ANALYSIS:OVER MONDAY night and yesterday, the DUP and Sinn Féin began talking to each other. Nigel Dodds was centrally involved in these negotiations. His engagement is very significant, according to the DUP, Sinn Féin and the British and Irish governments. There's some hope again, but let's not get carried away, writes GERRY MORIARTY
After the drama of the past week and the real danger of political implosion, there was a sense of realpolitik and self-preservation kicking in yesterday. DUP Assembly members seemed cognisant of the argument that there is no point being an Assembly member if the Assembly is about to sail down the Swanee.
The focus switched yesterday from the personal affairs of Peter and Iris Robinson and whether Robinson will ever return as First Minister to the pressing need to maintain the political foundations of Stormont. As one senior DUP source said “the penny seems to be dropping that this place is in serious trouble” and the survival of DUP Assembly members and of some of its MPs may hinge on the survival of powersharing politics.
There is a move on that has the imprimatur of the “temporarily” absent Peter Robinson to write a blueprint to deal with policing and justice, parading and some other issues. He wasn’t centrally engaged in politics yesterday because of commitments to Iris, but is keeping a watching brief and is expected to be more engaged later in the week.
On Monday, after announcing that he was standing down as First Minister for up to six weeks, Robinson said that as well as looking after his wife and seeking to clear his name, he would use that period to try to cement an agreement on devolving policing powers with Sinn Féin.
There is a huge caveat to be entered here. Over recent months Robinson has stated at a number of important moments that he was up for settling the vexing policing issue. But almost by the following day on each occasion he had retreated from his position to squabbling viciously with Sinn Féin, or finding more reasons why the transfer of policing powers could not yet take place
It was words but no actions. He was either shackled by the personal problems in his own life or by the fact that party hardliners such as Gregory Campbell, Maurice Morrow and even deputy leader Nigel Dodds weren’t for budging on policing and justice to facilitate Sinn Féin, regardless of the consequences.
The British and Irish governments are conscious of all this, which is why, while they saw hope in Robinson’s pronouncements on Monday, they weren’t getting carried away. They’d been here before and so had Sinn Féin.
And yet, and yet . . . you could divine that behind the scenes there was movement. Yesterday was different. There was a discernible change of mood. The DUP’s Sammy Wilson and Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams gave interviews one after the other in the great hall of Parliament Buildings, Stormont, yesterday evening.
They told us nothing of any detail, but they were in cheerful form. We mentioned the apparent lifting of the dark clouds. They didn’t demur. We asked questions that would have allowed Sammy and Gerry to put a spanner or two in the spokes. They didn’t. There was “positive engagement” between the DUP and Sinn Féin, said Wilson who along with Nigel Dodds and acting First Minister Arlene Foster constitutes the DUP negotiating team.
Robinson was standing down for six weeks as First Minister. Had we six weeks to reach agreement? But Gerry Adams didn’t respond because to do so would be setting deadlines, and annoying the DUP. “Least said, soonest mended,” said Adams. Quite wise.
There is no doubt that there isn’t six weeks available to strike a deal on policing and justice. We are talking “days and certainly not weeks”, Sinn Féin sources say, but there might be a week in it. Adams would not spell out what would happen if agreement wasn’t quickly reached, but privately Sinn Féin has indicated it will walk away from the Executive and Assembly, which should trigger premature Assembly elections.
Sinn Féin appears to have won the propaganda battle with the nationalist base that the fault in all of this lies with the DUP. Many unionists will disapprove of Sinn Féin putting a gun to the DUP’s head over policing, but there are so many other problems afflicting the party, who would want to be a DUP candidate canvassing the wintry roads?
The Traditional Unionist Voice and the Ulster Unionist Party would almost certainly make substantial gains at the expense of the DUP, and Assembly elections could leave Sinn Féin as the largest party in line for the First Minister post. Again, almost certainly in such circumstances, unionists would not enter a new Stormont regime with Sinn Féin. So, a mess. And this is where a cold realisation may have dawned on the DUP that their best option is to get the deal done and move on.
But how can you get a deal done when DUP hard men such as Gregory Campbell MP and party chairman Lord Morrow keep stepping in at sensitive negotiating times to get a rise out of Sinn Féin by effectively warning that it could be years before there is devolution of policing powers?
Well, that’s down to Nigel Dodds. He is seen as in the camp of the hardliners. But now that he is involved in the negotiations – again with all the usual caveats – he appears to have shifted position and sees the logic for the DUP of finding agreement.
The DUP, just like Sinn Féin through the history of this process, is anxious to maintain party unity. Nigel can be the bonding force between the two wings of the party. “If we get Nigel behind a deal then Gregory and Maurice Morrow could row in behind it,” said a senior DUP source. He could also persuade some of the sceptical party members to come on board.
There could be self-interest too here for Nigel. If a deal is done a very vexed issue will be out of the way if he is to take over from Peter Robinson – and that very well could be the scenario if the DUP performs poorly in the Westminster elections expected in May. That, of course, is if Dodds is interested in the first minister post. There is still a possibility that Robinson’s successor could be Arlene Foster.
Tomorrow and Friday are the days for the big negotiations and maybe a few days thereafter, we understand. Everybody knows what has to be done and as so often in these cases it’s down to leadership and will. “But Nigel is key,” stressed a DUP insider who wants it done.
- Gerry Moriarty is Northern Editor