In 2013, when the three smaller parties in the executive complained they were being ignored, Sinn Féin minister John O’Dowd said “so what?”
This particularly upset Mike Nesbitt, then UUP leader, a position he has just resumed.
‘So what?’ is the stance the other three executive parties are now taking as the UUP opposes the budget.
In the assembly on Monday, the UUP voted against the final reading of the budget bill. The party’s finance spokesman, Steve Aiken, said funding is “insufficient” to meet “critical requirements” at health, the only department the UUP controls and where Nesbitt is minister.
This has been “consistent with our approach so far”, Aiken noted. His party has been objecting to the budget since Sinn Féin’s finance minister, Caoimhe Archibald, produced the first draft in April.
That could have been dismissed as electioneering ahead of July’s Westminster contest – the UUP had pulled its health minister at the time, Robin Swann, out of the executive to run in South Antrim.
With the election over, the stark fact emerges that the executive contains a party that has voted against its own budget, an absurdity that would be unsustainable in almost any other democratic system.
Under Stormont’s mandatory coalition system, everyone else appears to believe they must and can indulge the UUP’s grandstanding.
But while one minor party cannot veto executive business or collapse devolution, that does not make the UUP’s behaviour harmless. It took charge of health claiming it was the only party prepared to take the difficult decisions required to implement reforms and save the service.
Although most reform would involve some up-front investment, the UUP’s complaint about not being given enough money creates a general excuse to finger-point and do nothing.
Archibald has already put health at the front of the queue for the considerable amount of unspent funds Stormont reallocates two or three times a year. Because health consumes half the executive’s budget, any additional funding on a meaningful scale would involve deep cuts to other departments, or serious revenue-raising measures, or both.
These are all valid policies: households here are under-taxed by UK standards and there is excessive inefficiency across the public sector. There are tentative signs the executive is inching towards some difficult financial choices but that prospect is greatly undermined if one party breaks ranks and spooks the others.
Although the UUP has indicated it might support some cuts and tax rises it is hardly championing them, let alone claiming it cannot support the budget because it lacks them. The stance the party is most likely to take will be pointless, populist moaning.
If the UUP cannot fully commit to the executive, it should join the SDLP in opposition, an option it retains until February 2026, two years after the executive was formed. It can still enter unofficial opposition afterwards.
Nesbitt forced the creation of opposition at Stormont by leading his party out of the executive in 2015 but history shows no sign of repeating itself.
Quite the reverse: at the launch of the UUP’s general election manifesto in June, then leader Doug Beattie warned of a plot by other parties to expel the UUP from the executive once voting was over. He vowed his party would “resist” and stay in office to prevent “catastrophic cuts”.
A party can be expelled by a cross-community motion in the assembly, which the other three executive parties currently have the numbers to pass. There is presumably no chance of the DUP backing such a motion, just as Sinn Féin would never have aligned with unionists to expel the SDLP.
What is intriguing and ominous about the scenario is simply that the UUP suggested it, apparently setting itself up as a martyred tribune of the people. It is clearly not preparing for the challenges of collective government.
Acting as an opposition within the executive was a role the DUP played during Stormont’s first mandate between 1999 and 2002. The UUP might recall it found this incredibly two-faced and irresponsible.
Perhaps the UUP is also recalling the tactic helped the DUP replace it as largest unionist party. Could it be cynical and daft enough to hope it might pull off the same trick?
All the UUP is likely to achieve is further neglect of health reform and a weakening of the executive. It may well be laying the groundwork for yet another Stormont crisis.