Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

A No Entry sign by the side of an approach road in the Stormont Estate. Once again the Northern governing parties are at odds. Alamy Stock Photo

Brian Rowan The DUP's move this week is ultimately an act of self-harm

The former BBC correspondent says recent political unrest in Northern Ireland follows a well-worn pattern.

THE RESIGNATION OF Stormont First Minister Paul Givan was in the tea leaves. Well signalled. Easily read.

We didn’t need to look inside the cup.

DUP party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson had repeatedly warned of the possibility.

So much so that his lines started to sound like a broken record.

Stretched over a few months. This huffing and puffing that Stormont could be blown down.

History repeats, again

The developments of the past 24 hours do not represent the complete collapse of 2017 when Martin McGuinness resigned as deputy First Minister – a response to the RHI cash for ash episode of that time.

london-uk-24th-oct-2016-downing-street-london-prime-minister-theresa-may-meets-leaders-of-the-3-devolved-governments-ahead-of-the-uks-negotiations-to-leave-the-eu-pic-shows-northern-ireland-first Former first and deputy first ministers Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness. McGuinness resigned in 2017 over the long-running Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) or ‘cash for ash’ scandal. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Givan’s resignation means the Executive cannot meet.

In the way of these things, no First Minister means no deputy First Minister.

Others, including Health Minister Robin Swann remain in post. But there can be no new decisions.

Sinn Féin positioning

The Assembly will sit for now. But politics is broken again.

We wait to see what Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald means in her comments that her party will not facilitate such a scenario.

1222018-northern-ireland-talks Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald TD and Vice President Michelle O’Neill MLA. Yesterday, McDonald called for early Assembly elections after the DUP collapsed power-sharing. Eamonn Farrell Eamonn Farrell

Sinn Féin wants an early election – the results of which could create the real crisis in our politics.

What if the results see Sinn Féin as the largest party? In a position to be First Minister?Would unionists nominate a deputy First Minister in such circumstances? If not, then Stormont cannot function.

What we have now are pre-election headlines. They could become bigger, louder, as this story develops.

There is nothing certain. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson wants to return to Stormont. Wants to be  First Minister.

dup-mp-for-lagan-valley-sir-jeffrey-donaldson-launches-his-campaign-to-become-leader-of-the-dup-at-the-constituency-office-of-dup-mp-gavin-robinson-in-east-belfast-picture-date-monday-may-3-2021 DUP's Sir Jeffrey Donaldson. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

But politics here is no longer as predictable as it once was.

There is a pattern.

The 2017 Assembly election in which unionists lost their overall majority at Stormont.

The 2019 European election when Alliance leader Naomi Long took a seat.

Then, the 2019 UK General Election, the results of which show that unionists no longer hold a majority of the Northern Ireland seats at Westminster.

 All of this explains the nervousness of now.

The latest fine mess. A politics here that has never really settled since its collapse in 2017.

It is a little over two years since Stormont was rescued. Saved from itself in a joint initiative involving the British and Irish Governments.

Then NI Secretary of State Julian Smith and Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney were the lead players then.

The New Decade-New Approach agreement was offered as a take-it-or-leave-it deal.

And the Stormont parties were pushed back into Stormont after a three-year absence of government.

Boris Johnson came running to steal a slice of the success.

A later agreement, that Johnson made with the EU, is at the heart of the latest political crisis. The Irish Sea border, which in the minds of unionists is not just about the additional paperwork of trade, but creates further difference and distance between this place and the rest of the United Kingdom.

A threat to the Union itself, and an earthquake moment that turned what was meant to be a 2021 Centenary year of celebration into something representing chaos. A convulsion in politics.

Current impasse

Inside that unionist/loyalist community there was talk of collapsing Stormont.

Go for an early election.Use that centenary moment and the fears about the Union, about a border poll and about a possible Sinn Féin First Minister to try to energise the unionist vote.We have staggered through to now.

The Protocol is of course an extension of Brexit. The play out from the agreement.

The part that is left out of the script.

A reminder that politics is not just about what you want, but what comes with it.

In the turmoil, we have watched the DUP as ‘a family at war’. A description I have borrowed from the BBC political correspondent Gareth Gordon.

