In a rambling performance at an Institute of Directors event last week, Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris defended his refusal to make major policy decisions in the absence of the executive, saying this “would look remarkably like direct rule”, which had not had “great outcomes” previously.
In reality, Heaton-Harris is making major decisions in devolved areas, from passing a punishment budget to commissioning abortion services.
His reference to previous “outcomes” was equally strange. The last period of direct rule, from 2002 to 2007, ended with the St Andrews Agreement. It seems unlikely the secretary of state was condemning that deal, for all its emergent flaws.
The main policy controversy of the period, other than peace process issues, was the plan to introduce water charges. Although the plan was serious, Labour ministers also used it to pressurise the DUP and Sinn Féin back into Stormont. Heaton-Harris can hardly complain about that, as he is doing the same thing.
However, there is little point expecting consistency over ‘indirect rule’. Any old nonsense can be spouted in its defence because nobody will really call it out.
The DUP cannot object to the consequences of its own boycott. It suits other unionists and Alliance to blame the DUP rather than the government for financial threats. Nationalism, including the Irish government, has made a totem of rejecting direct rule.
All this gives the government cover to say ‘sorry, we can’t touch the controls’, while doing whatever it likes.
Devolution is expected to return in the Autumn, although Christmas would fit the pattern of previous crises. Debate might then begin on reform of power-sharing to prevent another collapse.
But nobody is talking about how indirect rule has become the default when Stormont collapses, as it may do again. No negotiation ever occurred to agree this bizarre form of governance, although it has become a hugely significant feature of our political environment. Lesser institutions have been argued over for decades.
We are forgetting that indirect rule evolved by accident, under a freakish set of circumstances. When Sinn Féin walked out of Stormont in January 2017 the government held an election that March, as quickly as the law allowed. Only then did it dither over calling a second poll on the grounds this would change nothing.
In June, a snap general election resulting in the DUP propping up the Conservatives in a two-year confidence and supply arrangement. Direct rule became extremely problematic and more dithering followed, encouraged by a near-deal at Stormont in early 2018, sunk by the DUP at the last moment.
When devolution was finally restored under New Decade, New Approach, a law was passed requiring elections after a collapse, supposedly consigning the whole weird episode to history.
Yet a DUP walk-out has brought it back, weirder than ever. Once again, the Northern Ireland Office has said a second election would change nothing. Maybe so, but that is a separate argument to having indirect rule in Stormont’s absence.
There is no issue today comparable to the confidence and supply agreement, so there is no reason why the government cannot apply all the pressure it wants on the DUP via direct rule ministers taking proper responsibility, rather than hiding behind civil servants. Punishments would be clearer and nothing else need be harmed.
Consider this month’s update of the sex education curriculum, via Westminster regulation. Heaton-Harris had to spin this as a regrettable intrusion in a devolved area to meet legal requirements. Meanwhile, the education system is falling apart because nobody is officially in charge. That is a high price to pay to give the DUP an occasional shove.
Unionists have no fundamental objection to direct rule, for obvious reasons.
The nationalist objection is another accident of evolution, at least more so than is often acknowledged.
In 2017, Sinn Féin needed to explain why its walk-out would not simply hand power to London. St Andrews had repealed the law for direct rule but Westminster could always pass another one.
So the party exhumed a letter Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern had sent the DUP in 2006, warning failure to restore Stormont would mean the rest of the Good Friday Agreement continuing to operate under “British-Irish partnership arrangements”.
Sinn Féin claimed this meant “a form of joint authority”, although the government denied this in the Commons in 2006.
The myth of joint authority was born and embraced by nationalism to an extent that has made even a short, sharp spell of direct rule needlessly contentious. That goes a long way to explaining why we are where we are.
