Two years ago, the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) collapsed the power-sharing institutions at Stormont in protest at post-Brexit trading arrangements. At the time, I chatted to somebody with insight into unionist thinking. I remarked: “Surely they’re not that stupid?” They replied: “Yes, they [bleep] are.”
On Monday night, it seemed to come to an end. At about 1am, a bleary-eyed Jeffrey Donaldson announced that his party would be ending its boycott after examining the UK government’s latest offer to end the impasse. Donaldson said the deal would remove checks on goods moving within the UK, restore the UK’s internal market and end Northern Ireland’s automatic adherence to EU law. The details haven’t been confirmed yet.
There will be no champagne corks popped across Northern Ireland. Some people will breathe a sigh of relief but most, I expect, will get on with their lives with weary resignation. Stop-start government has been the experience of people here for years and years.
That said, the DUP boycott has ruined lives. It has made the crisis engulfing Northern Ireland’s public services worse. Waiting lists in local hospitals are the longest in the UK. The number of people in A&E waiting more than 12 hours is 36 times higher than it was in 2009. The secretary of state for Northern Ireland has overseen a painful budget that will only make these problems more severe.
And for what? To protest against a trade border running down the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, that only exists because of the hard Brexit chosen by the British government. The hard Brexit backed by the DUP. Unionist anger about the border is understandable, but there has been no contrition. No acknowledgment of mistakes.
Then, in the end, the boycott was a failure: the DUP set out to dismantle the sea border. The reality is that, while modified, the border is still there. There is no indication that the Tories have completely ditched their deal with the EU. There was no mention last night of the seven tests or criteria the DUP said it would use before accepting any offer from the government. Perhaps the party knows the deal will fall short.
With the restoration of Stormont comes a large financial package from Westminster. Some unionists are claiming this as a success, but the package wouldn’t be needed if the boycott hadn’t happened. The DUP did not collapse Stormont to get more money from the British government.
The Irish Sea border does change the nature of the relationship between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It alters the post-1998 status quo, as agreed in the Good Friday agreement. What many unionists forget is that 1998 also made Northern Ireland’s future dependent on the consent of the people.
This boycott has alienated another generation and eroded trust in local government. Northern Ireland’s young people are less likely to be unionist, identify as British and support unionist parties. They are part of a new, changing landscape that is deeply unhappy with the current state of politics. The recent crisis will only entrench that disillusionment.
The sad reality is that devolution in Northern Ireland has been a relative failure. There has only been one period of stable government, from 2007 to 2017. The assembly will collapse again unless there is reform that removes the mechanism that allows the largest parties to end power sharing.
But even reform will not fix the fact that the DUP and Sinn Féin fundamentally do not trust each other. Many nationalists and republicans suspect that, despite denials, the DUP collapsed Stormont because Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill had ascended to the position of first minister.
Most unionists don’t care that there is a nationalist first minister. Some will. A minority within unionism objects to Sinn Féin’s participation in government because of its past links to the IRA. Others are still motivated by bigotry.
Reform will not fix the fact that people in Northern Ireland are still hurting from the legacy of the Troubles. That pain runs deep into the fabric of society. The British government has legislated to remove the right of victims to seek justice for their loved ones in the courts.
Before this collapse, before Brexit, many communities did not see the gains of the peace process. The assembly has failed to tackle poverty, deprivation, the housing crisis, violence against women, and now, the collapse of the health service.
I think there is trouble ahead. The DUP made promises to its base it didn’t keep. As it met on Monday night to consider the government’s offer, a group of loyalists protested outside the meeting. They shouted at the DUP, demanding they “keep their word”, reject the deal and work to remove the sea border entirely. People have been marched up a hill and left there. They are angry and frustrated.
It speaks to the failure of the past 25 years that a section of society is happy to keep Stormont down in the face of collapsing public services. Devolution will not survive unless it works to actually deliver for the people of Northern Ireland. For unionism’s part, it will continue to fail as long as it neglects the first task of government: improving the lives of ordinary people.
Sarah Creighton is a lawyer, writer and political commentator from Northern Ireland
