The “mood music” at the Stormont talks is better than it has been for two years, Tanaiste Simon Coveney declared on Monday. Yet at that very moment Sinn Féin and DUP representatives - including Arlene Foster - were exchanging bitter blows online over Troubles legacy and commemoration.
It seems that with legacy being carefully kept separate from the talks, participants believe they can skip hand in hand into the future while continuing to re-fight the past. They need to urgently reassess that complacency.
A lesser point, although hardly minor given the scale of the distraction, is that Northern Ireland’s politicians should step back from social media. Sinn Féin above all must recognise this. It won the internet then lost five elections, which shows the value of being applauded by your partisans inside an online bubble.
**
The first proper leak of Stormont talks documents has occurred, via the Eamonn Mallie website, where a similar leak in February last year caused the DUP to run away in a panic. This time there has been only a shrug, as the leak reveals nothing new: Sinn Féin and the DUP remain deadlocked over whether an Irish language act should be standalone or bundled with Ulster-Scots. This is entirely an argument about pride, as it makes no difference to delivery whether legislation comes in one act or two.
Pathetically, pride matters to our prickly main parties. Less understandable is why Conradh na Gaeilge has responded by doubling down on its demand for standalone legislation. If a combined act gets the job done, what does it matter?
**
One early result of the RHI fiasco is that a scheme developed to assist Northern Ireland’s poultry industry has put it in serious jeopardy. Payments have had to be slashed to recoup previous over-generosity but the equivalent scheme in Britain continues to operate, meaning the industry there is now being subsidised to undercut Northern Ireland.
The Ulster Farmers Union says its members have been put at an “immediate competitive disadvantage” and Moy Park, which send 80 per cent of its products to Britain, has told a Westminster inquiry it cannot be “reasonably expected” to cover the losses.
The verdict of the RHI inquiry on Moy Park should make for interesting reading.
**
Boris Johnson looks increasingly certain to be the next prime minister, which is focusing attention on how he will deal with the DUP and vice versa. But how will he get on with Sinn Féin? Perhaps relations will not be as frosty as feared. In a 2011 interview with the Daily Telegraph, Martin McGuinness said warmly of Johnson: “He’s quite a character and he’s struggling to come to terms with what he really believes about Ireland.”
The struggle continues, as they say in Sinn Féin.
**
The Irish government has announced a referendum in October to extend presidential voting rights to non-resident citizens, including those in Northern Ireland. The prospect of this producing a Sinn Féin president, while much discussed, is one of the least likely and least interesting consequences. Even Martin McGuinness, who came third in an unusually crowded and competitive field in 2011, would still have come nowhere close to victory if every Sinn Féin and SDLP voter in Northern Ireland had been able to vote for him. For a future ‘northern candidate’ to break through, they would need to demonstrate both cross-border and cross-community credentials.
It is not at all fanciful to suggest this looks like a job for Alliance.
**
There is something delicious about the SNP flexing its international muscles by declaring war on Ireland, although it is a cod war in both senses of the term. The new dispute over Rockall is a non-argument in territorial terms, as Ireland has never claimed sovereignty over the uninhabitable islet, while the UK only claims it as within its already-recognised exclusive economic zone, rather than forming an extension of that zone.
However, the row still inflames nationalist passions, even at staid old RTE, which has reported Rockall lies “230 nautical miles northwest of Donegal and 240 miles west of Scotland”.
While that distance to Donegal is correct, 240 miles is the distance to the Scottish mainland. The distance to Scotland, as measured from its most westerly island at St Kilda, is 160 nautical miles. Cheeky.
newton@irishnews.com
