31st Aug 2008
Will the SDLP leave the Executive?
The Alliance Party is engaged in talks with the DUP and Sinn Fein about the devolution of policing and justice. Many believe this engagement has the single objective of convincing Alliance to take on this Ministerial role upon devolution.
Over the weekend I detected deep anger amongst SDLP supporters about all of this. It relates to the perception that the DUP and Sinn Fein seem determined to find a solution which prevents an SDLP MLA assuming the reigns in the new Department even though, under the D’hondt system, it is their turn.
At the beginning of the summer the DUP and SF said they had agreed that neither party would take Justice. They never said this applied to the SDLP or the UUP, who also qualify for seats on the Executive. Why then this desperate attempt to get a party which does not qualify to hold the new department (because it does not have a big enough vote) ahead of the Party which does?
All this puts the SDLP leadership and the two governments in a very difficult position. D’hondt is central to the power sharing institutions in the North. It allows power to be shared in a way which respects and recognises party mandates. It prevents bigger parties from behaving as if they were a majority government.
As one senior commentator put it to me on Saturday, if the governments agree to a solution which gives Alliance control of policing and justice, they will be undermining not just the Good Friday Agreement but also giving the two fingers to the 105,000 people who voted for the SDLP.
Powersharing, he said, would be in big trouble.
It is nearly impossible to see how such an outcome could lead to anything but the SDLP’s withdrawal from the Executive.
Afraid you and I aren’t going to agree on this one, Conall. Collective responsibility means something to me, and this particular involuntary Executive has proven beyond doubt that it cannot get anything done.
Regarding Alliance and policing & justice, I wouldn’t necessarily argue that Alliance should take this post within the Executive, but as an extra-Ministerial position. This could square the circle for all parties concerned: Alliance wouldn’t be part of the involuntary Executive, which then wouldn’t affect the status quo of the existing Executive. (However, the Policing & Justice ministry itself would have to have safeguards, so that its minister could actually do the job.)
I don’t see the logic of any party in the involuntary Executive voluntarily leaving it. Kind of defeats the purpose of d’Hondt. If you can voluntarily leave, why not start with a voluntary coalition in the first place?
[...] Across town the Alliance has been meeting in Annual Conference. The party has offered itself up as the compromise candidate to get SF and the DUP off the hook of appointing an SDLP Justice Minister even though it is Durkan’s pick under D’Hondt. I think this is an unwise and potentially ruinous course of action for David Ford’s party. Such an outcome would also place the SDLP in a very difficult position. [...]