Opinion

Newton Emerson: Stormont must learn lessons from the welfare reform crisis

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.

Stormont remains mothballed. Picture by David Young/PA Wire
Stormont remains mothballed. Picture by David Young/PA Wire Stormont remains mothballed. Picture by David Young/PA Wire

As if there is not enough going on, an echo of our last political crisis is growing louder. The SDLP is keen to pin the blame on Sinn Féin for problems with Universal Credit, pointing out the republican party accepted welfare reform in 2015 then voted with the DUP to leave the relevant powers in London.

Sinn Féin has hit back with an online video of its interpretation of events, courageously entitled “Welfare: The Truth”, explaining it held out for three years until the 2015 Fresh Start agreement secured a £585 million mitigation package, which the SDLP then voted against. The video also accuses the SDLP of introducing welfare reform to Northern Ireland by partially acceding to an earlier round of it in 2007.

Both parties are substantially correct in their claims but both are missing the point of the three years leading up to 2015. This matters because the failings of that crisis, including its flawed resolution in the Fresh Start agreement, are lessons that must be learned - by unionists and nationalists - to have any hope of putting Stormont back on a more stable footing.

It is worth recalling just how bad the welfare reform crisis was, given that we already look back on it as a relative golden age. For lengthy periods between 2012 and 2015 Stormont collapsed in all but name. Two full rounds of all-party talks failed and the DUP eventually threatened to walk out of the executive.

Sinn Féin took most of the blame, perhaps deservedly so, but the wider fault had to be a system unable to cope with one deadlocked issue. Much reference was made during the crisis to what SDLP former leader Mark Durkan had called Stormont’s “ugly scaffolding”. In 2008, Durkan proposed removing the assembly’s community designation requirement so deadlocks could be resolved through straight majority voting. Minorities would continue to be protected via mandatory executive power-sharing.

Yet during the welfare reform crisis, the SDLP behaved disgracefully - its only concern was to grab a scaffolding bar and batter Sinn Féin over the head with it.

The SDLP knew republicans would have to accept a compromise on welfare reform in the end. After all, that is what SDLP social development minister Margaret Ritchie had to do in 2007. But rather than assist its fellow executive party towards this goal, it engaged in hysterical shroud waving and finger pointing, making it significantly harder for republicans to shift their position.

No doubt the SDLP felt this was pay-back for Sinn Féin doing the same to Ritchie but there is no uglier prop at Stormont than two wrongs making a right.

The SDLP went into opposition in 2016 when that option was formally introduced, which might seem to have resolved the issue of inter-communal contests inside the executive. However, the DUP believes Sinn Féin is still so sensitive to this form of criticism that it brought down Stormont in part to avoid it.

That brings us to unionism’s failure in the crisis. Despite understanding Sinn Féin’s difficulties with welfare reform, the DUP never stretched itself to offer a balancing gesture. It was far too content to be in the right on its own terms and saw no danger in the humiliation of Fresh Start, when an exhausted Sinn Féin surrendered on almost every issue that had been thrown into the mix in the preceding three years.

Fresh Start heralded a two-party executive and efforts were made to present a united front but the DUP still expected the welfare reform deal to stand on its own merits and slipped back into battle a day politics, until what now looks like the inevitable collapse a year later.

The DUP is often said to have run rings around Sinn Féin at Stormont. That is too simplistic. On welfare reform, certainly, it is more correct to say Sinn Féin ran a ring around itself and the DUP felt no obligation to help it out, even in self interest to preserve a joint administration.

The lesson from this is that even substantial deal-making and rule-changing is not enough without a realistic sense of partnership at the top. A problem for one party is a problem for both and unilateral victories are Pyrrhic.

For welfare reform, now read an Irish language act. The DUP must accept such legislation is required and Sinn Féin must stretch itself to offer something in return, however unearned on its own merits. If the SDLP and UUP attack what emerges, so be it.

newton@irishnews.com