Northern Ireland is in crisis – one anyone familiar with politics here will find eerily familiar. The same faces that dominated news bulletins in the 1980s and 1990s are still in place, albeit slightly more wrinkled and weary.
But one striking difference is the response, or lack thereof, from David Cameron. Northern Irish politicians are used to British Prime Ministers immediately flying into Belfast for crisis talks, to stage joint press conferences side by side and attend photo calls with furrowed brows and concerned looks. Yet Cameron has so far dodged any particular involvement in the talks and bluntly refused to concede to the DUP’s demands to suspend Stormont. Instead of attending talks in person, he has been delegating to Conservative MP and Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers who has been attending talks on his behalf.
DUP leader Peter Robinson last week issued an ultimatum to the Prime Minister demanding that he suspend Stormont from London. In a statement issued on Wednesday, he announced that Cameron had 24 hours to do so, or his party would take unspecified action against him. In an unusual step for relations between Westminster and Stormont, Cameron called Robinson’s bluff. Refusing to rise to the First Minister’s theatrics, he not only declined to suspend the parliament and instead sent the Northern Irish Secretary to Belfast to announce his decision.
The following day, newspapers and news bulletins around the world carried news of Peter Robinson’s withdrawal from Stormont. Rather than rushing to Northern Ireland as Prime Ministers have previously, Cameron was photographed at a cricket match in Yorkshire.
Cameron’s approach would suggest that Westminster has grown weary of Northern Ireland’s squabbles and is hoping that by remaining indifferent in London, local politicians will be forced to work things out themselves. However, whilst many saw David Cameron’s casual presence at the Yorkshire cricket match as the sign of a statesman showing he would not be moved by petty squabbles or blackmailed by the DUP’s threats, it risked presenting him in a light of arrogant indifference as Northern Ireland faced its biggest threat to peace in a decade.
In response to Cameron’s refusal to suspend Stormont last week, an indignant Robinson withdrew as First Minister, taking all but one of his DUP ministers with him. As the UUP had withdrawn its sole minister the previous week, this means that only Sinn Fein, the moderate nationalist party SDLP and the cross-community/ mixed-religion Alliance party have government ministers in the Stormont executive, joined by one token DUP minister who Robinson has left as a ‘watchdog’. The parliament cannot pass legislation in a number of key areas, including health, business and social affairs. Thus, whilst Northern Ireland officially has a government, it is only as a technicality, rather than as a functioning legislative body.
The DUP’s approach would appear to be trying to cause so much chaos at Stormont that Cameron is simply forced to intervene and suspend it. However, he is refusing to concede so far.
The Prime Minister’s current attitude is a gamble which could go either way. If he succeeds in insisting that Northern Ireland sorts out its own problems, he will help the peace process mature and reach a stage of self reliance.
‘During the Scottish independence referendum, polls suggested that the Prime Minister was perceived by the public as being the least impressive politician during the campaign. Many proponents of the Yes campaign argued that Cameron was too caught up in the ‘Westminster bubble’ whilst being indifferent to the regions. To show that he has listened to such complaints and learnt from them, he will need to avoid being seen as neglecting Northern Ireland, whilst focusing on Westminster affairs. If not, last year’s narrow referendum vote combined with the collapse of Stormont could leave him with the undesirable legacy of being the man who presided over the unravelling of the Union.’
Siobhan Fenton is a Northern Irish journalist and academic at Cambridge University.
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