Not quite the end of history

I usually get Northern Ireland’s political big events wrong, which is galling. I’m supposed to be politically aware: I’m a member of a political party, and, although I’m not a political scientist, I do need to know something about politics here for my work. But on the evening of 25th March I was e-mailing a friend to say that I didn’t think there would be much progress the next day.

Unlike most of the rest of the world, though, I didn’t find it amazing and inspiring to see Paisley and Adams committing themselves to the restoration of the Assembly, and to governing for the benefit of all the people. It was too far outside the boundaries of what I ever expected to see, and I think it’ll take a while to sink in.

I understand Sinn Féin’s strategy – make electoral progress on either side of the border, maximising all-Ireland policies and strategies with the use of British money, until the border becomes a formality. That approach will stall due to lack of political support in the South. But I don’t understand where the DUP are going. Their contingent outside Downing Street last week was simpering away as if they had the upper hand. But the Treasury had the cash, and Peter Hain had the power to delay water rates, and perhaps the DUP just thought this was as good as it was going to get. To be sandwiched between the expert strategists in the British Government and those in Sinn Féin can’t have been a happy place to be.

Of course, the real test of the Assembly’s sustainability will come during the next few weeks. Putting together the new Programme for Government, and negotiating its funding, will involve real day-to-day political skill, not posturing and blaming the Brits. It was easy to campaign against water rates, but how will the badly needed infrastructure improvements be paid for? Who will make the difficult decisions about education, including closing some schools? Where will the new social housing be built? How will plans be made on access to health care, especially in rural areas? If you have political power then you can’t be popular all the time. And how long before the decisions start to look very familiar – here’s something for your lot, something else over here for themmuns, and to hell with a Shared Future.

Another reason why I’m still ambivalent about the possibility of a working Assembly is that I only accept the model of enforced coalition government as a short-term necessary evil. I’ll blog again on the issue of what ‘normalisation’ of politics might mean here. It won’t necessarily look like any other part of the UK, or like the Republic, but however it does evolve it is going to have to include an opposition. I’m also interested in the potential for change through the implementation of the Review of Public Administration, with its opportunities for increased democratisation and for greater involvement of parties other than the ‘big four’.

So will we get a functioning Assembly on May 8th? The emphasis on working together rather than having to like each other showed an important degree of pragmatism (and understatement). But the most promising sign was the seating arrangement at the press conference. I had assumed that the decision on the right-angled table, so that the future rulers of our part of the world wouldn’t have to look at each other, had been suggested by civil servants. But apparently the politicians worked it out for themselves. Full marks for initiative, and maybe a good start has been made after all, even if considerably more than half the work is to follow.

Sin é