Opinion

Newton Emerson: Time for UUP to follow SDLP example on holding main parties to account

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.

UUP leader Steve Aiken. Picture by Liam McBurney, Press Association
UUP leader Steve Aiken. Picture by Liam McBurney, Press Association UUP leader Steve Aiken. Picture by Liam McBurney, Press Association

The assembly resolution passed against Sinn Féin this Tuesday was far from meaningless or “pathetically weak”, as TUV leader Jim Allister described it.

Unanimous support from the other four executive parties, plus the Greens, meant the vote was both cross-community and involved participants defying their own ‘side’ - an unusual combination in any context in Northern Ireland, let alone at the top of Stormont politics.

This would not have occurred without the unflinching support of the SDLP.

Had Sinn Féin managed to peel it off from the other parties, the vote would have become them-and-us and been rendered truly meaningless.

To break tribal solidarity, an issue has to cause a high degree of public upset, which puts a natural threshold on actions such as Tuesday’s vote and ensures such votes resonate with the public.

Sinn Féin and the DUP are both deeply unnerved by criticism from their own side.

One of the first points they agreed when they sat down last year to discuss restoring devolution was that they wanted the UUP and SDLP inside the executive, where they would be forced to act as tribal mudguards, rather than entering opposition.

Facing four-party opposition inside the executive is definitely not what either expected.

The critical question raised by Tuesday’s vote is whether the UUP would show the same moral fibre as the SDLP if the DUP deserved censure. Stormont’s new bicycle would soon look wobbly with one fixed and one detachable mudguard.

In December 2016, as the RHI crisis came to a head, the UUP joined all other parties to support a vote of no confidence against Arlene Foster, forcing the DUP to block it with a petition of concern (preventing Sinn Féin doing likewise is why Tuesday’s vote was only a censure motion.)

However, RHI was a relatively uncontentious matter of money. An issue involving loyalism would be the closest parallel to the past week’s scandal and there is scant reason to be confident the UUP would pass that test.

January’s New Decade, New Approach deal promised “a robust, independent enforcement mechanism to deal with breaches of the ministerial code” and declared this the “key to making the executive more accountable and transparent.”

Most parties have responded to the events of the past week by returning to this pledge - an understandable reaction, when Sinn Féin can ignore the assembly calling for a mere apology.

Stormont is unusual across the UK and Ireland in lacking a mechanism to punish errant ministers. Any look at Westminster reveals this is hardly a silver bullet. It is difficult to see how Stormont could design a system with more useful impact and authority than the evolving approach represented by Tuesday’s vote.

Any formal process to enforce a written code of behaviour drops the threshold for action down to technical nitpicking. Jim Allister might be most readily imagined availing of this but it would not be too long before every party was at it.

The New Decade, New Approach proposal is for the first minister and deputy first minister to appoint a panel of commissioners to rule on complaints.

Even if the panel members were seen as personally independent, the manner of their appointment would fall below independent standards.

Suppose legitimate concerns were overcome.

Had an enforcement mechanism been in place last week, complaints to it about Sinn Féin ministers would have taken months to adjudicate - perhaps years. This would either have postponed a verdict until nobody cared, or prolonged tensions in the executive, or both.

Sinn Féin could have used that time to apply pressure on the SDLP, no doubt with the unwitting help of overdone unionist outrage.

Once the panel finally reached a verdict, its maximum possible sanction would be a period of suspension for ministers. Sinn Féin could swap in a few temporary replacements to showcase some new talent, cry victimhood and cause a further crisis, or both.

How would any of this by an improvement on the short, sharp judgment handed down this week by the assembly?

A public commitment from the UUP to match the good authority shown by the SDLP would put more manners on the big two parties than any device they had a hand in creating.