DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson leaving roundtable talks at Stormont earlier this month with party colleagues Gavin Robinson and Gordon Lyons. Picture by Jonathan Porter, Press Eye
Earlier this year I was discussing the possibility of the return of Stormont with a prominent member of the DUP.
He told me that “history shows that unionists always make the right decision.”
“However,” he added, “it’s usually at least a year too late!”
Any excitement that Sir Jeffrey Donaldson would signal the return of the Executive before Christmas proved premature, to the surprise of nobody and the frustration of many struggling families.
But there does appear to be a consensus that there’s a momentum shift, that after all the dragging of heels throughout 2023, Stormont will be up and running sometime early in 2024.
We’ll see.
Will it be too late, though, or has the moment passed for confidence to be restored in the possibility of devolved government ever working in Northern Ireland?
There are many who see a dysfunctional political system and suggest that Stormont hasn’t properly delivered better lives for the vast majority of people in the last 25 years, never mind recent times of heightened public service problems.
The focus over the last week has been on the short-term and, in particular, why the DUP is still prevaricating. Negotiations over changes to the Windsor Framework finished days ago and further meetings in the new year are unlikely to bring any significant concessions.
If the party is hoping to wring more money from Westminster, it seems that the revised £3.3 billion offered earlier this week will be as good as it gets.
Opposition from the TUV, Loyalist Communities Council (LCC), Orange Order leadership et al. won’t be assuaged over the holiday; indeed, it’s likely to intensify.
As, of course, will the criticism from nationalism and civic society that the DUP is effectively hampering the development of proper plans to deal with our socio-economic ills.
So, why wait?
If the Executive is restored early in 2024, the wider question is “what then?”
Will Stormont deliver? Will there be a realignment of unionism?
The system of power-sharing will need reform but doing that without unpicking the Good Friday Agreement principle of creating institutions that unionists, nationalists – and now ‘other’ can buy into won’t be easy.
Denzil McDaniel
The dilemma for the DUP is squaring the circle of how to get back into Stormont to benefit Northern Ireland while taking account of their reservations.
The gamble is that if Stormont doesn’t work, the drift of pro-Union people towards Alliance or failing to vote at all will be more unsettled by the notion that Northern Ireland is irretrievably broken.
There is a new generation now which doesn’t regard identity as important as it once was. Who would have thought that loyalist Davy Adams would agree to address an Ireland’s Future event on the basis that constitutional arrangements come secondary to creating a better society for all our people?
There is a wing of unionism that is pragmatic, that sees the need to make Northern Ireland work and the necessity to compromise in the changing circumstances of the 21st century. A wing that wants unionism to be visionary and confident in its own skin.
But, as always, unionism has a reactionary wing. During the first few minutes of his interview on the BBC, Jim Allister used the word betrayal and used it again before the interview was over. And the TUV poster outside Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s office wasn’t the only time “sell out” appeared this week.
The language of fear from those who have never countenanced a shared society hasn't changed and won’t change.
Let’s not forget, either, that Mr Donaldson faces internal opposition. There are at least three DUPs, the Donaldson wing, the old Paisleyite wing and the Westminster power base - with all three overlapping.
His critics will say he’s bottled it, but the challenge for Sir Jeffrey, against all that opposition within unionism, is to take the DUP back into Stormont on the basis of building a society across the bridge of divide which would benefit both sides.
That must include accepting a Sinn Féin First Minister, with many nationalists suspecting that’s a major factor in the current impasse.
If Sir Jeffrey jumps in 2024, how much of unionism can he bring with him?
Denzil McDaniel is a former editor of The Impartial Reporter @DenzilMcDaniel