With its plot to depose the prime minister in tatters the DUP has invented its own version of ‘abstaining in person’ - breaking its confidence and supply deal with the Tories in protest over the EU Withdrawal Agreement, then insisting the deal is not broken.
The fact the government has not declared the deal dead shows the DUP has scope left for brinkmanship as it tries to square the triangle of a hard Brexit, a soft border and no sea border. Concessions involving technology seem certain to be extracted from the Tories, if not from Brussels. The effect all this is having on Labour is equally significant - leader Jeremy Corbyn has suddenly become such a unionist the New Statesman called him the DUP’s eleventh MP.
Labour met the SNP, Lib Dems and Greens on Tuesday to discuss an alternative to the Withdrawal Agreement, likely to involve a Brexit soft enough to ensure no hard border or sea border. The SNP believes this would also win Tory remainer support.
There may be no time or clear path for a new government to negotiate a new agreement and of course the DUP does not want to put Corbyn in Downing Street. But unionist wobbles are starting to make another form of Brexit imaginable.
**
Signs of the Westminster opposition getting its act together should be treated with caution - there is a reason the worst British government in history is still generally ahead in the polls. When the DUP decided to vote for a Labour amendment to the budget on Monday it was a landmark moment in this parliament - the DUP/Tory pact would be definitively broken and the government would be seen as unable to pass finance bills, traditionally the trigger for an election (even if the 2011 Fixed Term Parliaments Act officially deactivated this trigger.)
Labour whips should have been aware of the DUP’s intentions, yet the amendment was still narrowly defeated because a number of Labour MPs failed to show up - including Jeremy Corbyn, in whose name the amendment was proposed.
**
The DUP is back up to 10 MPs with the return from suspension of Ian Paisley, who immediately asked the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee about building a bridge to Scotland. For all all the criticism levelled at secretary of state Karen Bradley, who was at the committee, she knew exactly how to handle this - by politely agreeing to discuss it.
The SDLP, by contrast, rose furiously to the bait, with leader Colum Eastwood and infrastructure spokesman Sinead Bradley fulminating about wastes of time and money, the lack of white elephants west of the Bann and the impropriety of Bradley discussing devolved issues.
How can the SDLP be unaware the Paisley is a wind-up merchant in need of distractions? The party should think of it this way: the bridge will never be built but it is solid enough for a troll to live under.
**
Belfast City Council ordered Britain’s Got Talent audition posters to be removed from its community centres, not on the entirely reasonable grounds that the programme and everything about it is unutterably ghastly, but because some council staff were offended by the posters’ union flag branding.
A council official declared this a breach of ‘Good and Harmonious policy’, only for that decision to be reversed when loyalists objected, with the council apologising for “causing upset”.
A council spokesperson said: “We will be reviewing the circumstances surrounding this incident and seeking to ensure our policies and the implementation of same are consistent”.
But it is clear the council is consistent - it gives in to the last stupid complaint.
**
In last Saturday’s column I marvelled at the endurance of North Down MLA Steven Agnew, whose prominence as leader of the Green Party in Northern Ireland only seemed to be rising, despite announcing in July he would step down.
On Tuesday, South Belfast MLA Clare Bailey was appointed as Agnew’s successor. This Green announcement came completely out of the turquoise - there was no leadership contest, no apparent involvement of the party membership and only a press release stating Bailey had been “selected”, with no explanation of the selection process.
Bailey resigned as deputy leader 14 months ago saying she was too “busy” as an MLA, nine months into Stormont’s collapse. Whatever else is going on inside the Greens, you cannot fault them for recycling.
**
One feels obliged for the sake of completeness to mention Sinn Féin in a review of the week, given that it is our second largest party. But what to say? Even in the Dail, where it still deigns to turn up, the party’s most celebrated achievement this week was president Mary Lou McDonald barging her way to the front of a group photograph. Otherwise, Sinn Féin has relegated itself to tweeting, waving placards and tweeting about waving placards - and it is retrenching to protest politics at a momentous time not by coincidence but apparently by deep-seated instinct. Perhaps it is worth noting Sinn Féin is selecting candidates for next year’s council elections, but only to wonder if controlling councils now marks the focus of its ambition.
newton@irishnews.com
