Churches’ plea on devolution: Go the extra mile for Stormont

This Christmas holiday offers to the leaders of the political parties in the North a valuable opportunity for calm and constructive reflection on the political landscape after the Brexit vote and this month’s general election, and crucially the contribution each of them — without exception — can make to break the deadlock that has kept the devolved administration in a twilight zone and Stormont closed since January 2017. If ever there were a message — and a plea — to be heeded after three years of the blame game, it is the one issued this week by the principal Churches south and north of the border.

In a powerful collaborative statement signed by representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland, the Methodists, Presbyterians, and the Irish Council of Churches, the politicians are asked to work “creatively and courageously” for an agreement that will see the end of a dispute that has damaged health and education services. The North has seen the first strike in the 103-year-old history of the Royal College of Nursing. It has some of the worst-performing A&E units in the UK. The Stormont shutdown, along with the understandable reluctance of British governments to re-impose direct rule, has cost jobs, too. Confidence in the future of the Good Friday Agreement has been bruised badly, if not yet completely broken.

The Churches acknowledge realistically that the policy differences that led to the breakdown of devolved government — along perhaps with some that have been added to the mix since its collapse — continue to separate the parties, but implicit in their appeal is the proposition that the best, and for the time being only, institution in which these arguments can be pressed and resolved is a fully functioning Stormont and executive.

Sinn Féin has been eager to exploit the North’s anti-Brexit vote and the loss of two DUP seats in this month’s Westminster election, even though its own overall vote share in that ballot took a slightly larger hit. Its calls for a border or unity poll sooner rather than later have little, if any, support from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, both of which are currently more concerned about their own electoral prospects when we go to the polls in either April or May — take your pick — next year. Micheál Martin wisely warns the North’s political parties to avoid confusing unity with Brexit. The former might well in the future flow from the latter, but that’s a path that can’t be surveyed until the outcome of phase two of the UK-EU exit negotiation on the future of the trading relationship is known.

For now his advice, too, should be heeded: “Before you want to talk about new institutions or new approaches, you have got to demonstrate that you can work the existing ones… and they haven’t.”

Mr Martin points to what he calls an emerging middle ground in the North — which we take to mean the relative success of the SDLP and Alliance parties — that ought to be nurtured. Let’s see, he advises, where that takes us, and for his trouble he’s been accused by Sinn Féin of abandoning nationalists in the North. He’s done no such thing. He has advised caution, with the hope that new voices in the resumed Stormont talks might conjure a much-needed change in the chemistry that for too long has been toxic.

The Churches have urged the politicians to “go that extra mile” to get Stormont back in action. Even half a mile might do the trick.