Northern Ireland

SDLP leader calls on two governments to turn draft agreement into legislation

Colum Eastwood said the two governments should introduce legislation that mirrored the draft accommodation between Sinn Féin and the DUP. Picture by Hugh Russell
Colum Eastwood said the two governments should introduce legislation that mirrored the draft accommodation between Sinn Féin and the DUP. Picture by Hugh Russell Colum Eastwood said the two governments should introduce legislation that mirrored the draft accommodation between Sinn Féin and the DUP. Picture by Hugh Russell

Colum Eastwood has called on the British and Irish governments to agree a package of legislation to resolve the Stormont impasse.

The SDLP leader said the measures introduced through the British Irish Intergovernmental Conference (BIIGC) should mirror the draft accommodation between Sinn Féin and the DUP, which Arlene Foster rejected last week as she pulled the plug on the latest round of talks.

Speaking yesterday in Dublin at Trinity College's School of Ecumenics, Mr Eastwood said that in the absence of any dialogue aimed at restoring devolution, it was "critical" that the BIIGC is formed.

Established as part of strand three the Good Friday Agreement, the BIIGC enabled the Dublin government to have a say in areas of bilateral co-operation that were not devolved to Stormont.

The SDLP believes the political vacuum created by the breakdown in negotiations gives added weight to the conference, which last met in 2007.

Mr Eastwood said last week represented not only a breakdown negotiations and a rift in relationship between Stormont's two largest parties but a "fundamental breakdown of all the progress that we have achieved since Good Friday 1998".

"If my assessment is correct, then our political process is about to face deep and fundamental questions," he said.

"The speed and sure-footedness of the solutions we seek to provide will be key in determining if we can salvage all the progress that was so hard won."

The Foyle MLA said the only alternative was "unionist majority rule through a DUP/Tory committee at Westminster" – a situation which he said threatened to "leave northern nationalism and everyone who doesn't support the DUP powerless".

The package of legislation proposed by the SDLP leader would include an Irish language act and an Ulster Scots act, as well as the establishment of legacy bodies and the release of inquest resources.

He is also believes the two governments should reform of the petition of concern, enabling the introduction of marriage equality in the north.

"That positive intervention forms part of their governmental duty as guardians and guarantors of the agreement," he said.

"There is a time for a watching brief and there is a time for facilitation – this is a time for the guarantors to actively and positively intervene."

The SDLP leader said such an intervention would be in the interests of everybody in the north.

Commenting on Brexit and its implications, Mr Eastwood said Britain was retreating into the false nostalgia of an

imagined past", while Ireland retained "its ambition of building an open economy and society", not

"Those growing contrasts and changes will be demanding and testing for all of us – perhaps particularly so for those of us in political life," he said.