This week we’re looking at the politics of power-sharing in Northern Ireland. What is it? Why is it not currently working? And what is its future?
Peace in Northern Ireland is widely recognised as one of the leading achievements of politics in recent decades. The Good Friday, or Belfast Agreement, reached in 1998 by the British and Irish governments and most of the main Northern Ireland political parties brought an end to thirty years of violent conflict in which over three and a half thousand people were killed.
It did so in part by establishing a system of power-sharing government. A new Northern Ireland Assembly would be elected by proportional representation, so no one group could dominate. Within the new Northern Ireland Executive, representatives of Northern Ireland’s two political traditions would have to work together.
Over the years since the Agreement was reached, the power-sharing institutions have worked well some of the time. But for others they have worked badly or not at all. Since February 2022 their functioning has once again been suspended. Public anger at this situation is intense. Negotiations for restoring the institutions are ongoing. But, as yet, there has been no breakthrough.
Indeed, the situation has become so grave that many think the future viability of power-sharing government is now in doubt. And there are suggestions that the settlement reached in 1998 may need to be revisited.
In this episode we’re joined by two experts:
Alan Whysall is an Honorary Senior Research Associate at the Constitution Unit here within the UCL Department of Political Science. He was previously a senior civil servant in the Northern Ireland Office, where he worked for many years on the Northern Ireland peace process – including the talks that led to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.
Conor Kelly is a Research Assistant at the Constitution where he has worked on multiple projects relating to Northern Ireland, most recently examining perceptions of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement among politicians and the public in Northern Ireland.
Mentioned in this episode:
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
northern ireland, government, agreement, unionists, institutions, sinn fein, political, good friday agreement, dup, ireland, british government, party, politics, situation, irish
SPEAKERS
Alan Renwick, Conor Kelly, Alan Whysall
Alan Renwick 00:06
Hello. This is UCL Uncovering Politics. And this week we're looking at the politics of power sharing in Northern Ireland. What is it? Why is it not currently working? And what is its future?
Hello. My name is Alan Renwick. And welcome to UCL Uncovering Politics – the podcast of the School of Public Policy and Department of Political Science at University College London.
Peace in Northern Ireland is widely recognised as one of the leading achievements of politics in recent decades. The Good Friday or Belfast Agreement reached in 1998 by the British and Irish governments and most of the main Northern Ireland political parties brought an end to 30 years of violent conflict in which over three and a half thousand people were killed.
It did so in part by establishing a system of power sharing government. A new Northern Ireland Assembly would be elected by proportional representation, so no one group could dominate. And within the new Northern Ireland executive, representatives of Northern Ireland's two political traditions – unionists and loyalists who want the territory to remain part of the United Kingdom, and nationalists and republicans who want to become part of a united Ireland – would have to work together.
Over the years since the Agreement was reached, the power sharing institutions have worked well some of the time. But for other extended periods, they've worked less well or not at all. And since February 2022, their functioning has once again been suspended. Public anger at this situation is intense. Negotiations for restoring the institutions are ongoing, but as yet there has been no breakthrough.
Indeed, the situation has become so grave that many think the future viability of power sharing government is now in doubt. And there are suggestions that the settlement reached in 1998 may need to be revisited.
So in this, our first episode of a new year, we're going to take a look at the current situation, how we got here, and what the possible paths forward might be.
And to do so I'm delighted to be joined by two real experts.
Alan Whysall is an Honorary Senior Research Associate at the Constitution Unit here within the UCL Department of Political Science. He was previously a senior civil servant in the Northern Ireland Office, where he worked for many years on the Northern Ireland peace process – not least in the talks that led to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.
And Conor Kelly is a Research Assistant at the Constitution Unit where he has worked on multiple projects relating to Northern Ireland, most recently examining perceptions of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement among politicians and the public in Northern Ireland. He also teaches here and he's a PhD student at Birkbeck College, University of London.
Alan and Conor – welcome both to UCL Uncovering Politics. It's great to have you on the programme.
