James Brokenshire has a lot of thinking to do by next Tuesday. The United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for Northern Ireland must decide if the administration of the province will be taken from politicians in Belfast and be ruled directly from London by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Theresa May.
Brokenshire could also extend the deadline for talks once more – the third such extension -- for the parties to try and resolve the most critical impasse in the province in nearly two decades.
Under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that brought about an end to more than three decades of political violence in the province, the Northern Ireland Assembly, in effect a regional parliament, shares a power-sharing executive, or cabinet.
The agreement also included new cross-border institutions with the Republic of Ireland to the south of the divided island, with the Dublin government that runs the 26 counties there agreeing to drop its constitutional claim to the six counties that form Northern Ireland.
The deal ended Europe’s longest-lasting and bitter terrorist conflict that claimed more than 3,600 lives since the late 1960’s. There were also proposals on the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons, the future of policing in Northern Ireland and the early release of paramilitary prisoners.
The blueprint for decommissioning terrorist weapons through independently verifiable means is the same adopted recently by Eta, the Basque militant separatist group, with leading religious figures from Northern Ireland assisting the group on its historic and symbolic step.
While the Republic of Ireland is a member of the 17-member European Union states that use the euro as a common currency Northern Ireland, as part of the United Kingdom, uses the pound.
Despite the different currencies, the economies of both parts of the island are intrinsically interconnected, with 30,000 people working daily and commuting between the two. In last June’s Brexit referendum, 55.7 per cent of voters in Northern Ireland backed Remain.
Currently, there are no more border customs and security checks, and driving across the UK’s only international land frontier dividing North and South is no different that travelling on the E11 between Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The only discernible difference would be that astute drivers might notice a difference in road surfaces, while purely English road signs in Northern Ireland become bilingual in English and Gaelic in the Republic of Ireland.
It’s that status of Gaelic – one of the EU’s recognised official languages – that has become a major sticking point between Sinn Fein, the largest Irish nationalist party in the new Northern Ireland Assembly, and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the largest group that represents a narrow majority who want the province to remain an intrinsic part of the United Kingdom and its other constituent parts – England Scotland and Wales.
The two parties, as the largest on both sides of the political divide, get to form the power-sharing executive. DUP Leader Arlene Forster is aspiring to return as First Minister and Michelle O’Neill, to replace the late Martin McGuinness as Deputy First Minister.
McGuinness was a veteran Provisional IRA commander who played a critical role in convincing his comrades in arms to muzzle their weapons and embark on a path of peace the through political process. Prior to the Good Friday Agreement, the Provisionals and Sinn Fein has adopted a dual philosophy of a weapon in one hand and a ballot box in the other.
Seriously ill at the time, his last political act was to pull Sinn Fein out of power-sharing government in January. He withdrew over Foster’s refusal to step aside and allow an independent investigation into a failed renewable energy scheme that had ballooned to £400 million (Dh1.86 billion). The collapse of the power-sharing executive led to new Northern Ireland Assembly elections on March 2, which seismically shifted the landscape of the province.
While DUP once more emerged on the top of the pile, its share of the first preference vote has slipped for the third election in a row, down to 28.1 per cent. Sinn Fein, in contrast, rose to its highest ever share, 27.9 per cent.
The gap between the two parties across the whole of Northern Ireland and its population of 1.8 million is now fewer than 1,200 votes. There is only a one-seat difference between them in the 90-seat assembly. For the first time in Northern Ireland’s devolved politics, the two main nationalist parties (Sinn Fein and the more moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party), now have more seats than the two main unionist parties (the DUP and the more moderate Ulster Unionist Party). While Mike Nesbitt, the UUP’s leader stepped aside in the wake of the election results, Foster has steadfastly maintained her position despite calls for her resignation.
Following that March 2 vote, both main parties had three weeks to initially sort out a new power-sharing agenda for the executive.
Emboldened by its new-found electoral success, O’Neill’s Sinn Fein presented a long list of demands as conditions to re-enter government. These included funding services for Gaelic speakers and giving Gaelic equal footing as English. In effect, court cases would be allowed to be heard in the Irish-language alone if a defendant or appellant so required.
Despite drawing support from the nationalist, Roman Catholic areas of Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein also presented a socially progressive agenda, proposing to liberalise the province’s strict stances on gay rights and women’s issues.
It also wants inquiries into the deaths that occurred during three decades of the so-called ‘Troubles’.
The DUP balked, suggesting Sinn Fein was asking for too much because it wanted the talks to fail.
As the initial deadline was about to pass without agreement, the 66-year-old McGuinness died. Former US President Bill Clinton eulogised the former IRA commander and politician at his funeral on March 23 in Derry, and urged both sides to reach a new power-sharing deal.
That didn’t happen, and four days later Brokenshire gave a new deadline — Friday, April 14 — to reach a new deal. On Wednesday, he extended it by four days, until Tuesday.
There is an option for fresh Assembly elections but, given Foster’s somewhat delicate position within the DUP and with so few votes between the parties, that’s not a path unionists would welcome now.
Brokenshire also knows that the last time London ruled Northern Ireland directly, beginning in mid-2002, it took five years to re-establish self-government. That dispute was based on the makeup of policing in the province.
Brokenshire and Prime Minister Theresa May are all too well aware direct rule would embolden Sinn Fein even more. The Irish republicans would relish any opportunity to blame Westminster and May’s hard-line pro-Brexit government to advance any case for the province having its economic and political future wholly aligned with the Republic of Ireland – solidly inside the EU.
