Northern Ireland is all at sea and Stormont alone won’t anchor it
“It is Blevins freezing season,” according to one parody account on Twitter, or X to be factually correct.
Almost every December, journalists stand in the cold outside Parliament Buildings, Stormont, contemplating the same question: deal or no deal?
For months, we have been told that talks between the UK government and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) are nearing an end.
But a year-and-a-half after the DUP exited power-sharing over the Brexit border in the Irish Sea, there has been no breakthrough.
Northern Ireland is all at sea – without devolved government and without direct rule from Westminster – and the return of Stormont alone won’t anchor it.
The phrase “all at sea” originates from the days when sailors had no navigation equipment.
Their expeditions were largely based on assumption, and while some of the guesswork was accurate, much of it was not.
Anyone seeking to understand where Northern Ireland is on its political voyage should assume nothing.
Do not assume every Unionist is naive about the security of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland’s place within it.
Wallace Thompson was a founding member of the DUP and close ally of the firebrand Unionist, the Rev Ian Paisley.
Speaking last week in Dublin, he said: “There is an emotional attachment to Britain and the Union Jack among Unionists… but it’s an attachment to something that doesn’t exist anymore.”
Do not assume every Nationalist anticipates the reunification of Ireland anytime soon.
A poll for last week’s Irish Times found four in 10 people in Northern Ireland would be less likely to vote for a united Ireland if it hit their pocket.
Do not assume the current UK government understands this corner of the Kingdom, as evidenced by Number 10 recently posting Ireland’s flag on a social media reference to Northern Ireland.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has enough problems in his own backyard and there are no votes for him on this side of the Irish Sea.
Do not assume the Irish government is an honest broker either when it comes to the next-door neighbour.
With Sinn Fein riding high in the polls ahead of next year’s election, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will present himself as greener than Mary Lou McDonald.
And do not assume that the restoration of power-sharing would be some kind of panacea.
Mandatory coalition – the system of government devised to underpin the fragile peace – is the very thing that has undermined it.
By making power-sharing dependent on the largest Unionist party and largest Nationalist party, it effectively gives them each a veto.
The most recent elections have shown a significant increase in the number of voters not identifying as Unionists or Nationalists.
A Commons committee is proposing to end the veto by making any two members from any two parties eligible for election as Joint First Ministers.
Brexit was a game-changer for Northern Ireland, and Boris Johnson’s broken promises cast Unionists adrift.
They find themselves defending the Union, while arguing that the Brexit border in the Irish Sea has divided the Union.
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This circle won’t be squared by a return to the status quo of stop-start politics, a point made often by journalist and author Brian Rowan.
The Good Friday Agreement has carried Northern Ireland through the choppy waters from its troubled past to a hopeful future.
But Brexit and its consequences appear to have holed the vessel beneath the water line, and Stormont now needs a very different kind of boat.