Putting it Right - News Letter Opinion piece by TUV Leader

19 September 2009

Article by Jim Allister QC from News Letter 17 September 2009

The DUP boasted that at St Andrews they had righted the wrongs of the Belfast Agreement and secured workable devolution.  Now, though in slow-learning mode, they are beginning to admit just how miserable a pup they bought in their rush for power. Then, not now, was when most leverage existed to compel change, be it on mandatory coalition, republican vetoes or the shameful definition of a ‘victim’, but some were more interested in lobbying for pet projects. Of course, those of us who recognised that St Andrews only made tinkering, cosmetic changes are not surprised to discover that the unworkable architecture and infrastructure of the Belfast Agreement still prevails.  

Belfast Agreement devolution will never work: because its foundation is irredeemably flawed. It is indeed, not an historic compromise, but a hopeless hotchpotch, where serial deadlock is inevitable. Right from the top down it is unworkable. TUV has long warned that the mutual vetoes bestowed in the DUP/Sinn Fein coalition guarantees paralysis. While the First Minister - not as First Minister, but as DUP leader, because he can’t say such things as First Minister without Marty’s authority – now accepts TUV is right, his remedy is as half-baked as it is unattainable. The very Sinn Fein veto he now complains of can block the modest changes he seeks. Hence, all Mr Robinson’s bluster is mere idle words, signifying nothing.

I say the DUP remedy is half-baked because whereas he urges qualified majority, he still wants to clutch Sinn Fein to his bosom in the Executive. If qualified majority has a role to play, then it is in the formation of a government, so that you can have a functioning, cogent Executive and a vibrant Opposition, each playing their part in providing good government. This is where a qualified majority could play its part, but the DUP, sadly, still wants to cling to mandatory coalition and to the dysfunctional structure of Joint First Ministers.

Mandatory coalition is the very antithesis of democracy. It denies every voter the fundamental right to vote a party out of office and even prevents the existence of an Opposition in the Assembly. Designed to guarantee IRA/Sinn Fein a place in the government of the Province they remain dedicated to destroy, it is incapable of producing good government. Hence, its abysmal record of deadlock, indolence and bedlam in subjects as vital as education. The destructive chaos brought to education will forever brand this failed DUP/Sinn Fein coalition.

In a recent leaflet (available on request 02890655011) we identify the way out of the present, unworkable impasse. The undemocratic edifices of mandatory coalition and prohibition on an Opposition must be dismantled. With no party commanding a majority, the norm of voluntary coalition is the route to shared government. The next Assembly election, we believe, will move us forward in that direction, because it is the election of a sufficient bridgehead of Traditional Unionist MLAs, pledged not to operate mandatory coalition, which will force change.

If from outside Stormont TUV is setting the agenda and forcing others to weaken on their espousal of the Belfast and St Andrews Agreements, how much more of a catalyst for change we will prove to be within the Assembly, when we right the wrong of a third of the Unionist electorate being disenfranchised. Then, I firmly believe, mandatory coalition will crumble and fall and, then, we can return to respect for the principles of democracy as the building blocks for good government. If it implodes sooner from its own inherent instability, then that is a bonus.

Meanwhile, no one in their right mind should be considering this miserable, failing Executive for more powers, least of all the sensitive and crucial issue of policing and justice. Resisting this key republican objective should unite all Unionists. Sadly, I fear for some it will be the latest price they are prepared to pay to cling to office.

NI politics