EXPLAINER: The Northern Ireland Assembly is on the verge of collapse… here’s the situation

A time for clear heads

JOE

EXPLAINER: The Northern Ireland Assembly is on the verge of collapse… here’s the situation

“In this age of newfound peace, we need resolute, responsible and inspiring government from local politicians in Northern Ireland.”

Power-sharing in Belfast is in crisis as the First Minister Peter Robinson has stepped aside and all but one of his DUP ministers resigned. The DUP object to governing with a Sinn Fein associated with a recent IRA killing. The DUP demanded Stormont be adjourned or suspended, however this could not be agreed.

Our guest columnist, Brian John Spencer is a Northern-Ireland based political writer.

When W.B. Yeats died in 1939, fellow poet W.H. Auden wrote in his elegy that Ireland had “her madness and her weather still.”

Up here in the North we still have the madness and the tempestuous political weather.

It is always blowing a political gale in Belfast, but right now Northern Ireland politics is facing a perfect storm, one that could collapse the devolved power-sharing arrangement.

We’re looking at a political apocalypse that could mean Northern Ireland is governed no longer from Belfast under the Sinn Fein-DUP coalition, but from London by David Cameron’s Tory party. If the institutions collapsed it could be a decade before they are back again.

Here’s the situation we’re looking at with some context.

1. Sinn Fein flat out object to the London welfare cuts, jamming the Belfast executive. Gerry Adams’ party have refused to implement the Welfare Reform Bill, a key strand to the Stormont House Agreement (the latest sticking plaster to the Peace Process blimp).

2. The DUP are implicated in the Cerebus-NAMA scandal, heaping serious scrutiny on the party founded by the late Rev Ian Paisley, the largest party in the northern executive.

A senior DUP figure tells me neither he nor colleagues could face electorate without taking stand against SF on back of Chief Con remarks.

— Eamonn Mallie (@EamonnMallie) September 10, 2015

And here’s what happened today, where it gets messy.

3. After demanding an adjournment or suspension of Stormont, First Minister Peter Robinson has stepped aside, foregoing his salary. He has elevated the finance minister Arlene Foster to the position of First Minister. All other DUP ministers have resigned.

This is the outworking of an alleged IRA killing in Belfast on August 12 2015.

The north has been rocked since then, the day Kevin McGuigan was murdered in Belfast. The murder of McGuigan is suspected to be the work of the IRA, a reprisal for the murder in May of Jock Davison, one of the most senior IRA leaders in Belfast.

With issues 1 and 2 stretching the Stormont Assembly to its limits, issue 3 pushed the peace agreement to breaking point.

Sinn Fein are the political wing of the IRA, they maintain that the IRA no longer exists and had nothing to do with the murder of McGuigan.

The Unionist parties are incandescently outraged, objecting to governing in coalition with Sinn Fein who they allege are connected to active and armed paramilitaries. The UUP, the smaller of the two pro-Union parties has ejected itself from the all-party power-sharing executive. Sinn Fein counter-claim that the unionist outrage is cynical electioneering, the murders they claim are the work of criminals.

A hysterical haze hovers over social media and around political talk.

Calls for calm came from London and Dublin, then all-party crisis talks at Stormont began last Tuesday.

Yesterday the crisis reached a crescendo. Bobby Storey, former IRA intelligence chief and Northern chairman of Sinn Fein, and two other senior members of the republican movement were arrested on Wednesday morning on suspicion of involvement in the killing of former IRA member Kevin McGuigan.

Welcome Stormont Business Committee’s reiteration of Assembly’s democratic will 2 continue. 2 Govts must uphold this. pic.twitter.com/QbuaWxmRu7

— Gerry Adams (@GerryAdamsSF) September 10, 2015

By Wednesday afternoon the DUP announced an ultimatum, they will quit the Executive if Stormont is not adjourned or suspended, or if there are no ministerial resignations. They set a deadline for the end of Thursday.

Now Robinson has gone and has been followed by all other DUP ministers, with the exception of Arlene Foster who is acting First Minister.

My statement announcing the resignation of DUP Ministers: http://t.co/RZyT8SXH0m

— Peter Robinson (@DUPleader) September 10, 2015

Now we have a zombie legislature, all but euthanised. The future of Northern Ireland looks as dark as it has in a long time. We’ve been in this territory before – of crisis, shrieks and siren calls – we just haven’t seen it stretched this far out.

If the devolution settlement goes it’s an indictment on the ruling parties. But it will likely be of little consequences, it will only harden the electorate, pushing them deeper into the polarities of Sinn Fein and the DUP.

London rule could sweep in a chill over the province with the retrenchment of social welfare.

London rule would also likely alienate more sceptical constitutional nationalists and bolster Unionism. That combination could embolden old-time thinkers of armed Republicanism – a road back to nowhere, that few in the province want to walk.

In this time of economic headwinds and geopolitical mayhem, and in this age of new found peace, we need resolute, responsible and inspiring government from local politicians in Northern Ireland.

However, we haven’t seen any sign of it so far, and it looks like we could be losing any chance of it.

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