Opinion

Newton Emerson: What a mess - Stormont's dead this side of Brexit

A campaign organised by taxi companies and backed by Sinn Féin means taxis will be able to use Belfast's bus lanes - just as the new Glider rapid transit service comes into operation. Picture by Hugh Russell
A campaign organised by taxi companies and backed by Sinn Féin means taxis will be able to use Belfast's bus lanes - just as the new Glider rapid transit service comes into operation. Picture by Hugh Russell A campaign organised by taxi companies and backed by Sinn Féin means taxis will be able to use Belfast's bus lanes - just as the new Glider rapid transit service comes into operation. Picture by Hugh Russell

STORMONT looks dead this side of Brexit, with even Simon Hamilton - the most dovish of DUP negotiators - telling Westminster's Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that devolution's prospects are "bleak... certainly this year and maybe beyond."

Westminster provides the DUP with a lifeboat that should float for a year or more and Hamilton's statement officially launched it.

The usual schedule of a Stormont crisis would see talks resume in September with a deal by the end of the year.

The present deadlock, involving unionism rejecting the best deal possible, is clearly unusual and also overlaps with the Brexit negotiations, which come to a head in October - the equivalent of the Twelfth fortnight in Stormont's 'talking season'.

As the first two phases of those negotiations have shown, they poison the water not just between unionists and nationalists but between London and Dublin, preventing the kind of cooperation that resolved the last lengthy suspension of Stormont via the St Andrews agreement.

What a mess.

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SDLP leader Colum Eastwood has called on London and Dublin to convene the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference as an alternative to direct rule - and to use it to agree a package of Westminster legislation on all the deadlocked Stormont issues.

Eastwood thus joins the illustrious pantheon of nationalist leaders, including Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, to forget the conference's remit is restricted to non-devolved matters - even in the absence of devolution.

So the only ways forward are direct rule or re-writing the agreement. Nationalists are not alone in finding these choices unpalatable.

The Stormont budget passed this week by the secretary of state differs from the past year's budget interventions in that it unambiguously breaches the law enacting the agreement.

Yet still the government is not calling it direct rule.

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Through its mishandling of Stormont talks, the DUP has managed to look entirely responsible for the mess, so it is trying to change the subject to republican Troubles commemorations versus enactment of the British military covenant.

Hamilton referred to a Sinn Féin "scorched earth policy" on the issue, citing MLA Chris Hazzard using an office named after "two IRA terrorists".

To call this argument confected is an insult to confectionary - in Britain, where the military covenant is not contentious, it has proved meaningless. Few unionist voters will be exercised by it.

Unionists are affronted by eulogising of the IRA. However, any case against this is built on shifting sand.

Republican commemorations for the 30th anniversary of Gibraltar have been less accusatory than in previous years.

Sinn Féin is still accusing Britain of "executions" - although the European Court of Human Rights found otherwise - but there was a perceptible shift towards a 'martyred in action' remembrance consistent with the party's portrayal of the Troubles as a war.

Last November, Hazzard met the government of Gibraltar in Belfast for what he described as "constructive" discussions on Brexit.

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Unionists have criticised a report into the exodus of Protestants from Derry to the Waterside in the 1970s, claiming it downplays the role of intimidation.

The report, commissioned by the Pat Finucane Centre, is subtler than its critics suggest but it does offer some rather odd explanations.

For example, it claims that unionists moved both to get better houses and because they were demoralised at losing control of the city council, which used to give them better houses.

The report also blames unionist governments for skewing investment east of the Bann. Why would that make thousands of people move across the Foyle, 40 miles west of the Bann?

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Secrecy on political donations has finally been lifted in Northern Ireland, although a three-line Conservative whip prevented the order being backdated, protecting the DUP's £435,000 Brexit donation.

Meanwhile, Sinn Féin has complained about sponsorship of a DUP dinner to the American owners of Crumlin International Airport.

Sinn Féin's objection is that the airport should not be funding the DUP at all, due to its social policies.

This is certain to spark an arms race where any business contributing to Sinn Féin will face unionist accusations of endorsing the IRA.

The result will be few donations for anyone, as private companies are incredibly averse to political controversy.

Is this what we want? Business influence over our political parties must on balance be a positive force, given the private sector's need for stability and delivery.

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On the other hand, commercial lobbying can be a distinctly negative force.

A write-in campaign organised by Belfast's main taxi companies and backed by Sinn Féin has bounced the Department for Infrastructure into allowing all taxis into all Belfast's bus lanes for a 12 month trial, just as the new Glider rapid transit service comes into operation.

In a letter to Belfast City Council, the department said including all bus lanes is necessary to "ensure consistency".

However, it noted Glider lanes alone are the subject of the trial and will also have only their operating hours reviewed - something else taxi firms lobbied Sinn Féin to demand.

A taxi is just a privately hired car. For 'consistency', should privately owned cars not take part in this trial as well?

newton@irishnews.com