Opinion

Brian Feeney: Michelle O'Neill could have avoided full blown crisis by showing some flexibility

Brian Feeney

Brian Feeney

Historian and political commentator Brian Feeney has been a columnist with The Irish News for three decades. He is a former SDLP councillor in Belfast and co-author of the award-winning book Lost Lives

Brian Feeney
Brian Feeney Brian Feeney

Suddenly out of left field there’s a full blown political crisis at Stormont, a crisis that could have been avoided if Michelle O’Neill had shown some flexibility after Bobby Storey’s immense funeral and if Arlene Foster hadn’t escalated her original request for an apology into a demand for O’Neill’s resignation.

The question is, where do we go from here?

The evidence suggests two observations. First, that neither Sinn Féin nor the DUP wants to collapse the executive, and secondly, that Arlene Foster was bounced into demanding O’Neill’s resignation by a statement Lord Morrow issued on Wednesday night, reinforced by an ill-thought out interview Sir Jeffrey ‘I could live with 40,000 job losses’ Donaldson gave on Thursday morning.

READ MORE: Arlene Foster calls for Michelle O'Neill to step down over attendance at Bobby Storey funeralOpens in new window ]

Donaldson, like Colum Eastwood on RTÉ, exposed lack of knowledge about the assembly by talking about complaining to the Standards Commission when there isn’t one.

Both Donaldson and Morrow dragged the PSNI into the equation trying to make the police the arbiters of O’Neill’s political future and therefore of the survival of the executive. Luckily the RUC is no more.

The result is a political impasse. Sinn Féin has said O’Neill will not stand aside or resign in any circumstances.

Arlene Foster can’t unsay her demand for O’Neill’s resignation, a demand she had carefully avoided before Morrow’s statement.

There’s no good going back over the rights and wrongs of Bobby Storey’s funeral.

The truth is that O’Neill had no control over the numbers. It was naïve to imagine trying to impose controls in Andersonstown. That wouldn’t have worked as the police accepted.

You can’t impose what you can’t control. It was unfortunate that O’Neill’s first opportunity for a public response to accusations of breaching regulations came at an Executive Committee meeting which produced acrimonious exchanges about Storey’s IRA past.

She was driven into a televised uncompromising response there. Many bereaved families were outraged.

However, by escalating her political demands Arlene Foster has boxed herself in.

She must have known O’Neill would refuse, as Foster herself refused to accede to Martin McGuinness’s demand for her to stand aside in 2017. So what can Foster do? The answer is nothing, except resign herself as McGuinness did.

The alternative is to play stupid games like refusing to sign documents, boycotting executive meetings, withdrawing ministers – all the stuff we’ve been through before – the road to nowhere.

All the other parties have also joined in calling for O’Neill to resign, but then all the other parties walked out of the assembly chamber in December 2016 in protest at Foster’s unauthorised speech justifying her position.

However, none of the small parties can affect the executive. Again this crisis is between SF and the DUP. Since O’Neill won’t resign, Foster will be shown to be impotent and devoid of political nous if she does nothing. On the other hand, if she collapses the executive it’s difficult to see how it can ever be resurrected.

Since neither SF nor the DUP wants that they’re obliged to seek a mutual political accommodation to avoid it.