Opinion

Newton Emerson: Stormont rules offer a way for centre parties to break the political deadlock

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.

Direct rule at Stormont seems inevitable by the October 31 Brexit deadline. Picture by Niall Carson/PA Wire
Direct rule at Stormont seems inevitable by the October 31 Brexit deadline. Picture by Niall Carson/PA Wire Direct rule at Stormont seems inevitable by the October 31 Brexit deadline. Picture by Niall Carson/PA Wire

Do the centre parties already have it within their grasp to unblock the Stormont deadlock?

A wrinkle in the rules suggests they might. When a new assembly meets after an election, it is the members rather than their parties that must declare themselves unionist or nationalist. Each party only acquires the designation chosen by “more than half” its members.

The assembly has not met since the 2017 election. If Alliance and the Greens allowed half their members to designate as unionist and the other half as nationalist, they could retain their overall stance of ‘other’ yet come within a hair’s breadth of neutralising the petition of concern.

On present numbers, Sinn Féin and the DUP would hang on to their individual vetoes by just one and two seats respectively. Both parties would have to forgo the post of speaker and ensure all their MLAs turned up for every petitioned vote.

This precarious balance is unlikely to survive another election. Even if the recent Alliance surge did not translate into more Alliance seats, as some analysis predicts, seats would shift between the other parties to the same effect: Sinn Féin and the DUP would lose their individual vetoes and could only block laws by voting together.

This would have a profound effect on Stormont’s operation. The assembly would have seized the initiative from the executive over controversial issues, rather like the House of Commons has seized the initiative from the government over Brexit. The UUP and SDLP, perhaps in opposition, would be able to join forces with Alliance and Greens to get legislation past the DUP or Sinn Féin. The DUP and Sinn Féin would have to be seen to cooperate to get around everyone else.

There is a perception that petitions force each designation into blocs, with the SDLP lining up behind Sinn Féin and the UUP lining up behind the DUP. In truth, of the 115 petitions tabled during the last full five-year assembly term, only 25 were unambiguously unionist versus nationalist. Five were cross-community and six were signed by Alliance or the Greens. Over one third of all petitions involved welfare reform.

There has always been potential at Stormont to subvert the ugly scaffolding and there have always been those who sought to frustrate it. Originally, the law enacting the Good Friday Agreement permitted changing designation at any time. Alliance members briefly designated themselves as unionists in 2001 to stop the DUP bringing down power-sharing, while the Women’s Coalition had a policy from the outset of redesignating at will “to protect the agreement”.

The DUP and Sinn Féin closed this loophole at St Andrews - the DUP was reportedly so concerned about redesignation it wanted ‘unionist’ and ‘nationalist’ marked on ballot papers.

But centre parties are now reaching a relative size where new loopholes are opening up. Would Alliance, Greens and People Before Profit risk designating individual members, with all the accusations of treachery that would bring down on their heads?

Alliance appears to have little to fear. Unionist attempts to brand it as nationalist only appear to have driven more voters of all backgrounds into its arms.

The standard approach to every Stormont crisis is to put devolution on ice while the executive parties, in practice Sinn Féin and the DUP, concoct another stitch-up.

The latest progress report on talks indicates efforts are focusing on a stitch-up over the petition of concern, just as both main parties are on the cusp of losing their vetoes. In the bigger picture, this looks more like blocking progress.

Watching Westminster contort itself under strain towards a whole new political era, it becomes clear how Stormont is stunted by its ability to collapse under strain instead.

When pressures have been directed towards keeping the institutions going, such as in 2001, evolution has invariably been positive.

What better answers might have emerged had the executive or at least the assembly stayed open over the past three years, even in the living-death form of Boris Johnson’s powerless government?

If Stormont is restored, serious thought must be given to making it impossible for parties to collapse it by walking out - not to preserve some redundant hope of unionist majority rule, but to stop unionist or nationalist minorities overruling the natural development of devolution.