Opinion

Jim Gibney: Snap election has stalled momentum towards talks breakthrough

A June 8 election means the gates of Stormont are likely to remain locked. Picture by Mal McCann
A June 8 election means the gates of Stormont are likely to remain locked. Picture by Mal McCann A June 8 election means the gates of Stormont are likely to remain locked. Picture by Mal McCann

The decision by British prime minister Theresa May to hold a June snap election is about routing the British Labour Party and returning the Conservative Party to Westminster with a bigger majority.

Her claims that her Brexit plans were being frustrated in Westminster by Labour and the Liberal Democrats is a smokescreen.

May and her advisers believe the time is opportune for a comprehensive win on the basis of opinion polls that show the Labour Party significantly behind the Tories.

It is the interests of the Tories first, and everything thereafter is secondary. So, it is party first dressed up in ‘nation first’ rhetoric. But May’s ‘nation’ are those who vote Conservative. Everyone else is collateral.

Hence, she cares little about the impact her decision is having on the situation in the north where parties instead of concentrating on the outcome of the negotiations, and a possible deal, will be preoccupied with organising and fighting an election.

The momentum towards a breakthrough here to restore the power-sharing all-Ireland institutions of the Good Friday Agreement has been stalled.

May, for different reasons, is displaying a similar off-hand attitude to the situation in Scotland. She rejected Nicola Sturgeon’s call for a second independence referendum on the grounds that the British government needed stability and certainty and no distractions from disengaging from the European Union.

But for May it is Scotland disengaging from Britain that is her primary concern. Her refusal to concede a second independence referendum to Scotland, while she called an election to suit the Conservatives, will not be lost on the people of Scotland and the Scottish Nationalist Party – already angry at her ignoring Scotland’s vote to remain in the EU and her refusal to agree a second referendum.

It will not be lost on the people here that in the middle of one of the worse political crises since the negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement, the British government blandly risks the progress, however limited, to suit its narrow electoral interests.

This does not surprise republicans who have watched successive Conservative prime ministers disengage from the peace and political processes while supporting the DUP as it blocked a range of equality measures. These include a resolution of the legacy issue, an Irish Language Act and marriage equality. In return the DUP supported austerity and Brexit.

There is a growing concern that the British government is engaged in a pretence at the assembly in terms of restoring the power-sharing and all-Ireland institutions. That it is not serious about resolving the issues at the heart of the political crisis. That its negotiation stance is about delaying a resolution rather than facilitating it.

This view is reflected in an article written at the weekend by Sinn Féin’s national chairperson Declan Kearney who said of the British government: “The announced extension of the talks deadline beyond the British general election is just another fiction because they have already psychologically collapsed the next phase before it even begins”.

His comments have been prompted by the stewardship of the talks by James Brokenshire whose opposition to a deal on legacy has not only blocked a comprehensive agreement but has also bolstered the DUP in their opposition to an agreement.

It is even more worrying that the Irish government is failing in its national duty in the negotiations to act in the interests of the people of Ireland by defending the gains made in the Good Friday Agreement.

It urgently needs to separate its negotiating strategy from the British government’s and use its influence to secure an agreement on resolving the issues at hand.

In the meantime, although an election has to be fought the context could not be better for progressive-minded people.

The election campaign will be fought in the context of two remarkable recent results: the assembly election, which ended unionist majority rule in the north and ended unionist rule in the assembly and the Brexit decision when 56 per cent of the north’s population voted to remain.

Whatever about the mood of the British government and the unionist parties it is this popular mood which could deliver a third remarkable election result.