Would a Windsorsceptic return to Stormont really be unbearable for the DUP? – Newton Emerson

What has been most pathetic about Jeffrey Donaldson’s dithering over a Stormont deal is how little unionist dissent he is likely to face.

Sammy Wilson and Nigel Dodds are the only DUP big hitters who might become outspoken critics of the leadership. While that would be embarrassing, no party should find two errant members unmanageable – and Wilson is thumbing his nose at the leadership anyway.

The TUV’s threat to run candidates against the DUP in a general election is clever targeting, but the TUV lost its momentum in the last assembly election. Loyalism has recently received some stern peace processing and Jamie Bryson only has the power Donaldson gives him.

The Windsor Framework remains a bitter pill for unionism to swallow. Perhaps Donaldson’s ultimate mistake has been pretending he can sugar-coat it, setting himself the impossible task of creating a sea border unionists can love.

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He could instead say the framework is terrible but the Stormont boycott has achieved all it can, Labour will achieve more and many of the sea border’s complexities are so absurd they will unravel regardless.

Would a Windsorsceptic return to work really be unbearable?

What has been most pathetic about Jeffrey Donaldson’s dithering over a Stormont deal is how little unionist dissent he is likely to face

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Whatever happens with devolution, patience with indirect rule appears to have finally run out at the Northern Ireland civil service.

Jayne Brady, Stormont’s top mandarin, has written to Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris urging him to make pay awards and set budgets to address the “deteriorating and frankly untenable position we are now in”.

She reminded him: “You have publicly stated that the UK Government cannot and will not stand by and allow public services and finances to decline further.”

This letter then leaked, which the NIO has described as “disappointing”.

Separately, former senior civil servant Andrew McCormick has written an article in the Belfast Telegraph denouncing indirect rule as “an affront to democracy and an unprecedented departure from constitutional principles”.

He adds it breaches the European Convention on Human Rights and hence the Windsor Framework. What an entertaining legal challenge that would be.

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Stormont’s crunch moment provoked another round of debate on Dublin’s role in any Plan B.

Sinn Féin stopped referring to ‘joint authority’ over a year ago and is now using the term ‘joint stewardship’, which the British and Irish governments threatened the DUP with at St Andrews. However, the full phrase both governments used was “joint stewardship of the process”, not joint stewardship of Northern Ireland.

There can be no joint rule of Northern Ireland under the Good Friday Agreement, as Alliance’s Stephen Farry pointed out after UUP leader Doug Beattie warned otherwise. Andrew McCormick offered some useful clarity in his article. Although the Agreement excludes Dublin from any say on devolved issues, “that does not exclude the possibility of the UK Government consulting the Irish government on any issue, as long it retains sole responsibility for any and all decisions taken”.

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Responding to DUP questions in the Commons, Chris Heaton-Harris said the government would not countenance direct rule or joint authority. Responding shortly afterwards to Wednesday’s failed assembly recall, he issued a statement saying: “In the absence of power-sharing, the government will proceed with a pragmatic and reasonable approach to support Northern Ireland.”

So the alternative to devolution is Pragmatic And Reasonable Rule – PARRsharing.

The recall squandered its opportunity for a united front against the DUP, as nationalists and unionists put up separate candidates for speaker then refused to give each other even token support. The same has happened during all previous recalls.

Parties might say it makes little difference when no appointment can be made without the DUP. However, a positive signal would have been sent had everyone else agreed a joint ticket of speaker and deputy speaker – as Sinn Féin and the DUP manage to do when Stormont is functioning.

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If trade unions are about to become more prominent in our politics, the media should explain that public sector union Nipsa is really two political organisations eternally at each other’s throats. Nipsa Unity comprises members of the Communist Party of Ireland, Sinn Féin and others, while Nipsa Broad Left comprises members of the Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, People Before Profit and others.

This clears up the mystery at the start of this week when deputy general secretary Patrick Mulholland called for “civil disobedience and resistance” during Thursday’s strike, including blocking roads and occupying buildings.

Mulholland is Broad Left, which is why his call lacked support from the rest of Nipsa, let alone from other unions, who were clearly horrified.

The real mystery is why reporting treats the Nipsa split as a dark secret that cannot be mentioned. Both factions campaign openly in union elections and there can be no legal issue describing their far-left feuding, as it was all put in the public domain by a 2016 industrial tribunal.

It is hardly the worst divide in Northern Ireland.

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The Republic is struggling to recruit teachers, with 800 vacancies at primary level and two-thirds of secondaries reporting unfilled posts. School leaders and education officials are scratching their heads about the problem, as if there was not an obvious solution.

A 2019 report from Stormont’s Department for the Economy found Northern Ireland is training 140 more teachers than it needs every year and will do so for at least another decade. Teachers and educationalists are the most over-supplied of all graduates compared to local need. Many of our ‘surplus’ teachers go to Britain, where they can start work immediately. More would go to the Republic if it did not place so many professional and administrative hurdles in their way.

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Belfast City Council has approved three apartment developments but only one will have the social and affordable housing element required by council policy and permitted by law. Developers of the other two said this would render their projects uneconomic. They also noted social housing providers have “limited appetite for high-rise apartments”.

Council planners have imposed a review clause on both developers if economic conditions change, which is plainly meaningless. It would be more productive to ask why private apartments, often sold as luxury living, can still fall below social housing standards.

Other cities in the UK and Ireland have begun raising minimum standards for floor area, ceiling height, dual-aspect windows, sound-proofing, storage space and so on to make private apartments fit for long-term habitation, including family life. Stormont and council planners could do the same.