Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris has previously faced justifiable criticism for his indecision and what’s seen by many as an over-indulgence of the DUP.
There was a natural expectation that there’d be more of the same when the parties gathered on Tuesday morning at Hillsborough Castle, the venue for the past week for talks about a putting a restored executive on a sustainable financial footing.
The negotiations on the financial package have seemingly concluded. The British government has augmented its initial £2.3bn offer, adding £1bn to a pot that’s designed to settle public sector pay disputes, transform regional healthcare and stabilise public services.
A fiscal floor pegged at 124% (up from around 120%) means more money allocated to the north compared to England, while there’s also a write-off of Stormont’s £559m overspend and £15m towards settling the fallout from the PSNI data breach.
There’ll always be room for more money, some of which is just being moved around, but what’s on the table for when devolution gets up and running isn’t to be sniffed at.
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It’s understood there was a general consensus in the room that what’s on offer is a good, if not a great deal, and one that’s unlikely to be bettered.
Then came the bombshell from Mr Heaton-Harris.
It’s understood Sir Jeffrey Donaldson had no prior notice that the secretary of state was going to call time, not only on the talks around the financial package but also on the back-and-forth engagement between the British government and DUP around the latter’s concerns about the post-Brexit trade arrangements.
Like the rest of us, he feels the process has dragged on long enough.
Mr Heaton-Harris said lines of communication would remain open but from the British government’s point of view “all issues of substance” relating to the post-Windsor Framework talks “have effectively concluded”.
It sounded very much like what Sinn Féin was saying ten days ago. Echoing Sir Jeffrey’s words at the end of last week, the secretary of state said it was now decision time.
But the DUP leader was unconvinced, having apparently been caught on the hop by the secretary of state’s uncharacteristic decisiveness.
He insisted the process wasn’t over and that there was more work to be done. It looked very much like the British government had given the DUP room over the weekend to get everybody on board but that the nettle hadn’t been grasped.
Rather than a restored executive to look forward to in the new year, we now have a inconclusive process and conflicting signals.
One optimistic reading of the situation is that Sir Jeffrey is playing along with the secretary of state and that it’s all part of the sequencing that will ultimately deliver devolution in January.
Whatever’s going on, the route back to Stormont looks less straightforward than it did just a matter of days ago.