And it's maybe good for us to start with a little bit of a primer. Many of our listeners will have heard some things about politics in Northern Ireland, but perhaps will be unfamiliar with a lot of the details. So Conor, do you want to give us an overview of the background to the situation that we're going to be talking about – the underlying divisions in Northern Ireland politics; the processes that led to the 1998 agreement?
Conor Kelly 03:31
Yes. Thank you very much, Alan, for having us.
Well, as you said, we're here to discuss the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement, which was signed in 1998. 2023 was the 25th anniversary of the Agreement. So there was lots of celebration and reflection from politicians across Britain and Ireland and indeed around the world about the Agreement.
Again, as you said, the Agreement sought to address the issues that had dominated politics in Northern Ireland throughout the period known as 'the Troubles' which was a conflict between republicans and nationalists on one side and loyalists and unionists on the other side, often drawing in security forces in Britain and occasionally the Republic of Ireland.
The conflict related to unresolved issues around the constitutional status of Northern Ireland and the governance of Northern Ireland that emerged after Ireland became independent – the 26 counties of what is now the Republic of Ireland became independent – from the United Kingdom in the early 1920s, and sought to end a very intense period of violence that had begun around the late 1960s and lasted right through to those negotiations in 1998.
The Agreement addressed a range of human rights issues, civil rights issues. It also created an agreed and democratic pathway to a united Ireland if that is what people in Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland want in the future.
And it's set up three strands of institutions to govern Northern Ireland and relationships across Britain and Ireland today. So the first strand, as you said, is a power sharing arrangement between unionists and nationalists, and indeed those who don't identify with either of those old traditions. Strand two, which dealt with relationships between the Republic of Ireland's government in Dublin and Northern Ireland's political parties and its institutions in Stormont. And then strand three is about the relationship between the British government in London and the Irish government in Dublin.
So it was an agreement that sought to address what's often called the totality of relations across these islands, and to usher in a new era of consensual cooperative politics between the different traditions in Northern Ireland and across Britain and Ireland.
Alan Renwick 06:02
It's a wonderfully helpful summary. Thank you so much.
A few little bits of terminology in there that we should just dwell on for a moment because people may be unfamiliar with them. So firstly, Stormont, you mentioned – that's just where the Northern Ireland Assembly sits. So often, it's kind of shorthand like Westminster. Other terms that we use to describe those institutions.
Alan Whysall 06:20
Correct.
Alan Renwick 06:21
And then, so we've talked about nationalists and republicans, and we've talked about unionists and loyalists. So nationalists and republicans both wanting Northern Ireland to be part of a united Ireland; unionists and loyalists both wanting Northern Ireland to remain within the UK. Should we say just a little bit about what's the differences between nationalist and republicans on one hand, and unionists and loyalists on the other hand?
Conor Kelly 06:46
Yes. So these terms tend to be used interchangeably sometimes, and people have different understandings of them.
But generally speaking, the community in Northern Ireland that identify as Irish, normally coming from a Catholic religious background, are referred to as the nationalist community. And within that community, those that previously advocated for a physical force opposition to British rule in Ireland were referred to as republicans. So supporters of republican paramilitary groups and members of republican paramilitary groups would have been referred to as republicans, and the general community referred to as the nationalist community.
The mirror image of that on the unionist side – and the community that identify as British primarily coming from Protestant religious background – those within that community who advocated for supported physical force, physical force violence during the conflict, were referred to as loyalists. And the wider community who supported maintaining the relationship with or the link with Great Britain were referred to as unionists.
There are class dimensions to all of this and there are different understandings across society of these labels. But generally speaking, that's how people see them.
Alan Renwick 08:04
Great. Thank you.
Alan, you were in the room for a lot of the negotiations that took place leading up to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. Kind of looking back from today, what do we need to understand of that period in order to understand the politics of today.
Alan Whysall 08:19
Can I say several things about the Agreement first? Three brief points.
You said it was regarded as a great triumph, and it is quite widely around the world. There are some in Northern Ireland who question that and say it's delivered nothing for our community. I think we should recognise that it did massively transform things in Northern Ireland – things changed greatly for the better. There may be some communities, and particularly ones that are under paramilitary influence, that have not done as well as others out of it. But it has made a massive difference.