A party with three leaders in 2021. All the arguments and rows on the lines and in the lines for all to see.Donaldson is trying to manage a mood both inside his party and across that community.

He was waiting to see results in the UK-EU negotiations – talks that some time ago took on the look of a marathon run, rather than some short-term fix.

His patience tried, Donaldson tired. Thursday’s resignation of the First Minister Givan a result of that.

Unionists, of course, are watching the polls in the South and the polls in the North.

Seeing Sinn Féin at the top of both.

Not saying it out loudly, but in quiet conversations, worrying about where this is leading.

All of this is the latest crossroads in our politics. All adding to the cross words of now.

Times changing.

Old certainties gone.

Stormont getting ready for another last stand.

Brian Rowan is a journalist and author. He is a former BBC correspondent in Belfast. Brian is the author of several books on Northern Ireland’s peace process. His new book, “Political Purgatory – The Battle to Save Stormont and the Play for a New Ireland” is out now at Merrion Press.

VOICES

Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.

View 25 comments
Close
25 Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic. Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy here before taking part.
Leave a Comment
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute James Beattie
    Favourite James Beattie
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 2:31 PM

    They have been self harming since 1690

    242
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Tom Molloy
    Favourite Tom Molloy
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 3:53 PM

    @James Beattie: In fundamentalists groupings it becomes a competition to prove loyalty through out-extreme-ing competitors in the group. Sorry for inventing a word.

    68
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Mjhint
    Favourite Mjhint
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 5:25 PM

    @Tom Molloy: this is also the essence of fascism.
    “Fascism has a built in self destruction philosophy”
    Christopher Hitchens

    29
    See 1 more reply ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute James McErlain
    Favourite James McErlain
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 10:39 PM

    @James Beattie: Have you forgotten 1798? A revolution led by the modern day loyalists’ forefathers, who fought alongside their Catholic neighbours to get rid of the British. The Orange Order was created by the British to divide the Presbyterian & Catholic people of Ireland & prevent any future joint rebellions.

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute James Beattie
    Favourite James Beattie
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 2:33 PM

    Take from a Twitter post. Sums it up

    “Poots has been ditched by the DUP. He then carried out the move which loyalist stakeholders had been demanding of the DUP. Then to save face, the DUP are trying to out-Poots Poots by bringing down stormont. Jeffery doesn’t want Poots to be the hero”

    175
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Justin Gillespie
    Favourite Justin Gillespie
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 3:42 PM

    @James Beattie: Nail on the head. This is all internal DUP fighting.

    89
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Angela McCarthy
    Favourite Angela McCarthy
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 4:56 PM

    @James Beattie: Thats one assessment James and a fair one, but I would add like the above article suggests – the DUP is privately quaking at opinion polls north and south and if they cant unite unionism behind their party, they will be dreading the coming election. If and when they refuse to nominate a Deputy First Minister to pair up with Michelle O’Neill, they will finally be left as past emperors with no clothes and many ordinary unionists might well ask them why they contested the elections in the first place.

    All my attention now is on Doug Beatty and his next move. He has an open goal here to become the next leader of unionism, but will he take it and promise to get the executive up and running again and should publicly declare now that if SF captures the greater vote and the UUP comes in second place, that his party will nominate a Deputy First Minister.

    He desperately needs now to put a huge distance between his party and the DUP. Unfortunately, he seems to be caught off guard by the DUP stunts of the last two days and wasn’t prepared. He needs to pump up the volume now and become vocal with real steady leadership for ordinary unionists who can see the DUP have completely lost the plot.

    50
    See 2 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Justin Gillespie
    Favourite Justin Gillespie
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 6:01 PM

    @Angela McCarthy: Beatrice can’t declare his willingness to work with SF or he will lose a large tranche of voters to either the DUP or TUV.
    The sad fact is that a significant number of unionist voters will not stomach a SF First Minister and no unionist party can risk alienating them.
    It’s a sobering judgment on the peace process that that is how things are but facts are facts.

    21
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Justin Gillespie
    Favourite Justin Gillespie
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 6:37 PM

    @Justin Gillespie: Beattie not Beatrice, bloody autocorrect…

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute James Gorman
    Favourite James Gorman
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 3:08 PM

    DUP just being DUP
    Pulling wardrobe down on top of themselves

    88
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Patrick Egan
    Favourite Patrick Egan
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 3:20 PM

    Hardly either the first or last time the DUP throw their dodo out of the pram.

