Among the numerous signs that Sinn Féin and the DUP want a Stormont deal sooner rather than later is the emphasis both parties are placing on a new industrial strategy for Northern Ireland.
This is a subject that bores most people rigid, which is problem yet also a crucial advantage.
Despite conjuring up dreary images of ministers cutting ribbons on factories, an industrial strategy is an entire economic policy, requiring deep ideological foundations and encompassing political, social and constitutional arguments.
It has the potential to provide a new core battleground for politics under devolution that would move beyond the deadlocked battles of identity without making unrealistic assumptions of a political truce. The DUP and Sinn Féin could continue tearing strips off each other with angry conviction, but in debates that might actually go somewhere instead of inevitably going nowhere.
This would not be about replacing identity and constitutional arguments with what are often cosily described as ‘real issues’, such as jobs, education and regeneration. Identity and the constitution are real issues too.
It would be about making unionism and nationalism two positive policy platforms rather than just two flags stuck either side of an empty trench.
The progress of this idea has been easy to miss amid the headline dispute over an Irish language act - a dispute language campaigners forced on Sinn Féin, as has long been forgotten.
In January 2017, two weeks after the executive collapsed, DUP economy minister Simon Hamilton published a draft industrial strategy, updating one from five years earlier.
The new strategy was considered a step forward in setting realistic goals. It identified six key sectors to develop, including financial services and life sciences, and focused on problems with productivity, skills and infrastructure.
However, it was still very much a classic Stormont hollow policy of listing things to be achieved - number of jobs in this, amount of investment in that - without specifics on how to achieve them, let alone an underpinning philosophy.
In any case, Stormont’s collapse appeared to render the entire exercise moot.
There the matter rested until June 2018, when Sinn Féin MLA Conor Murphy - our next first or deputy first minister - made a high-profile critique of Hamilton’s strategy amid a push for Stormont talks.
Murphy accused the strategy of lacking detail and “reflection” on Northern Ireland’s economic problems. He claimed it had been based on “a much more market-orientated approach” in contrast to Sinn Féin’s preference for “a model focused on inclusive growth” - in other words, a contrast between right and left.
Murphy added that his party and the DUP share an interest in a prosperous society and “we don’t want to render the North an economic wasteland”. Sinn Féin’s constitutional agenda for an industrial strategy is “a successful and smooth transition” to a united Ireland, including ending dependence on UK subsidy.
The business community noticed the significance of Murphy’s remarks immediately and has been discussing them ever since. Brexit distracted public and political attention but now the subject has resurfaced in the general election campaign and speculation on fresh Stormont talks. An industrial strategy is part of the DUP’s manifesto plan for Northern Ireland, launched last week. This week, Sinn Féin deputy leader Michelle O’Neill raised it in a keynote speech to the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce, again in the context of Irish unification. Both parties are pitching it as central to restoring devolution.
On the face of it, this is an offer unionists should seize with both hands.
Making Northern Ireland work has always been seen as implicitly securing the constitutional status quo - so much so that when the SDLP adopted ‘making Northern Ireland work’ as a slogan five years ago, republicans crucified them for it.
Brexit has changed this equation. If a sea border reorientates Northern Ireland towards an all-Ireland economy, as many economists predict, prosperity might no longer be a de facto case for the union. At most it might be a case for Northern Ireland, if devolution was seen to be delivering it.
Sinn Féin and the DUP are still far from certain to get back to Stormont. But it seems they would like to try some proper politics when they get there.