Second, however, none of this should be taken as a given. And as we may come on to, I think many of the underpinnings of the Agreement settlement have appeared to be crumbling in recent years. And we can't assume that all the gains are going to last.
But third, we absolutely need to do – and a British government absolutely needs to do all it can to ensure that they do – because it really is the only plausible basis. It may need tweaks, but the overall architecture is the only plausible basis on which Northern Ireland can be stably governed for, it seems to me, the foreseeable future. It is obviously not going to be one of the lead items on the agenda of a British government. But it has got to be one that it takes seriously and applies some attention to.
Alan Renwick 09:35
What were the expectations in 1998? Was it thought that the structures of the three strands that Conor has set out so clearly there would endure and would enable effective government in Northern Ireland?
Alan Whysall 09:49
Expectations were rather low among the public. I think come a few weeks before the Agreement there was a poll and 90% of people thought that an agreement wouldn't be reached. So it was to a remarkable transformation in that sense. It took a very long time to get going. But by the time we had got to 10 years on, the golden age probably of evolution was between 2010 and 2012. And it was just remarkable. We would never have supposed you'd have the DUP and Sinn Fein, who were polar opposites-
Alan Renwick 10:24
So we should just explain again for readers, the DUP became the largest unionist party and often regarded as quite kind of hardline unionist party, while Sinn Fein, the political side of the republican movement, on the other side of the-
Alan Whysall 10:40
-At which the other side is the IRA.
And to have Dr Paisley – Dr Ian Paisley – who older listeners will remember, the firebrand, sitting down with Martin McGuinness, who was widely thought to have had a leading role within the IRA, as First and Deputy First Ministers was remarkable.
And between 2010 and 2012 they operated cohesively as a unit. They rarely disagreed in public, for example. Whether they delivered in policy terms is another question – we'll come on to the quality of government. But it was a remarkable transformation.
However, it was recognised from the start that we had set up in the Agreement some remarkably convoluted byzantine arrangements for government. And there was an expectation that it might be possible to remove some of these, what Mark Durkan, who was for time the leader of the SDLP, the once dominant nationalist party, called the 'ugly scaffolding', as envisaged there might at some stage be a review and Northern Ireland might move to slightly more conventional forms of government, more streamlined ones. And we've never got to that stage.
And indeed, one of the implications of the agreements that we reached, and the way that we reach them in 1998, is that there are now vested interests with vetoes all over the place. And that makes change quite difficult. And it's led to the present position that we're in, where the DUP at the moment – though, Sinn Fein a few years ago – is able to veto the formation of a government.
Now, the foundation of all these structures was power sharing, the belief that unless government in Northern Ireland commanded support and therefore had the involvement of significant portions at least of unionism and nationalism, it would not work. And arrangements for government would not work unless they commanded that sort of agreement, and the 1998 Agreement did. So vetoes were built in. And that to some degree was a recognition of the politics of the time.
And although the political landscape has changed somewhat, and the present arrangements are certainly an injustice to the sort of centre ground parties who don't call themselves unionist or nationalists and who have grown, nevertheless there is a large element of political reality still in the requirement for consent across the board.
Alan Renwick 13:09
That's really helpfully introduced a lot of the themes that we're going to explore over the next little while.
Just before we get into the current situation, and how we might get out of the current situation, it will be useful for us to just get us from 1998 to today. And you've hinted there that there have been some times when the institutions have been working, but there may have been problems with governance. And also there have been some times when the institutions just haven't been working. Do you want to just tell us something about those governance problems, even while the institutions have been working? And then I might go to Conor on periods of suspension.
Alan Whysall 13:45
Yes. I mean, there have been times when the institution has been formally in place, but actually riven with political dissent which meant that they couldn't get down to sort of serious public policy at all.
But I think there has been a serious public policy deficit, even in the better times.
