OFFICIAL opposition at Stormont is not a lost cause but as with so much in Northern Ireland it now depends on Alliance.
In 2016, the only period since the Good Friday Agreement when there has been an official opposition, Alliance was too small to qualify. The qualifications are having eight per cent of assembly seats or enough seats to be entitled to an executive department.
Alliance was still able to ‘walk out’ of the executive by refusing the Department of Justice, which is allocated by a separate vote. This greatly surprised Sinn Féin and the DUP, which thought Alliance had been bluffing when it made policy demands in exchange for accepting the post. That was a flash of the steely self-belief the party has shown since.
However, in 2016 it merely consigned Alliance to the backbenches alongside the TUV and People Before Profit, without any extra funding, committee chairs or speaking rights.
Opposition was assumed to be a job for the UUP and the SDLP, ideally operating in partnership, a sort of no-power sharing. The UUP had forced the issue in 2015 by walking out, bouncing everyone else into formalising the arrangement. The new laws and assembly rules this led to envisage a cross-community mirror image of the executive, complete with the titles of leader and deputy leader.
During its seven-month existence in 2016, official opposition appeared to be having a transformative effect. The DUP and Sinn Féin decided to make a virtue of necessity, putting on a united front and boasting of their streamlined two-party executive. Both disliked scrutiny from rivals who were no longer complicit in government or attached to it as mudguards.
The DUP believes Sinn Féin disliked it so much it was a key reason republicans brought down devolution over RHI, revealing the united front to be hollow.
Yet there was little sign of the UUP and SDLP developing a united front, hollow or otherwise. There was no opposition programme for government, or even a joint programme for opposition.
When UUP leader Mike Nesbitt tested the concept with his ‘Vote Mike, Get Colum’ slogan, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood pointedly declined to reciprocate. In the 2017 election, neither opposition party made gains. Nesbitt promptly resigned and the whole episode is recalled as a failure.
Ultimately an official opposition has to present itself as a credible alternative government, even and perhaps especially while it has no prospect of topping the polls. The UUP and SDLP never did so.
By putting itself forward as lead opposition party this week, the SDLP is making a virtue of necessity. It no longer qualifies for the executive based on May’s election and barely reached the eight per cent threshold of assembly seats.
The party has asked the UUP and Alliance to join it in opposition but has had no conversations with them. This is desperately unserious: private talks are routine between opponents, let alone possible partners. With the UUP and SDLP still in decline, they look even less like an alternative government than in 2016.
That would change dramatically if Alliance joined them. Its growth would give opposition weight and momentum: Alliance has 17 assembly seats, as many as the UUP and SDLP combined. Together they would represent all three designations, 38 per cent of seats and one-third of first preference votes.
The DUP and Sinn Féin would have 58 per cent of seats and just 50 per cent of first preference votes. These are numbers where a change at the top becomes imaginable to the electorate.
However, such an opposition would not be as coherent as it might seem. The UUP and SDLP do not compete for votes; Alliance competes with both. Alliance would nominate the leader of the opposition and the UUP the deputy leader, leaving the SDLP looking marginalised. What sounds in theory like a natural centrist bloc would in practice be a bag of cats.
The most stable arrangement at Stormont is an executive of Sinn Féin, the DUP and Alliance, representing all three designations and a super-majority of seats and votes, without any party really stepping on each other’s toes.
In any case, Alliance has moved on. The proposals on Stormont reform it has put to the British and Irish governments point towards voluntary coalition and hence away from having to construct elaborate cross-community oppositions.
Holding government to account is a valid role in itself, for one party or many. But the SDLP and UUP may have missed their best chance to do anything more together.
