Stormont’s balance may be about to get downgraded

Stormont works best when unionism and nationalism feel evenly matched.

Arlene Foster upset that balance by mistaking herself for a prime minister, rather than a DUP first minister.

Sinn Féin’s new Stormont leader, Michelle O’Neill, should restore equilibrium – although not in the way that might be expected.

Both women have had strikingly similar executive careers, marked by unusually long and mediocre tenures in a single, safe department.

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Foster spent seven of her nine years as a minister at the Department of Enterprise, now famed for its Renewable Heat Incentive scheme. At the time, however, she was known as the minister for factory photo-ops, holding up large cardboard numbers to appear in turgid press releases (“50 jobs ‘promoted’ by arms-length quango”, for example, or “£10 million investment secured by £10 million grant”.)

Five of O’Neill’s six years as a minister were spent at the Department of Agriculture – a gift of a portfolio. Brussels devises and funds most policies, while the Belfast-based media is just urban enough not to care. Her only work of note was decentralising the department, a project still years from completion yet already shaping up to be an expensive fiasco.

Foster and O'Neill both owe a great deal of their rise to a patron. Former DUP leader Peter Robinson pushed Foster as his successor, letting her hold up cardboard numbers while she waited in the wings. O'Neill was chosen for her latest role by Gerry Adams, in what the Sinn Féin president has admitted was a decree.

Matching one lacklustre first minister with another will not in itself rebalance Stormont – the DUP has even less respect for O’Neill than for her predecessor Martin McGuinness. Sinn Féin’s next move is knocking Foster off the scales altogether.

Two weeks ago, O’Neill said her party will not return to the executive until the DUP leader has been cleared by the heating scheme inquiry – a process scheduled to take six months, although it could easily take a year.

Any return before that will require the DUP to nominate another person to the first or deputy first minister’s role.

O’Neill added this was Sinn Féin’s only red-line issue in talks – something she would not even be drawn to say about the totemic issue of an Irish language Act.

London rule

The aggressiveness of this position has been strangely under-analysed. Perhaps people find it hard to believe. Nevertheless, it is crystal clear – Sinn Féin’s price for returning to Stormont within a realistic time frame is Foster’s head. If the DUP will not oblige, republicans would rather stomach direct rule from London, which is inevitable if devolution is interrupted for more than a couple of months.

Foster’s performance in the election campaign has been lamentable – she is struggling to cope with the implosion of her authority. As the message sinks in that Sinn Féin’s red line is serious, speculation has begun on the DUP leader’s replacement – an idea unthinkable a few weeks ago.

Robinson led the DUP by managing its factions rather than healing its divisions. Foster had no time to address that legacy before the shock of the heating scheme fallout piled on more internal stress. As a result, she still has only one obvious successor – the party's senior MP, Nigel Dodds. But Dodds does not want the job. He ruled himself out when Robinson retired 15 months ago, giving Foster an unopposed run.

Dodds is thought to have two objections to being leader – he is happy at Westminster, and he is unhappy working with Sinn Féin, due to an IRA attempt on his life while visiting his son at a children’s hospital.

Before Dodds withdrew his name, it was believed he might accept the post of party leader if he could remain in London, with a lesser figure serving under him as Stormont leader. Now that Foster is wobbling, that notion has resurfaced.

Double-leadership

Even if Dodds excuses himself again, some kind of double-leadership will be required to get around Sinn Féin’s block on Foster, with a lesser figure in the Stormont post to save face – and that is how equilibrium would be restored.

Sinn Féin has always separated the Stormont and party leadership roles – Adams has never been a Northern minister, and since 2011 he has led from the Dáil, his party’s preferred national parliament.

With O’Neill’s appointment, Adams signalled a further downgrading of the transitional partitionist assembly – one the DUP will have to match if it wants back into office this year, or maybe at all.

The republican grassroots has grown restless at Stormont’s mere existence, angered by what it sees as unionist contempt. It will be easier for Sinn Féin to return to an institution it has humbled, by rebalancing it at a lower level, than to secure meaningful respect from the DUP.

That leaves 68-year-old Adams free to focus on becoming tánaiste. Keeping him in balance there is somebody else’s problem.