Shame on the Alliance Party. It is continuing to avoid, even run away from, the dilemmas that have broken the back of other political parties. It is presently sheltering behind those tensions that are likely to break the back of the DUP.
Alliance is speaking and behaving as though the fundamental political decisions that are facing the DUP are not relevant to it. And for as long as the DUP are politically neutered by their fear and inability to face those decisions, the Alliance Party can continue to hide. But that is not going to last for ever.
In a recent interview between Arlene Foster and Jeffrey Donaldson on GB News, Jeffrey said that our conflict was not about religion, but about which state (country) we wanted to belong to. He was referencing not just the past but also the present. And Arlene did not dispute that proposition.
Neither would Mary Lou McDonald, Colum Eastwood, probably not Doug Beattie, nor any thinking republican, nationalist or unionist living on this island. The people who now dispute the centrality of that reality is the Alliance Party.
Of course, it denies that accusation and says it is more than willing to participate in the debate about which state (country) we should belong to. But it sticks rigidly to the proposition that the future is in making Northern Ireland work as outlined in the (refined and reformed) Good Friday Agreement.
It argues that time, cooperation and reconciliation will answer all questions, including the one about which state we wish to belong to. It might have, but it didn’t. It did many good things, but through our own faults and extraneous circumstances we have been brought back to the identity issue that the Agreement was not constructed or equipped to deal with.
Identity politics
Twenty-six years is a long time in politics, the identity issue is more ingrained and divisive, Brexit has happened, economic and health problems pile up and most analysis pinpoints the constitutional issue as the determinant of political paralysis.
All that evidence would only constitute an interesting political debate, if it were not also the case that Alliance holds the electoral key to how much longer that paralysis will last. The percentage electoral vote that they now attract is sufficient to weight the scales one way or the other.
The art of politics, most especially constitutional politics, is the ability and courage to identify and define a problem and then to devise solutions. It is difficult to know if the people in Alliance are genuinely unaware of the power and authority that they hold or if they are aware but terrified of the consequences if they decide to take to themselves that authority
One way is to allow the present paralysis to continue, the other way is to help devise a construct that allows the constitutional issue to be corralled into a long term (10 years) and authentic debate about the political future of the island of Ireland.
This debate is already well embedded but if it is left only to fatigue and boredom, to demographics, to the discretion of a part-time overlord from England and ultimately to a divisive border poll, then the real loser is politics.
The art of politics, most especially constitutional politics, is the ability and courage to identify and define a problem and then to devise solutions. It is difficult to know if the people in Alliance are genuinely unaware of the power and authority that they hold or if they are aware but terrified of the consequences if they decide to take to themselves that authority.
To the bulk of people outside the party it is looking as though the party is putting its own comfort and unity before the challenge of coming off the fence and getting down and dirty in the mire of our identity politics.
The reason that the definition of ‘shameful’ is valid is because Alliance does not have to break its back, like many of the other parties, on contributing and leading on this issue. It would most probably lose some members and voters who would baulk at the party taking the lead on the constitutional debate, but it would gain others who would identify the courage of leading Northern Ireland out of the constitutional swamp.
