Denzil McDaniel: If Stormont does collapse, what happens next?

In large part this is due to disillusion over politics with people asking if the Assembly actually makes our lives better. But there are other factors, for example elements of Unionism feel the Good Friday Agreement did nothing for them.

This week again, we’re hearing talk that the option of collapsing Stormont was discussed at a meeting between the DUP and the Loyalist Communities Council to discuss the Northern Ireland protocol; whatever the denials, it’s clear from many commentators that the Assembly is hanging on a shakey peg.

The question is, though, if Stormont goes, what happens next?

I’m old enough to remember the first time Stormont was put into mothballs, back in 1972 and it was to be 26 years before it functioned again; a whole generation really.

Circumstances were very different back in 1972. Stormont was a parliament then, having functioned for more than 50 years with an inbuilt Unionist majority after being set up by partition in 1921.

But by the 1960s, the minority Catholic community’s disenchantment about their treatment had grown substantially and were campaigning for civil rights.

The divisions over half a century saw street violence which then exploded into bloody violence which the Unioinist Government of the day under Brian Faulkner struggled to cope with.

Hence, they resigned when the Westminster Conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath took away their powers over law and order. Various initiatives to solve the problem, including an early attempt at power-sharing floundered and we were plunged into a quarter of a century of the most awful conflict which left thousands dead and injured.

The price of failure should never be forgotten. There are all sorts of lessons to be learned from history, albeit circumstances have moved on.

What happened next in that period on the political front saw Northern Ireland directly ruled by Westminster.

Apart from our MPs, the only elected representatives were local Councillors, by now stripped of responsibility they’d previously enjoyed for housing, education and planning. These were taken over by the Housing Executive, Education Boards and Department planners.

This meant Departments at Stormont were headed up by British Ministers, who often returned to the home constituencies regularly.

I remember some of the strange ways they consulted with local opinion.

As a local journalist, I recall being invited to private dinners in either Stormont House or the grandeur of Hillsborough Castle; I’d travel up in the evening and over a meal, a small group of us would mull over local issues with luminaries such as Tom King, Secretary of State, Peter Brooke, one of his successors and Brian Mawhinney.

I enjoyed cricket fan King’s stories about opening the batting at Lord’s, and the journalists tried to analyse things as best we could, but this was hardly the great accountable democratic process.

Occasionally, Ministers would deign to visit Enniskillen Townhall to meet members of Fermanagh District Council; I particularly recall during a coffee break in the Civic Suite, Councillor Cecil Noble, giving Tom King a good tongue-lashing about lack of investment in our roads after several serious accidents on the Maguiresbridge to Lisnaskea road.

Aside from the fact that I can’t imagine reporters in today’s controlled environment being allowed to earwig such conversations, how many Councillors now would have such access to a Cabinet Minister about a local issue?

To be honest, though, the real power brokers throughout that period were the anonymous civil servants.

As uncomfortable as I am about those unaccountable people wielding such power, it was the lesser of two evils when I consider the stake the visiting Ministers had in our community.

Back in 1970, the then Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling visited Northern Ireland and getting back on to the plane to return home was heard to say loudly: “For God’s sake, bring me a large Scotch. What a bloody awful country.”

Successive Ministers may not have been quite as openly blunt, but I often got the impression they were just reluctantly fulfilling an obligation.

Not all of them, of course. Some took their roles seriously and tried very hard to govern well.

I remember Lord Melchett, a Labour peer who sadly died a couple of years ago, was a decent man. Yes, there actually was a real life Lord Melchett, in addition to the blustering character in Blackadder played by Stephen Fry.

As bad as some of these Ministers were, they were absolute geniuses compared to recent Secretaries of State, Karen Bradley and Brandon Lewis.

I take this little trip down memory lane as a reminder of how unsatisfactory direct rule was.

The Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which we should remember was approved by a massive majority of 71 per cent in Northern Ireland, was a superb solution.

It not only provided a space for peace, it focused on a better north-south and east-west relationship as well as guaranteeing people’s identity.

And crucially the deal involved both sides of the community in decision-making about a range of everyday matters; probably the first time that happened since partition.

The problem, however, is that over the 23 years since the Agreement we’ve missed an opportunity to show that politicians really can share power and do it efficiently.

Again, I should say that there are fine people in the Assembly, but the system isn’t working.

In the wake of the RHI shambles, Stormont stopped functioning for three years. What other Assembly would get away with that? And when they did get back, the handling of the Covid pandemic has highlighted many of their shortcomings.

And now we still see them getting bogged down over flags, emblems and the Irish Language.

In particular, the DUP seems to be in internal trouble, reminiscent of the problems that saw the demise of the riven Ulster Unionists in the past. I’m reminded of Lord Melchett, (the Blackadder one) who would say: “If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.”

Times and circumstances have changed since the collapse of Stormont in 1972, when Unionists had a majority.

The demographics have changed dramatically; as Gregory Campbell admitted in the Claire Byrne RTE programme the other night, they are in a minority, with two other minorities, Nationalists and the middle group. Indeed, the concern must be for Unionist politicians that many in civic Unionism will simply stay at home in forthcoming elections. Young people want a more progressive society.

So, if Stormont doesn’t survive, old-style Direct Rule isn’t even an option; not that Unionists should take comfort if it was, considering this English Nationalist Westminster Government has already shafted them. Imagine Boris, Gove et al running this place directly.

So, if there was no Stormont and no rule from Westminster, what other solution is there?

Perhaps, as the shared island debate gathers momentum, the penny may drop. Unionists may see that many in their community are crying out for imaginative, courageous and confident leadership which will embrace change and make an accommodation to take their people into a new era in which they play their part in shaping a shared future, whatever that may be.