Opinion

Tom Kelly: Theresa May must act to prevent Northern Ireland coming to a standstill

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly is an Irish News columnist with a background in politics and public relations. He is also a former member of the Policing Board.

British prime minister Theresa May is trying to hold her government together as disagreements about Brexit come to the fore
British prime minister Theresa May is trying to hold her government together as disagreements about Brexit come to the fore British prime minister Theresa May is trying to hold her government together as disagreements about Brexit come to the fore

So its crunch time for the British government. At the time of writing the prime minister was going into a lockdown with her fractious cabinet in order to sell a soft Brexit.

It’s actually possible to feel sorry for Theresa May. She is a woman who doesn’t seem to be enjoying the job but is trying her hardest to make the best of it. She is not steely like Thatcher, in fact at times, she seems on the verge of a collapse. But she has got stickability.

Brexit has always been mainly about the bipolar attitude amongst many Tories towards the EU. Some are just plain old fashioned imperialists; others are down right xenophobic and the rest are opportunistic chancers who think they can further their already mediocre careers by jumping on the Brexit bandwagon. There was as much collegiality at Chequers as a family gathering of the Borgias.

In fairness to the Brexit advocates, their own economists warned during the referendum that leaving the EU could end the UK manufacturing industry within ten years. But they said it was a price worth paying. British manufacturing plays second fiddle to services when it comes to exports. Unfortunately for the Tory government those tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs are in the industrial heartlands of England. Barmy Boris can't ignore that fact even if the DUP ten do.

Brexit is a road journey without a map and any decision on the final outcome may ultimately be settled by a general election.

However, if Mrs May thought that Brexit was her only headache she would be wrong. Since she has cosied up to the DUP for survival at Westminster she has ignored Northern Ireland. She has ignored the RHI inquiry, she has ignored political duplicity over moral issues and she has ignored calls to cull MLA pay in the absence of an Assembly and an executive. But she can’t ignore Northern Ireland any longer as the Court of Appeal here has actually in effect declared the north as ungovernable without the presence of ministers.

The learned judges don’t believe that the 1998 Northern Ireland Act envisaged a time without ministerial accountability. (If that was the case then those who drafted it either were naive in the extreme or had a weird sense of humour). The Northern Ireland civil service asked for clarity and now they have it.

Secretary of State Karen Bradley won’t be able to giggle her way out of this one. The implications of this judgment are huge as it immediately freezes any decision which is ‘cross-cutting, significant or controversial (what isn’t in Northern Ireland?). There’s a degree of irony in suggesting that decision making by departments in the absence of ministers was against the spirit of the Belfast Agreement when it's those very absent ministers and their respective parties who have created the vacuum.

Both Theresa May and Karen Bradley are going to have to step up. Northern Ireland is going to have to get ministers. The options are quite limited, if there is to be no appeal to the Supreme Court.

Initially all significant decisions could be passed to the desk of the secretary of state, who in turn amends the legislation so that Northern Ireland doesn’t come to a standstill.

Secondly, in order to fast track the return of the executive and Assembly, Westminster could bring forward legislation on the equality issues. The DUP won’t like it but the government will easily secure overwhelming parliamentary support. Then May could put pressure on both the DUP and SF to get back into the executive by Christmas. With the RHI inquiry knee deep in Spads by the autumn the DUP may be glad to be back in power.

The second option is much more unpalatable to Sinn Féin and that's the appointment of direct rule ministers. To allow that to happen would be reckless.

Whilst in the Court of the Appeal, they referred to the permanent secretaries taking decisions here as being profoundly undemocratic, there will be little to no difference in the democratic accountability of Tory ministers making decisions about Northern Ireland. The only form of scrutiny possible is by the Northern Ireland Select Committee and Parliament, where the entire northern nationalist community goes unrepresented thanks to the Sinn Féin policy of abstentionism.

Will Mary Lou want to gift such a political paradise to Gregory Campbell and Ian Paisley jnr?

If the British government can’t manage the governance of a place with 1.8m people, what hope for Brexit?