The way the institutions are constituted, they are constituted essentially by several algorithms. People get into Northern Ireland government by virtue of the size of their representation in the Assembly. So one algorithm says that this party will nominate the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister. And then another algorithm comes along and allocates most of the rest of the ministerial seats in accordance with party size.
This means that governments come together with no sort of pre-existing sense of common purpose. And we have always had, I think, a culture of political dialogue in Northern Ireland that really doesn't focus much on nuts-and-bolts public policy. And the traditional response to most public policy problems has been to ask for more money from Westminster.
And the results of this are now to be seen. The health service is crumbling to an even greater degree – a significantly greater degree – even on this side of the water. We have really serious problems with infrastructure, with educational under attainment, which feeds through into a lack of skills and into low productivity.
And these issues have not been gripped to anything like the extent they ought to have been. So little attention was given really to government – good government – in 1998. We rather assumed that with all the international goodwill – domestic and international goodwill – that the Agreement brought, and all the extra money it brought, this might follow.
Alan Renwick 15:34
I guess that's also a feature of negotiations where you're attempting to end a conflict that the focus is on bringing people together and bringing people into some kind of process, not necessarily on working out what's the most efficient way of governing society.
Alan Whysall 15:48
No, that's absolutely right. And you know, that was justifiably – I mean, it was difficult enough to get the Agreement at all – that was justifiably the emphasis because opening the way to power sharing government was unquestionably the first step.
There was though rather this assumption that we'd come back and review things and we can learn to do things differently. And I think we have not done that partly because London lost its focus on Northern Ireland really quite quickly.
Alan Renwick 16:19
After 1998.
Alan Whysall 16:21
After 1998 we had rather stuttering devolved government for a couple of years. And we then had another hiatus for four or five years. But after that, its attention rather understandably went elsewhere, as did that in the Republican lead, where they had a rather significant economic crisis to deal with. And in the post Brexit years, the pattern has been very much less satisfactory still.
Alan Renwick 16:48
-Which may get us onto the subject of the current suspension of the institutions. Conor, the institutions have been suspended, as I said, for almost two years now. What are the underlying issues there?
Conor Kelly 16:58
On the on the face of it, the unionist political parties oppose the protocol arrangement which is contained within the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement. So for those who don't know, when the United Kingdom left the European Union, there was an addendum to the Withdrawal Agreement – the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland – that essentially leaves Northern Ireland in elements of the EU single market and customs union in order to avoid a hard customs border on the island of Ireland.
So that reduction of the security situation during the peace process and after the Good Friday Agreement also coincided with the introduction of the EU's single market and the growth of the single market, which meant that the significance of the border on the island of Ireland was reduced politically in the security sense and also in an economic sense. And after the UK's decision to leave the EU, there were many fears in Northern Ireland, in Dublin, and, you know, elsewhere around the world, that introducing custom checks on the border – on the land border – would undermine the peace process. So the sort of way to square this circle of the UK leaving the customs union was essentially to move the focal point of customs checks to the Irish Sea, between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, within the United Kingdom. And herein is the problem for unionists.
So that on the face of it is why the unionists have withdrawn from the institutions and are not taking part in them at the moment. There are a variety of other factors at play: there are changing demographic and political results in terms of elections in Northern Ireland that are feeding into the political situation, and it is important to note that this is just the latest of a long run of collapses of the institutions. So they were also down between 2017 and 2020, related to a spending scandal in the executive and other issues related to disagreements between the two largest parties.
So we're really into a sustained period where, you know, since the Brexit result, there really has only been a functioning assembly and executive for a couple of years. And more often than not since 2016 the institutions have not been functioning.
Alan Renwick 19:21
And what does the public think of this situation?
Conor Kelly 19:23
Well, it's complicated. I mean, some of the research that we've done at the Constitution Unit in recent years, we ran focus groups with people from different communities across Northern Ireland, and people are universally scathing of the tendency of the institutions to collapse, and they relate that very closely to the issues that Alan just outlined in terms of the economy and the health service and all of the issues around good governance. So they're angry that it keeps happening.
