Another news cycle passes and further column inches are dedicated to events North of the border. Recent weeks have acted as a snapshot of the current climate. At Stormont, progress is at least superficially solid, with the First and Deputy First Ministers expressing certainty that the Hillsborough Agreement will be ratified in the Assembly this week. Such political buoyancy must, however, be set against a background of unrest. The murder of Ciaran Doherty in Derry, the explosion of a car bomb in Newry and rioting in Craigavon are all illustrative of a North that has escaped the Troubles but remains decidedly troubled.
It is no accident that as the frequency and gravity of dissident republican attacks increase, political will at the upper echelons of the Stormont Executive has enjoyed a matching resurgence. Following the trepidation of the Hillsborough talks, the agreement to devolve policing and justice powers has triggered renewed faith in the institutions. In David Ford, a broadly unifying Justice Minister has been mooted and any creases in the fabric of the Agreement should be ironed out in the coming week. UUP objections are unlikely to halt the superior voting weight of a DUP-Sinn Féin pact. Following Peter Robinson’s assertions that failure to back the Hillsborough deal would, “ill serve the people of Northern Ireland,” fears of a DUP backtrack have been firmly quashed. It is noteworthy that even Ian Paisley, rarely a retiring figure – until last Tuesday, has warned his predecessor to refrain from backing away from progress.
The certainty and optimism of the language employed by both the First and Deputy Minister when asked whether the deal was still on is reflective of an attempt to ensure that Stormont is viewed as the only path forward by people in the North. Such statements are as much motivated by a desire to detract from dissident support as to promote progress in its own right. It is well documented that political stalemate in the North has proven deadly and Messrs Robinson and Mc Guinness seem at pains to ensure that progress remains steady in order to calm a festering atmosphere. Gone are the thinly-veiled threats and political sniping of a few weeks ago, to be replaced by an air of relative calm at the pinnacle of the Northern Executive.
Such shrewd leadership is characteristic of the pairing that has formed. While never enjoying the media-friendly jocularism of Mc Guinness’ previous pairing with Peter Robinson’s predecessor, the current Office of First and Deputy First Minister is branded with an earthly sense of pragmatism and a knack for feeling the pulse of the electorate. Thus far, deals have been held off for long enough to appease hardliners but have been made swiftly enough to ensure continuing progress. Mc Guinness and Robinson at the moment seem equally adept in coupling the tasks of keeping their own camps in order while ensuring that cross-community support for the political process does not stagnate. That said, neither man has softened his ideological views. However each, through past experience, implicitly acknowledges that at critical points such as the present, partisan posturing must be forsaken in the name of genuine and unifying political leadership.
The importance of political solidity cannot be underestimated at the moment. The relative unity that seems evident is a necessity. While the current dissident threat is unlikely to quell considerably in the immediate future, Mc Guinness and Robinson are determined that it cannot be permitted to grow. The bickering, barely-functioning institutions that have been characteristic of Northern devolution have the potential, at present, to prompt a groundswell in dissident support from disaffected youths influenced by those frustrated by a lack of political advancement. The growth of apolitical ‘recreational rioting’ in West Belfast is representative of the dangerous potential that exists if granted political direction. It seems that a consensus to ensure workable government is evolving from within the Office of First and Deputy First Minister and such consensus is desparately needed to regain some of the political goodwill which was borne from the electorate in the infancy of the Good Friday Agreement.
However, while a union of tact seems evident between McGuinness and Robinson, the same cannot be said for the Assembly as a whole. The UUP have threatened to vote against the Hillsborough Agreement unless education concerns are addressed. While education indeed presents an obstacle which the Assembly has consistently failed to surmount, the decision to attach it to the chassis of the Hillsborough Agreement seems politically futile. Indeed, the decision to take the old ground of Unionism in standing firm against governmental change is an exceptionally dangerous one. It can be viewed as an attempt to garner votes from hard line unionists disaffected by DUP ‘concessions’ but it carries with it the real risk of isolating the UUP’s core moderate support. Thus, what could be viewed as a possible post-Hillsborough tripartite split in the Unionist vote between Jim Allister’s hard line TUV, the DUP and the UUP has the potential to be even more divisive. In effect, the UUP’s current stance is indicative of a party that sees an obvious political opportunity but does not have the acumen to grasp it.
Against the background of the UUP’s noisy public floundering and rising dissident activity, the recent quiet and effective work of the DUP and Sinn Féin has gone largely unnoticed. The movement towards sealing a Northern agreement for once seems secure in spite of the usual rocky backdrop. It is unlikely that this current phase will herald a new dawn of functional government – the two parties are still by no means comfortable bed partners but both seem grasped by a short-term need to secure the future of devolved rule as expedient to both their long term objectives. The leading parties know that a collapse of the institutions has the dual potential to enhance support for the growing dissident threat and to result in a severe electoral backlash. Thus, while the time will undoubtedly come again for bombastic tribal politics, at this critical stage, it seems that both Martin Mc Guinness and Peter Robinson are mindful of the conventional wisdom which dictates that great things are achieved better by whispers than bangs.
