Opinion

Newton Emerson: Fresh Start may be limited but it is holding up surprisingly well

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

The Fresh Start agreement has brought stability to Stormont
The Fresh Start agreement has brought stability to Stormont The Fresh Start agreement has brought stability to Stormont

It is a year today since Sinn Féin and the DUP reached the Fresh Start agreement. In an eventful year since, that agreement remains in place. Yet there is still a very poor understanding of how Fresh Start works, leading to regular predictions of its imminent demise.

Obviously, anyone predicting disaster at Stormont will be right in the end. But that is no excuse for ignoring how robust the executive has become in the meantime. The key to this stability was made clear last month when the Yorkgate junction upgrade was postponed.

Sinn Féin infrastructure minister Chris Hazzard blamed Brexit as he put the £165m project on hold. This was immediately contradicted by the Northern Ireland Office, which clarified that the Treasury would cover any EU money lost.

Opposition parties went on the offensive, citing “Brexit confusion” to drive a wedge between Sinn Féin and the DUP. Darker divisions were also brought into play. Hazzard has to cover 60 per cent of Yorkgate’s cost from his own department’s budget, so he appeared to be freeing up funds in the east to spend on less strategic projects in the west.

Further pressure was applied by the business sector, which was unusually vocal in its dismay.

But Sinn Féin’s only response was to calmly note that Yorkgate was not one of the four transport projects it had agreed with the DUP, and hence it was Hazzard’s to deal with as he saw fit. The minister has since decided to proceed with the upgrade, pending renewed assurances from the Treasury. He has had a free hand throughout from the DUP, which restricted its criticism to one Sammy Wilson interview - never a sign of seriousness. Even Wilson pulled his punches, merely asking if Sinn Féin voters in Belfast were happy with motorway congestion.

Those four agreed projects are the A5 and A6, the Belfast Transport Hub and the Belfast Rapid Transit Programme. Fresh Start also promises Dublin funding for the Ulster Canal, Belfast-Dublin railway and Narrow Water bridge plus cross-border flood prevention and power lines.

It seems that Sinn Féin envisages literally building a united Ireland, an aspect of Fresh Start it has undersold.

This is a digression, however. The point is that the executive now governs within these extraordinarily limited terms. If something is in the agreement, it will be done. Otherwise, the minister can do what they like. The solo run is back, without a vengeance.

This has been described as a “non-aggression pact” by the SDLP but that fails to capture what a ludicrously tiny truce has been marked out on the battlefield.

Fresh Start is an impressive agreement in many ways but the moment it was signed, its big-picture issues became either done deals or balls kicked into the long grass. Welfare reform was deferred instantly and departments were merged promptly, for example, while parading and the past were consigned to endless contemplation.

All that remains are a few short, specific to-do lists, like the four transport projects, or the 15 people to be appointed to a flags commission.

An overwhelming proportion of this workload involves the ‘transitioning’ of paramilitaries, which explains why the DUP and Sinn Féin are so committed to throwing cash at the UDA. If they stopped the various mechanisms by which this is happening the executive would have almost nothing left to do - or at least, nothing it has agreed to do.

Rather than thinking of a battlefield, it makes more sense to picture Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness sitting around the griddle in an isolated little farmhouse, surrounded by eight enormous silos in which ministers squat on their separate piles of grain.

Not having to share this farmhouse with three other party leaders was a fortuitous turn of events that has made the arrangement more bearable.

However, the occupants deserve scant credit for weathering an event as momentous as Brexit. Their agreement is so parochial and transactional that the world could be turned upside-down without impinging on its little lists. Even when events affect certain items, the shortage of points of accord compels both parties to press on.

The rationale for Stormont’s corporation tax cut has been buffeted by Brexit, Brussels and Donald Trump’s election but it is still on course because it is agreed and beyond the agreement there is nothing.

Fresh Start is certainly better than nothing - and stronger than many suppose. But it will never be anything more than the sum of its very few parts.

newton@irishnews.com