Ok, I need you to sit down and hold very tightly to your chair or table before I ask you a question. Does Jim Allister have a valid point when he says that Sinn Féin is simply ‘bleeding’ the political process for their own purposes and don’t care about making Northern Ireland work?
In other words, all they will ever do is add to their list of demands and keep pushing for unity. Or, putting it bluntly: it is not in their interests to have political stability here.
Sinn Féin will, of course, dismiss Allister’s criticisms, arguing that he doesn’t even want them in government—either in voluntary or mandatory form. Further, they will insist that, having ‘stretched their people to the limits’ for the sake of peace, they have been unable to persuade unionism to support equality, parity of esteem and mutual respect. So, when Sinn Féin says that there will be ‘no return to the status quo’ after the election, all they’re saying is that they won’t come back without equality and a level playing field. How likely is it that this will be delivered to their satisfaction?
At the time of the Good Friday Agreement I wrote: ‘Unionists shouldn’t lose sight of what Sinn Féin has had to do to get their core vote behind a political/electoral process. It can’t have been easy telling their supporters, many of whom would have supported, maybe belonged to, the IRA, that Sinn Féin would be taking seats in government, sharing power with unionists, co-governing a Northern Ireland which remained in the United Kingdom and accept the reality of a unionist First Minister. All of that will have required enormous effort from the leadership of the party; primarily, persuading their base that this is the best way of achieving unity at some unclear, unspecified point down the line.’
That’s from the summer of 1998. Sinn Féin has now eclipsed the SDLP as the majority voice of nationalism. But their supporters have had to watch Martin McGuinness, who has now stepped down from the Assembly, serve as ‘deputy’ to Ian Paisley, Peter Robinson and Arlene Foster and those supporters are wondering if the risks of 1998 were worth it. Too many of them have drawn the conclusion that unionists don’t believe in equality; and too many have also drawn the conclusion that the assembly and executive aren’t delivering on the promise of 1998.
Is it possible, then, that Sinn Fén is moving into a post-assembly frame of mind? Another election which produces a result similar to 2007, 2011 and 2016—and that still seems the most likely outcome—will mean playing deputy to the DUP for another five years; assuming, of course that they can agree a deal to reboot the executive.
Failing that, it could be a long, drawn out, bitter period of suspension in which the DUP will refuse to budge on key issues. And we don’t even know if there was agreement of any sort on those issues at St Andrews, because Edwin Poots has said that the DUP never signed on for an Irish language act; and former Secretary of State Peter Hain indicated on Wednesday that an awful lot of stuff hadn’t even been set in stone at St Andrews.
If Sinn Féin isn’t able to secure delivery on those key issues—and at this point it seems unlikely—then the temptation would be to abandon the assembly altogether and concentrate their efforts on working on the British and Irish governments. Maybe they hope that joint sovereignty would be a better option for them at this point; an option which might focus Irish minds on unity, sooner rather than later. And, to be honest, I can’t imagine all that many tears from Sinn Féin’s core vote if the assembly, along with a unionist first minister, was gone.
If that is their thinking—a willingness to let the assembly go—then it poses a huge problem for unionism. Deep down, unionists don’t actually like direct rule (it didn’t do them many favours from 1972-98); and they would absolutely detest joint sovereignty. But if Sinn Féin won’t return to the ‘status quo’ and the DUP won’t budge on the Irish language and a raft of social/cultural/equality issues, then it seems improbable that the assembly will survive. The question, ‘Who suffers worse from the disappearance of the assembly?’ is an easy one to answer: unionists.
Sinn Féin is taking a huge gamble at the moment. They know that their supporters are fed up with the ‘status quo’ and even more fed up with the impression that the assembly party is propping up an ‘arrogant, dismissive, anti-equality DUP.’ Are they now betting that new talks—against the background of what they hope is a damaged, weakened, chastened DUP—will force the DUP to make a clear choice between meeting their demands and losing the assembly altogether?
Talking to some within Sinn Féin it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that they are prepared to let the assembly go: on the basis that they have less to lose than the DUP. Arlene Foster—like many of us, to be fair—didn’t think Sinn Féin would push things this far. It now looks as if they’re prepared to push it further if they have to.
