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LAST UPDATE | 19 Jan 2024
LISTENING AT BELFAST City Hall yesterday, you could hear the mood in the words. A blunt message on a day that will be remembered for its mass strike.
That message was loud and clear; so clear, that Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris will have heard it. And, so too, the DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson.
Thousands of workers were there; just over a hundred steps away from the British government’s Northern Ireland Office (NIO) in the city, at a rally where voices were heard above all the noise and the nonsense of the North’s pathetic politics.
Anger at the use of workers as pawns in a political play to try to get the Northern Ireland Executive back.
And anger over the rarely talked about ‘sea border on pay’ — and the significant difference in salaries when it comes to here compared to the rest of the UK.
Twenty-four hours earlier, this was highlighted by the SDLP Stormont leader Matt O’Toole; his pointed words then aimed directly at the DUP.
From the platform, at City Hall on Thursday, Heaton-Harris was described as fast becoming the worst-ever Secretary of State.
Most who have held that position here were forgotten almost as soon as they left.
The exceptions being the late Mo Mowlam for her work in the period of the Good Friday Agreement and Julian Smith, who managed the last Stormont rescue mission.
A statement that repeats lines, says nothing.
— Brian Rowan (@BrianPJRowan) January 18, 2024
One-party talks for months and months, the detail of which has not been shared.
That's not how it works... https://t.co/xkYfbUEP2v
The UK Government has offered a £3 billion-plus package conditional on there being a return to Stormont.
Heaton-Harris is the face of that offer.
But, thus far, the Secretary of State has ignored calls for him to release part of the funds for public sector pay.
He may not be able to keep his fingers in his ears for much longer.
In the here and now, he more than Donaldson is the focus of the wrath of the workers and their demands.
It is the UK Government that holds the money and who are pulling the political strings.
The brokenness of our politics has reached into people’s pockets; depriving them of much needed money. This is what brought so many onto the streets on Thursday.
I spotted a placard that read: We’re not walking out. We’re standing up.
Standing up in this massive mobilisation of workers, many of them carrying the flags of their unions in this very different protest at City Hall.
Heaton-Harris and Donaldson will have seen the numbers, and heard the words.
Will it change anything? Only if Donaldson can get himself off the many hooks of his seven tests on post-Brexit trading arrangements.
It is this sea border that now dominates and poisons the politics of here.
The BBC correspondent Gareth Gordon, who for decades has watched as the political paint has dried at Stormont, quoted a DUP source this week saying the real row in the party now is Jeffrey Donaldson versus Jeffrey Donaldson.
It says it all about this period of waiting and indecision, and the mess we’re in, and the mess he is in.
A former Head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service David Sterling posted a bleak assessment on his X account on Thursday.
Strolled past Stormont today, a place I’ve been through 100s of times (good days and bad!)
— David Sterling (@DavidSterling7) January 18, 2024
Despite the bright sunshine, there’s a sad end of days feel in the air.
Can’t help thinking if the Assembly has met for the last time, it will be Unionists who come to regret it the most. pic.twitter.com/d8w4HjxnJz
There was something else that made us listen in recent days; the tougher words of Michelle O’Neill, and her questioning of whether the DUP boycott of the Executive is only about that post-Brexit sea border, or whether there is something more to it — a reluctance to work alongside a Sinn Féin First Minister.
Many will remember the republican mood that brought Martin McGuinness to pull Stormont down in 2017.
In this waiting for the DUP, is patience running out; patience in terms of this
latest Stormont sham?
‘It’s close,’ one source said, going no further than that brief comment.
The UK Government has not been sure-footed. Heaton-Harris looks and sounds out of his depth.
Those talks with the DUP have gone on for far too long. If the two sides don’t know what is possible by now, then they will never know.
They are still refusing to share the detail of that negotiation, much to the frustration of other leaders.
Moods and minds are hardening.
Our story is moving beyond the failure of the political institutions to everything else that is breaking as a consequence.
That is why people took to the streets on Thursday.
Patience had been stretched and snapped.
There are those who are thinking beyond Stormont; long ago bored by this monotonous, maddening play.
This morning on Radio Ulster, Stephen Nolan, quoting a senior source, revealed that the DUP officer team will meet today.
So, does it mean, that at long last, they are close or closer to their decision time, understanding, of course, that time and patience are running out.
One other thing worth mentioning is a post from Julian Smith in response to David Sterling last night and a line that sometimes ‘it’s darkest before the dawn’.
It’s a post that gives us something more to think about.
No one is suggesting to me that a deal is certain. But there is another space to watch.
Another turn in this script.
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, “Living With Ghosts” is out now at Merrion Press.
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IT IS 2024.
JEFFERY DONALDSON WAKE UP.
NI is a laughing stock at this stage
@P Murray :): What is a laughing stock is that in 2024 the people of NI keep voting for two sectarian parties who can barely stand to be in the same room as each other.
“A failed political entity ” The End is NI !
Do the politicians receive wages during these years long stasis ? If so, perhaps it’s time to withhold payments until democracy is up and running.
@Paul Hayes: They have had their wages reduced by 25%.
It’ll never change up there. Not mature enough.
@Temp Stuff: When democracy reaches a threshold, the north will be no more and the island can get on with normal issues.
They need to stop drinking from an English milk producing gland and start making their way in the world on their own (these filters are making it hard ro make a comment without serious adjustment)
The Unionists are beginning to realise that they are on the wrong side of history. The statelet is falling apart and the DUP sits on its hands, and this is not sitting well with the Unionist people!
More than 100 years ago the British Parliament created Northern Ireland upon strictly sectarian foundations. The area was to have “A Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People” so The DUP cannot share power with Catholics .
@Matt Rogers: Same as Israel and Palestine in that the two religious ideologies are incompatible as political stances.
What is now the Irish Republic and Britain jointly created Northern Ireland , both are implicit in its creation and continued existence, the current politicians only trying to make the best of a bad situation forced upon them by the Irish free State and successive FG FF governments
@Fiacra De Lacy:
The Irish Free State did not agree to the border containing significant areas of nationalist majority.
The had no choice in regard to separate NI.
NI was set up and NI parliament established before the Truce.
@Antony Stack:, it is still a sellout regardless if it was two counties or six
If blame is needed how is it sinn fein or the Irish governments fault? A protestant state for a protestant people has been undermined and its a hard fact for the DUP to swallow .The battle of the Boyne forgotten King Billy dead and no way to drain the sea between N I and Mainland …..Crying over spilt milk Guys Get over yourselves Take the Kings shilling and end this farce…
Heaton Harris knows what he is doing. The British Government is tired, as is Ireland and the EU, of the endless whining. If the money is released, then yes, workers are happy that negotiations for pay rises can start. If not released then who do workers blame? NI politicians. Who can put more pressure on NI politicians than the citizens of NI? Nobody. I’d let the politicuans there take the flak and stand to the side saying guys, all can be solved. Just get back to Govt. Oh dear, someone called to your constituency office calling you a waster? How sad :)
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