Newton Emerson: Dublin, London are circling each other in confusion and mistrust

At last, the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference is to be convened.

Simon Coveney, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, announced it will meet in London on July 25th after a still-unexplained hiatus of 11 years.

Coveney, who got his statement in first, was positive and expansive, gently inferring the Belfast Agreement institution can help London and Dublin work together to restore devolution.

Charlie Flanagan, the Minister for Justice and Equality, will join Coveney in London. He added that both governments wished to maintain "a stable security environment".

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Few noticed the striking difference in tone from Downing Street.

A brusque press release from the cabinet office devoted three of its four sentences to downplaying the conference's role – noting it is "a consultative body", "not an executive body", permits no derogation of British or Irish sovereignty and "is concerned with non-devolved Northern Ireland matters", so the July 25th meeting "will be on east-west issues" only.

The final sentence noted that the British government would be represented by the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, David Lidington MP, accompanied by Northern secretary Karen Bradley.

Under the Belfast Agreement, the conference is supposed to meet regularly at ministerial level and “as required” at summit level, with the Taoiseach and UK prime minister in attendance.

So this month’s meeting is of the lesser format, which is disappointing given the seriousness of political developments. If a summit is not required now, when will it be?

It must also be asked if Lidington is Coveney’s equal. The chancellor is minister for the cabinet office and could be considered the closest thing the UK currently has to a deputy prime minister, but in reality he is an obscure administrator with an ad hoc portfolio.

Usual flunky

Since becoming prime minister, Theresa May has always sent Lidington to represent London at the British-Irish Council, the other east-west intergovernmental institution of the Belfast Agreement.

That makes some sense as his portfolio includes aspects of devolution the council can address.

But because the conference cannot address devolved issues, sending Lidington to it as well turns this sense on its head. So much for the cabinet office’s press release. It looks like May just cast around for her usual flunky to brush off the Irish problem.

Of course, it is more complicated than that. London has to allay the fears of its Democratic Unionist Party partners, who do not want Dublin to have a say on Stormont and dismissed the conference last week as "a talking shop".

In a demonstration of what unionists fear, the Social Democratic and Labour Party and Sinn Féin said the conference should agree a package of legislation on Stormont's deadlocked issues, specifically an Irish language Act, same-sex marriage, dealing with the legacy of the Troubles and reforming the assembly's veto mechanism.

Mercifully, there is enough truth in what everyone is saying to make a useful conference possible.

Where the conference gained most of its original authority was simply by London and Dublin taking it seriously

All the restrictions mentioned by the cabinet office do apply, so to some extent the conference is a talking shop. However, it is empowered to “review the workings” of the Belfast Agreement and all its institutions, so it can fulfil Coveney’s claim of helping both governments restore devolution.

What the conference cannot do is let Dublin make direct proposals on devolved matters or on Stormont’s operation.

Veto mechanism

That would seem to rule out intervention on the deadlocked issues – agreeing legislation on them is so far beyond the conference’s power it is absurd any party has suggested it.

But scope remains to “review” these subjects, carefully and in the round, especially if Stormont parties are brought into the discussion, which the conference’s design permits.

Stormont’s veto mechanism, for example, is widely seen as the key to unlocking every other issue. Known as the petition of concern, it is a basic safeguard in the Belfast Agreement and hence a legitimate matter for the conference “talking shop” to talk about.

Human rights are not devolved, and there are questions as to how this pertains to landmark social policies such as same-sex marriage and abortion, as well as to dealing with the legacy of the Troubles. The conference can at least ask these questions. Language policy is devolved but has a special place in the Belfast Agreement and the subsequent St Andrews agreement that could arguably bring it within the conference’s remit. The security co-operation cited by Flanagan is unambiguously within its remit.

Where the conference gained most of its original authority was simply by London and Dublin taking it seriously. During the five-year Stormont suspension from 2002, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern used it as their top-level forum for getting the peace process back on track – its proper role. This underscored that the agreement remained alive even while Stormont appeared dead. St Andrews and its coherent sense of revival was the reward.

Rebuilding that sense of authority will take time. It is assisted by Dublin’s tactfulness and London’s exactitude – but it is obviously not helped by both governments still evidently circling each other in confusion and mistrust.