the front pages of electoral power and on to back benches where it is now semi-obscured by the number of SNP members occupying the opposition benches. Demoted and depleted of its erstwhile Westminster leader Nigel Dodds, the party needs a harbour.

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Sinn Féin retained its seven abstentionist seats but was dazzled by the headlights of the SDLP recovery in Derry and South Belfast. That might have been enough to coax it back to government, but the imminent Dáil election ensured that Sinn Féin was more than willing to respond to the snarling crowds driving it back up the hill.

Those were some of the sticks that allowed Julian Smith and Simon Coveney to conduct negotiations with greater confidence than hitherto. But even from the beginning, there were lots of carrots on the table.

Smith arrived at his post in July knowing that if the Conservatives won the general election there would be a pot of money coming to the two norths, the one in England and the one in Ireland. Money would be a sedative to allow Boris Johnson to get on with Brexit negotiations free from the tumult of the last three years.

The north of England money would be to keep the borrowed votes sweet, and the north of Ireland money to get the deal done and to remove some of the unionist venom as it faces the reality of a border down the Irish Sea.

Programme for government

The document published by the two governments is titled New Decade, New Approach. It is clearly an amalgam of issues that have been discussed and disputed by the local parties over the last few years. It is written in a manner that is assertive and positive. It could even be seen as a programme for government for the coming years.

Health, education, infrastructure and commerce receive attention and the promise of more money, mostly from the British government but a substantial amount from the Irish Government.

Nurses and health workers in the North are at present seeking parity of pay with their counterparts across the water. They have held a series of strikes and are threatening more.

Controversial welfare reforms introduced in the UK have been delayed in the North for several years.

These are two big budgetary demands, and the document promises extra money from the British exchequer so as to remove the burden from a new Executive.

The most sensitive issues are addressed in the well tested way – a commissioner for Irish language is balanced by a commissioner for Ulster Scots and British culture.

The sustainability issue – if one of the two big parties walks out the whole government falls – will be dealt with by inserting a cooling-off period supported by a preventive committee that should signal difficulty before it arises.

The petition of concern, whereby 30 votes can block legislation, remains somewhat intact, but will need a small amount of support from two rather than a single party. There is also a tightening of definition as to what constitutes a petition of concern.

Martin McGuinness walked out of the Executive three years ago because Arlene Foster refused to stand down for a period to allow for an initial investigation into the Renewable Heat Incentive fiasco. The issue was millions of pounds being inappropriately spent on heating boilers.

During the last three years it has become clear that good governance by political parties and civil servants has been sadly lacking at Stormont. The document offers advice on procedures and transparency, things that would normally be taken for granted but which sadly fell into abeyance during the life of the last Executive.

It is a bit embarrassing that politicians and civil servants must be told that minutes should be taken at ministerial meetings.

Yet the outstanding and controversial aspect of the deal is the premise on which it is founded. It promised that if the parties accepted the deal and returned to government, the money would flow. If the deal was rejected and the parties failed to create an Executive, the money tap would not be turned on.

It is a very confrontational approach, and one that has been criticised. Accusations of bribery and second-class citizenship are already being aired. It is certainly very different from the softly, softly tone adopted in negotiations by the last two Northern secretaries.

To adopt such an approach reveals something about Smith. Apart from the knowledge that he was a whip in the Conservative government, there was little known of him.

He appears to have relished being freed from the confidence-and-supply alliance between the DUP and the Conservatives. He publicly rebuked the DUP a few weeks back, and many of the politicians talk of him as approachable and hard working.

Smith and Coveney walking to Carson’s statue and challenging Northern politicians to accept what they both described as a fair deal is something that has not been seen for some time.

The song says that all is fair in love and war. Perhaps that is not always true, but there is a strong argument for it in getting politics working again in the North.