The secretary of state has been unfairly maligned again. Theresa Villiers’s statement that London might repatriate welfare powers as a last resort has been universally portrayed as an intervention on the DUP’s behalf - and a rushed, ham-fisted intervention at that.
The DUP has of course been happy to play along with the impression of receiving special treatment, with Peter Robinson describing the announcement as a “game changer” and party figures repeating that they asked the British government to take this action.
But what action has actually been taken? The DUP’s public demand to suspend the assembly was dismissed out of hand, leading to yesterday's desperate repetition. Instead, Villiers has merely mentioned the possibility of taking welfare powers back should all else fail - a prospect she first raised in May after the assembly rejected the welfare reform bill.
This time around, her comments provide some apparent consolation to the DUP. However, what they mostly provide is an escape route - in fact, a choice of escape routes - for Sinn Fein.
Thanks to Villiers, Sinn Fein can now either concede some ground on welfare at the talks and blame the big bad British for leaving it with no option; or it can concede nothing, let the talks fail, blame the big bad British for imposing reforms over its head but crucially not walk out of the executive because that would betray its sacred mandate to be in government while not governing.
It now falls to ‘the Dublin leadership’ ie Gerry Adams to decide what option suits Sinn Fein best in the three-dimensional chess it is playing on both sides of the border. Which will look worse in Dublin? Fianna Fail accusing Sinn Fein of being unable to take hard decisions or the left accusing it of enacting Tory cuts?
Asked how long he thought the talks would last as he arrived at Stormont this week, Adams said “the rest of our lives”. It was a joke with a jag, as destabilising Northern Ireland with one crisis after another is the Sinn Fein president’s rather obvious policy.
Letting London take back welfare powers and take the blame while Stormont staggers and unionists squabble is presumably his default preference. But whatever Adams decides, the Conservatives have selflessly volunteered to play the villain.
Talks will revolve for weeks around the alleged evils of welfare reform, with the British government putting up only a token defence of its flagship policy. There will inevitably be a little extra money for Stormont, because this is a financial negotiation and Westminster has all the money. Villiers has already fronted up the cash for the Stormont House agreement’s civil service exit scheme, which is key to funding the rest of the package. Although announced alongside her welfare repatriation warning, there were no Sinn Fein complaints about this interference with devolution.
If the Scottish nationalists or the English press get wind of any of this it will mean more trouble for the Tories than Northern Ireland is worth (which to them, electorally, is zero.) We must be grateful for such munificent rulers.
Once Sinn Fein has picked its escape route and welfare reform is sorted out, everything else will fall into place. Welfare is the only sticking point in the Stormont House agreement, which addresses just about every issue imaginable, at least in outline. Assembly and executive reform proposals will even accommodate the UUP’s move into opposition.
The murder of Kevin McGuigan is only a talks issue for the DUP because of the UUP walkout. Once the Stormont House issues are resolved, the murder will not be enough on its own to maintain a logjam, leaving Mike Nesbitt on a very exposed limb - which is why he has demanded that the IRA’s existence be the first issue on the agenda and “the only issue that we will speak on.” The UUP leader had precisely no takers for this from the other four parties.
So Villiers has lined everything up beautifully for another talks triumph. The problem is that she has done so by freeing Stormont from the consequences of failure. There is no longer any credible risk of benefits and public sector wages not being paid from October, when the budget was due to run out, so we will be denied our first ‘real issue’, real impact calamity, along with the transformative effect it might have had on parties, politicians and voters. In short, a good crisis has gone to waste.
But never mind. There’ll be another one along in a minute.
newton@irishnews.com
