Opinion

Newton Emerson: DUP could reject a deal but still restore devolution

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.

IT is becoming increasingly implausible that the DUP will endorse a protocol deal, let alone go back to promoting it as part of a “gateway of opportunity”, to quote former leader Arlene Foster.

The reaction to every leak from talks between London and Brussels only underscores that swathes of the DUP and wider unionism will not settle for any realistic outcome. The party leadership seems incapable of facing this down.

Yet the DUP knows a long-term collapse of Stormont will be disastrous for itself and unionism and that London will impose a protocol deal if necessary.

In all the speculation on how the DUP might square this circle, the most obvious approach has been overlooked.

The party could reject a deal and still restore devolution, just as it opposed the Good Friday Agreement then ran straight into Stormont a quarter of a century ago.

The DUP’s full participation in the first power-sharing executive from 1999 to 2002 is relevant not just as a precedent but because of its familiar cast of characters.

Jeffrey Donaldson was then in the UUP, which he tore apart over decommissioning – a process Sinn Féin was happy to help along.

That left the DUP with little need to sabotage its unionist rival or continue attacking the agreement.

Peter Robinson, who today is an advisor to the DUP leadership, took up the post of regional development minister, with Nigel Dodds as social development minister. Delivering policies such as free travel for the elderly or new trains for Northern Ireland Railways became the DUP’s answer to the question of what it was doing in a system it opposed – a question people soon tired of asking, having wearily swallowed the fudge.

The DUP’s eventual explanation for opposing the Good Friday Agreement was that the party had negotiated a ‘fair deal’ replacement at St Andrews.

While it suits the DUP and some of its critics to still make this claim, it is nonsense. The DUP did not bring down the first executive or secure unionist demands for republican decommissioning, disbandment and recognition of policing. That was all achieved by pressure on Sinn Féin from London, Dublin and especially Washington.

The DUP’s main achievement at St Andrews is usually remembered as changing the rules on appointing a first minister. This has turned out to be enormously consequential and counterproductive for unionism but it was not what the DUP boasted about at the time.

It sold St Andrews as preventing Sinn Fein ministerial solo-runs, citing Martin McGuinness’s abolition of academic selection – a decision McGuinness did not sign off until the day the first executive fell, suggesting solo runs were never that straightforward. Nor were the new rules particularly effective, as Sinn Féin ministers resumed replacing selection after St Andrews.

The point for present purposes is that all this is long forgotten and seems fantastically arcane even when recalled, despite having supposedly been the DUP’s principal concern for years.

Why could a similar history not play out over the protocol?

Putting on a show of opposing a deal from within Stormont has been helped by the UK government taking back devolved powers for border control posts.

Dodds tabled a motion in the House of Lords two weeks ago to annul this move, which was conveniently doomed to fail. It is much easier for the DUP to sit in the executive when Stormont is not responsible for operating the sea border.

The assembly gets a vote by the end of next year on continuing the EU single market clauses of the protocol. The DUP could fight an election this year on securing more MLAs for that vote, alongside the more credible aim of surpassing Sinn Féin as the largest party.

Even if neither goal is reached, the campaign would move politics on and reset the clock for the next election, giving the DUP five years to get its supporters used to an executive and a protocol deal in action.

Within the next two years, a Labour government could be moving towards a closer relationship with Europe, smoothing out any remaining protocol problems.

Trying to be in opposition and government at the same time is hardly an unusual stance at Stormont. The DUP managed it over the existence of Stormont itself, then made the paradox whither away with a bit of time, luck and distraction.

If it seems too much to imagine this approach would work again, that is only because we are in the middle of the protocol drama.