Unblock Northern Ireland’s power-sharing assembly

The 25th anniversary of the Good Friday (or Belfast) agreement is being celebrated this week with high-profile visits to Northern Ireland by the American president and the British and Irish prime ministers. On almost any measure, the agreement has been a huge success. By bringing peace to Northern Ireland after the three decades of Semtex and kneecapping known as the Troubles, it has saved many lives and brought stability to a turbulent region. Other places afflicted by long-standing sectarian divides now avidly study the peace process that helped bring this about.

Yet in one respect the agreement has worked less well: in the power-sharing executive at Stormont. Because of boycotts by one or other of the two biggest parties, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the nationalist Sinn Féin, the executive has been suspended for more than a third of the time since 1998—and for nearly 60% of the past five years.

Today’s boycott by the DUP began in February 2022, in protest at Boris Johnson’s decision, as part of his Brexit deal, to accept a customs border in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. The party is continuing its boycott as it refuses to endorse the Windsor framework recently secured by Rishi Sunak, the current prime minister, which minimises the checks and paperwork needed at the Irish Sea border.

The DUP is right to argue that it was let down by Mr Johnson, who had repeatedly promised not to place a border in the Irish Sea. Yet it is still wrong to continue boycotting Stormont. Doing so is not going to secure any meaningful changes to the Windsor framework, which has now been ratified by both the UK and the European Union. And the missing power-sharing executive is causing real damage to the province’s government, as civil servants must perforce put off politically contentious decisions. From health care to education to the economy, none of this is good for the people of Northern Ireland.

The repeated failure to make power-sharing work is also not good for the union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Although the DUP does not admit this, one motive for its boycott is a visceral dislike of the fact that a reconstituted Stormont would for the first time be headed by a leader from Sinn Féin, which now has the most seats in the assembly. Yet if only for demographic reasons Sinn Féin is often likely to be the largest party in future elections. Unionists who want to see devolved government function better in Northern Ireland should learn to accept this fact rather than take it out on the people they represent.

The DUP’s boycott is also exposing structural faults in the way power-sharing is set up. It currently requires a first minister and deputy first minister to represent the biggest unionist and the biggest nationalist party. But that curtails the increasing role of centrists, especially the non-sectarian Alliance party, which now holds almost 20% of the assembly seats. The growth of parties like the Alliance is encouraging, as it suggests that Northern Irish voters are gradually escaping the religious divides that have fuelled bitter and pointless conflict in the past. But to accommodate them means that the power-sharing rules at some point need to be updated.

For all these reasons, the DUP leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, should now look for a way for his party to back down from its Stormont boycott—and not only for the benefit of the people of Northern Ireland, but also for the self-interested reason that a permanent DUP boycott may end up bringing a revision of the power-sharing rules closer. Sir Jeffrey may prefer to wait until after next month’s local elections, to avoid losing votes to parties further to the right than his own. And it is always difficult for unionist parties to make political concessions during Northern Ireland’s summer season of marches (some of which commemorate centuries-old Protestant victories). But once these are over, Sir Jeffrey must move. If he does not, he may find that the many Northern Irish voters who want devolution to actually work will start to desert him. ■