Opinion

Newton Emerson: PUP fails to make a splash on announcement withdrawing support for GFA

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.

If PUP leader Billy Hutchinson (pictured at an Ulster Covenant commemoration in 2012) wants a political career announcing the same thing over and over again and expecting everyone to think it is new, he is just going to have to become Chancellor of the Exchequer. Picture: Pacemaker
If PUP leader Billy Hutchinson (pictured at an Ulster Covenant commemoration in 2012) wants a political career announcing the same thing over and over again and expecting everyone to think it is new, he is just going to have to become Chancellor of the Ex If PUP leader Billy Hutchinson (pictured at an Ulster Covenant commemoration in 2012) wants a political career announcing the same thing over and over again and expecting everyone to think it is new, he is just going to have to become Chancellor of the Exchequer. Picture: Pacemaker

The Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) was clearly hoping to make a major splash with its announcement on Monday that it is withdrawing support for the Good Friday Agreement, on the grounds the protocol shows the consent principle does not apply to unionists.

The problem with this claim, apart from the argument itself, is that the splash occurred in March when the Loyalist Communities Council made the same announcement on behalf of the UVF, UDA and Red Hand Commando.

The PUP is not the UVF, of course, no sirree. However, when the March announcement was made, PUP leader Billy Hutchinson gave interviews defending it and had spent two months beforehand warning it was going to happen.

If Hutchinson wants a political career announcing the same thing over and over again and expecting everyone to think it is new, he is just going to have to become Chancellor of the Exchequer.

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The PUP announcement coincided with the hijacking and burning of a bus in Newtownabbey. The following night, bus drivers withdrew services after PSNI intelligence of further attacks. The UVF is believed to be responsible in both cases, yet this may not be the direct escalation it appears. Brexit is an unwelcome distraction from loyalism’s long-term plan to get its leadership pensioned off into the community sector. Things had been progressing fairly well until political tensions antagonised younger members and created openings for mischief by renegade factions.

So it is possible some loyalist leaders see torching buses as de-escalation: a demonstration of action, even a ‘letting off of steam’, with no harm done except to drivers, passengers and taxpayers in general. If loyalists cared about taxpayers, there would be no retirement plan in the first place.

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To stop his party losing votes to the TUV in one direction and the UUP and Alliance in the other, Jeffrey Donaldson has to find a position on the protocol that simultaneously addresses bus-burning loyalists and garden centre Protestants.

In a sign he may be taking this challenge too literally, the DUP leader delivered his latest critique of the protocol in an east Belfast garden centre.

The official excuse for staging the event at this location was sea border restrictions on importing plants, although the DUP may be struggling to find any business that will complain about the protocol without also complaining about the DUP.

Donaldson had a phone call with the taoiseach the same day and issued a statement calling on the Irish government to “use its influence to press EU negotiators to stretch and prioritise the interests of Northern Ireland over the interests of EU capitals” and “reach a sensible outcome which is sustainable and can command the support of unionists”.

The audacity of this would be staggering enough without the DUP boycotting the Irish government over the protocol at the North-South Ministerial Council.

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Sinn Féin’s position on the universal credit uplift is looking increasingly absurd.

The DUP will agree to extend the £20 weekly increase throughout the whole three-year term of the next executive budget, currently nearing completion.

Sinn Féin should have no argument with that: last week, its finance minister, Conor Murphy, declined to extend the uplift for six months using unspent funds because the cost will rise so quickly. It needs to be properly budgeted.

Yet Sinn Féin is turning the DUP down because the extension it will agree is not permanent. Is anything permanent? What would an unbudgeted permanent commitment even mean?

Sinn Féin communities minister Deirdre Hargey has complained the DUP used its executive veto 41 times over the past 18 months to block discussing an extension. How many times has Sinn Féin turned down a three-year extension?

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There was cross-community agreement at a Stormont committee briefing on Alliance’s new integrated education bill. Catholic and Protestant church trustees both said their schools are already integrated because children of all backgrounds can attend them.

Actual churches are the same, of course. Any Catholic can attend a Protestant service or vice versa and that is apparently the end of the ecumenical matter.

Bishop Donal McKeown and DUP MLA Robin Newton (no relation) expressed concern Alliance’s plan to promote integrated schools would make Catholic and state church-trustee schools “second tier” or “second class”.

It would take a high degree of promotion to offset the privilege the churches enjoy. They are accorded a governing role in a fully-funded universal public service, purely because they once owned some school buildings generations ago, most of which have long since been replaced.

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It is highly unlikely MPs will be banned outright from having second jobs but Westminster is still having a serious debate on the subject due to the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal. Only two of Northern Ireland’s 18 MPs have registered other paid employment: Sinn Féin’s John Finucane, who works up to 20 hours per week at his law firm; and the DUP’s Carla Lockhart, who works 8 hours per week administering her family’s farm.

The prospect of tackling a lawyer and a farmer shows why a ban is unlikely.