    68
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute James Rowan
    Favourite James Rowan
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 3:46 PM

    Delusional Unionst Party aka DUP

    65
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Hugh McCann
    Favourite Hugh McCann
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 4:45 PM

    Dinosaurs Under Pressure

    54
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Declan Moran
    Favourite Declan Moran
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 5:30 PM

    @Hugh McCann: best description I’ve ever seen Hugh

    15
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Eoin Roche
    Favourite Eoin Roche
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 3:11 PM

    The most badly led and mostly politically inept political party, of consequence, in all of post-war Europe. You wouldn’t actually be this bad at politics and strategy if you were a blind old dog living on a remote farm.

    110
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Bernhard Rohrer
    Favourite Bernhard Rohrer
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 4:27 PM

    FFG in the Republic and Unionists in the North are deposing themselves by sheer inpetitude.

    47
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Thomas Meaney
    Favourite Thomas Meaney
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 3:06 PM

    Where’s the logic in nailing your own coffin shut?

    73
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Declan Moran
    Favourite Declan Moran
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 4:42 PM

    Hopefully an act they won’t recover from. Sick of the serial say no to everything party

    51
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Billy Davies
    Favourite Billy Davies
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 4:24 PM

    Not the sharpest tools in the shed are they?

    36
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute pat seery
    Favourite pat seery
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 3:59 PM

    Jeffrey will Fall on His Sword like Boris will do nex week

    32
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute camio55
    Favourite camio55
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 5:51 PM

    You really have to hope that both the DUP/SF fade away and more enlightened parties emerge to bridge the divide. . Both parties have in the past number of years brought down the NI Executive for their own partisan reasons. They have demonstrated that they are incapable of governing NI together. They live in the past where trimhant rhetoric/mantras are the norm.
    NI has the capacity to excel if it can take advantage of its unique position within the UK and its single market status within in the EU.

    32
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Karl Phillips
    Favourite Karl Phillips
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 5:38 PM

    That mob don’t want to share, never watched to share, and now have taken the ball and gone home Delusional Unionist Party love it.

    23
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Antaine O'Labhradha
    Favourite Antaine O'Labhradha
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 9:57 PM

    Unionism is in Canute mode. At partition, they were up to their knees in the waves. Now, the waves are up to their waists. And still, when the waves are up to their zygomatic arches, they’ll be telling them to begone. What they need now is a leader who will talk to carve out the position as part of Irish society that they want for themselves. They were a political minority when they gerrymandered partition. They’re doubly so now. The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of Irish people, north and south, want reunification of our country and our people and not to be ruled by the British. As a minority, unionism does not have the right to force British identity or foreign rule on unconsenting Irish people. Certainly, we Irish can, should and will respect their identity. But the constitutional link with the UK has to go, as that option does not command majority support. After negotiations, Orange parades which respectfully celebrate Protestantism [without the usual vile anti-Catholicism and anti-Irishness and the up-to-their-necks-in-fenian-blood hatred for their neighbours] can be a means of carving out their niche in a united Ireland. Perhaps we could get to a stage where Catholics could actually watch these things with no sense of hatred emanating from the marchers and hangers-on. Perhaps Catholics and Protestants here might finally learn to live together in peace, equality and [when permitted by the capitalist economic cycle] prosperity, just like they have done in the rest of the world. There are myriad non-constitutional ways in which their affinity with House Windsor can be facilitated and Charlie can even have her pad in Hillsborough. Imagine how it will be when finally, a person’s religion is an incidental irrelevance and, over time, ceases to be a divisor. But they can no longer keep the blinkers on and think everything’s going their way. It isn’t and won’t be, because of demographic change and democracy. Even old Canute had the sense to get out of the waves before he drowned!

    15
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Dan Duggan
    Favourite Dan Duggan
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 6:29 PM

    Thats was just a collection of statements.

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Raymond Dixon
    Favourite Raymond Dixon
    Report
    Feb 4th 2022, 6:27 PM

    Well said. There are a pair of them in it.

    3
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.

Leave a commentcancel

 
JournalTv
News in 60 seconds