Believe nothing until it has been denied – Brian Feeney

In his 1956 autobiography, the famous left-wing journalist Claude Cockburn said that since becoming a journalist he had often heard the advice ‘to believe nothing until it has been officially denied’. Years of experience with the duplicity of the NIO has shown the advice to be sound. As a result, what can we deduce from the present imbroglio?

On November 6 Micheál Martin said talks between the DUP and British government had “more or less come to a conclusion”. Donaldson said no one in the British government had told him and you can believe that. Given the British government’s treatment of the DUP, he’d be the last person to know.

On Sunday Sinn Féin said: “The British government has confirmed to the Sinn Féin leadership that the Windsor Framework negotiation with the DUP is now over, and concluded.” The NIO issued a statement saying SF’s claim was “totally incorrect”. Bingo – a denial. So the talks are over.

There may be desultory discussions but substantive negotiations have been concluded for a long time. That’s an explanation for Peter Robinson’s recent intervention when he told Donaldson to get back into Stormont and continue fighting the case from the Executive. In other words, he’s got nowhere with his boycott.

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That was obvious to many experts from the get-go, but the British misled the DUP into believing it was possible to deliver something that was not the British government’s to give, namely an end to the Irish Sea border. It may have looked possible in summer 2022 with Liz Truss’s crazy Internal Market Bill but Sunak ditched it because it broke international law. Besides, he urgently wanted to reset the poisonous EU-UK relations of the Johnson/Truss period and did so within six months with the Windsor Framework. That was the best, indeed all, the DUP was going to get and it was endorsed by one of the biggest ever Commons majorities. Stupidly the DUP threw it back in his face.

Sunak says he is ready to legislate to guarantee the north’s position vis à vis GB trade. Sure, but he can do nothing about GB to NI trade governed by the protocol. The timetable for the operation of the protocol through the Windsor Framework is set until 2025 and it began operating last October. It will continue to tighten as grace periods end, inspection regimes are finalised, customs sheds built and Britain diverges from EU regulations. There is nothing for the DUP to negotiate except tweaks to the green channel operations because the British can’t alter the protocol’s east-west processes through the Windsor Framework. The Irish Sea border remains.

So here’s where NIO duplicity rears its head again. There are no negotiations because there’s nothing to negotiate about, but the NIO and the inept, out-of-his-depth proconsul continue to give the DUP a public get-out-of-jail-free card by pretending there are talks. This is beyond stupid.

Incredibly, the proconsul says he has the money but won’t give public service workers their rise unless the DUP go into an Executive, yet in the same breath gives the DUP a get-out by saying they’re still in talks so they can claim they don’t have to go into an Executive until the non-existent talks end. Make sense of that.

Still, with mounting anger from multiple public service unions, the DUP might be stampeded into returning to Stormont – but you can’t bank on it. Donaldson never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. This financial package is about the fourth ladder offered to him to climb down and timed so he could be covered by the holiday period.

Will Donaldson hang on for meaningless legislation to be passed which can do no more than reiterate the existing trade arrangements? Of course the NIO will deny it’s meaningless and so will Donaldson, but the NIO’s denial will be proof to everyone it’s meaningless.