Opinion

Claire Simpson: We're drifting towards direct rule transfer deadline day

DUP leader Arlene Foster celebrates with her supporters after speaking at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in south Belfast last Thursday, on transfer deadline day. Picture by Declan Roughan.
DUP leader Arlene Foster celebrates with her supporters after speaking at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in south Belfast last Thursday, on transfer deadline day. Picture by Declan Roughan. DUP leader Arlene Foster celebrates with her supporters after speaking at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in south Belfast last Thursday, on transfer deadline day. Picture by Declan Roughan.

AS Sky Sports' transfer window clock counted down the final minutes of deadline day last week, excited reporters wondered if the largest clubs could make their big money moves.

All the clichés were there: journalists interviewed Birmingham City manager Harry Redknapp in his car, presenters desperately filled time by Googling things and, in the absence of any actual news, everyone made wild speculations.

Manchester City wanted Arsenal's Alexis Sanchez, Everton wanted Chelsea's Ross Barkley and the DUP's Arlene Foster wanted to appear like a reasonable human being in front of Sinn Féin.

Clad in a fetching red strip, the DUP leader started well, turning up early to her training ground - or a south Belfast hotel - on Thursday night, flanked by solid defenders Nigel Dodds, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and frequent substitute Sammy Wilson, who seemed confused by the importance of the party meeting and was dressed like a dad who had brought his own coleslaw to a church barbecue.

A few months ago, the DUP had pulled off an impressive £1 billion transfer to effectively join the Tories at Westminster.

In the dying days before direct rule has to be reimposed, could Mrs Foster make an offer that Sinn Féin would accept?

She started off with the usual platitudes in front of her home fans - we love the union, we didn't start well at the beginning of last year's election season but pulled off a blinder in the second half, we might not be the biggest party at Westminster but we've become the people's unionist champions - then she seemed to announce a possible shock deal with her local rivals.

The executive should be restored immediately, she said, along with a parallel talks process to deal with language and culture.

Sounding like the manager of a second-string Premier League team, she said she was ambitious for the north and wanted to build a strong executive team that could fend off challenges to the health service and education.

She had made her offer, all Sinn Féin had to do was accept and agree personal terms later.

We were initially told Sinn Féin's northern leader Michelle O'Neill would not make a move until Friday morning, but just half an hour after Mrs Foster left the stage on Thursday we got our answer. The potential transfer of power back to Stormont had fallen through.

"Establishing an executive that may collapse after a matter of months on the same issues will only fail all our people," Ms O'Neill said, sounding far too rational.

What she should have done was follow the logic of a football manager - look at a player's form, make sure they pass their medical, then realise another club wants them and make a ridiculous last-minute deal that typically ends in disaster.

We want quick, badly-made deals done on the hoof and regretted later; £140 million for Ulster-Scots? Why not twice that plus extra for Scottish sword dancing lessons?

Surely anything would be better than handing back control of our health service to the Tories and their potential future leader, Victorian throwback Jacob Rees-Mogg, a man who has consistently voted against gay rights, claimed abortion laws are "a form of contraception" and is a leading supporter of Brexit?

Surely the socially conservative DUP wouldn't want any closer links with a fellow social conservative? Mrs Foster may have rejected suggestions her party would welcome the return of direct rule but the trouble is she did not sound all that convincing.

"While the new parliamentary arithmetic delivers a measure of influence it does not change our fundamental belief in Northern Ireland shaping its own destiny," she said.

So why then make an offer, which sounded conciliatory, but had actually been discussed before and rejected?

The DUP's whole position smacks of deadline-day posturing: make a daft offer then feign outrage when it is dismissed.

Perhaps the performance was just an attempt to push Sinn Féin into the position both main parties like best - late night talks.

Like a Sky News reporter running after a top player's Land Rover only to find it belongs to a random football agent, Sinn Féin and the DUP thrive on the high-octane glamour of discussions in anonymous offices, fuelled only by takeaways and self-importance.

Power-sharing talks are expected to resume today, led by the British and Irish governments.

While nothing was certain at the time of writing, at least the posturing has been got out of the way. Now the proper discussions can - hopefully - begin.