Alliance falls short on policing in North
PSNI officers hit by petrol bombs during rioting on the Springfield road in west Belfast during an Orange parade: the DUP and Sinn Fein have agreed to devolve policing to the Northern Assembly, but want to give the job to someone else
THERE is a perverse constant in Northern Ireland politics that just when things are becoming simple, some individual or group intervenes to create difficulties -- even if it means acting entirely out of character.
Just when the awkward squads on both sides had seemed to be mastering the art of negotiation and compromise, the former good guys of the Alliance Party decide that the time has come for them to make trouble.
It is ironic that the party which owes its inception, and its ethos, to the need to build bridges between unionist and nationalist camps should now appear to have committed themselves to demolishing the frail bridge that is under construction between DUP and Sinn Fein on the devolution of powers relating to policing and the administration of justice.
This is a necessary development not only to complete the process of devolution, but to remove a major cause of dissension between the two largest parties which threatened the stability of the Executive if it were not to be resolved.
For Sinn Fein, transfer of policing powers to an elected body in Northern Ireland was an essential component (transformed from pre-condition to priority) in their ability to persuade doubters in their own constituency to accept the Patten reforms as an adequate guarantee of fair and accountable policing, and to support the PSNI.
For them the key element is the transfer of function from London to Belfast, from Brit into Northern Irish hands. In that scenario, as long as the recipient was elected locally, whether or not they were Sinn Fein hands was of less importance.
DUP, and Unionists generally, were less convinced, variously predicting the lifetime of a parliament, or never in a political lifetime as the acceptable time for a transfer. Much of the reaction was tempered by the likely reaction of their supporters to the sight of a former prominently active paramilitary, or one with a criminal record, in the role of Minister of Justice.
And yet it is a necessary move -- and not only to ensure continuing grassroots support for Sinn Fein's attempts to politicise republicanism. It is the final component of the Patten proposals, and was seen by Unionists in the past to be an essential element in a functioning regional administration.
It was precisely because of the loss of law and order powers that Faulkner's government declined to continue in office, thus opening the door to direct rule.
The arrangements for transfer of these functions envisaged in the Good Friday Agreement were that the British government would accede to a request from the Assembly (approved by a majority of both communities) on a joint motion brought forward by First and Deputy First Ministers.
At St Andrews this was hardened up, and Sinn Fein believed they had secured a commitment to transfer the functions on May 5 last.
If Sinn Fein wanted it so badly, and the DUP could not agree to any Sinn Fein nominee (with Sinn Fein equally unlikely to agree to anyone from DUP), a possible way out has been staring them in the face for months -- transfer the function, but give the job to someone from another party.
And this, in the last couple of days, in what is a highly significant move for both parties, is what they have agreed to do. They have agreed to the transfer of functions (but not yet to a date) to a new department headed by a single minister, appointed on the basis of cross-community consensus.
They further agreed that neither party would nominate one of their own members.
SO far so good. Get out the flags. Ring the bells. Resolution at last of a most difficult problem, and hope too for continued progress in the Executive on other contentious issues.
The job description seems ready-made for a member of a cross-community party like Alliance -- elected on that basis and committed to compromise and better governance.
But, surprise, surprise -- they say they don't want the job, on the grounds, the leader says, that it is not their job as an opposition party to help the Executive parties resolve their differences.
It is Oliver Twist at the workhouse table demanding not more, but less. It also misinterprets the role of small parties (even parties which do not get enough votes to command a seat at the top table) in the system of constitutional government they have bought into.
In this dispensation the concept of opposition in the parliamentary sense is irrelevant. What Alliance and all the others were elected for was to make the system work, which is the current political imperative.
Many will remember that in the post-Sunningdale Executive, when Alliance was a significant party led by serious politicians, they selected Law Reform as one of their two portfolios -- precisely in the hope of a future transfer of policing.
There are, of course, still other options if Alliance persist. The Ulster Unionist Party, having declared the time not yet to be right, can scarcely make a nomination.
The SDLP could, but Sinn Fein are likely to blackball anyone who had been critical of them in the past, or who might be electorally threatening in the future.
This leaves, perhaps only the single Green representative or the weakest SDLP as contenders. That would indeed be the politics of impotence.
The parties -- all the parties, and particularly Alliance -- need to do better than that.
- Maurice Hayes