They are very frustrated at the British government, and I guess to a lesser extent at the Irish government, for their roles in bringing about the situation and then not resolving it.
There's some particular frustration with the DUP because they are the party at the moment who are unwilling to go into the executive and let the institutions function.
But the complexity comes in when, if you look at polling evidence within the unionist community, the unionists on the ground are frustrated at the protocol. They are worried that the economic ties between Northern Ireland and Great Britain are being undermined. There are some that feel that unionism could oppose the protocol. And the most recent iteration of the protocol is the Windsor framework. There are some within unionism who feel that they can oppose that within Stormont with the institutions functioning – that they can walk and chew gum. But there are others who do support what the DUP have done and, indeed, those who feel that the DUP's position is too soft – there is a political party that would present themselves as a more hardline unionist political party, the Traditional Unionist Voice.
So the DUP are under immense pressure to return to the institutions and to deal with some of the economic and societal challenges that Northern Ireland is facing. But they are also under pressure from the right flank, as it were, to not acquiesce to the protocol and to dig in.
Alan Renwick 21:24
So we have a situation where the institutions have not been operating for getting on for two years; governance is increasingly problematic; public services are increasingly crumbling; public opinion is very negative on the whole towards the whole political class really in Northern Ireland and towards what's being done by the UK government and the Irish government; and there are real concerns, as I suggested at the start, about the future viability of the power sharing institutions.
All of that then gets us on to the question of what should happen now. And Alan, that's a topic that you have written much about. I'm not sure quite where we should start here. I guess there are kind of short-term options and long-term options that we should consider here.
Perhaps we should focus first on the short term. And there are negotiations apparently taking place as we record this just early in the new year in 2024. Should we expect that those will yield results or is more fundamental change required?
Alan Whysall 22:24
Well, I have no idea whether they will yield results. And I'm not sure whether the person who will ultimately decide which is Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the leader of the DUP, knows either.
That party has had a lot of divisions in recent years. It isn't the monolith it was under Dr Paisley.
And he himself, I think, would very much like to bring his party back into government because he recognises – he said – devolution is good for the Union. Leaving the institutions in a state of abeyance really feeds into the narrative that republicans have often advanced that Northern Ireland is a failed political entity. So he would very much like – and it's been clear in statements he's made – to bring the DUP back in.
But there are people within the leadership of his party who are holding out. And as Conor suggested, much of the party base is actually quite comfortable with the DUP staying out of devolved government for the time being in pursuit of its protocol objectives.
And what appears to be on the table so far from the British government, and the outlines of a package have started to emerge. But it is actually quite limited as compared with the rhetoric that we have heard.
So he has a difficult choice. There will come a point perhaps at which the imminence of a general election will lead people to conclude nothing could be done this side of that.
What is important, I think, is that in the past when there has been no devolved government, we've had a system called direct rule: the British government has stepped in, taken statutory authority to run the Northern Ireland departments and special legislative procedures at Westminster, which did at least ensure that government was done.
That, however, is extremely contentious and its legitimacy would now be heavily contested. It also brings with it under the Agreement an extended right for the Irish government to become involved in questions to do with Northern Ireland, which would be extremely contentious with unionists.
So we've had this under the last suspension, which I say was provoked by Sinn Fein. And under the current one, we have had this extraordinary position by which civil servants have been running the government but with extremely limited powers and Westminster stepping in occasionally, as in allocating a budget, but not saying where the cuts come. And this is really dreadfully prejudicing the future of Northern Ireland because no public policy responses have been possible really to the problems that have faced it.
Now, I think at some stage a British government is going to have to face up to this and set a certain number of measures in hand to ensure that at least a basic level of government is done until the political effort can resume again.
Alan Renwick 25:28
And does that mean setting aside the requirement for power sharing government and the requirement that the various parties that are entitled to be in that government agree? Or do we need to kind of stick to the existing rules for government formation?
Alan Whysall 25:45
Well, I think that the time for that is now probably under a new government.
Let me say something about the new British government first, of whatever party. I think it has got to make a new start.
British governments have in recent years, and this is part of the Brexit effect, become massively unpopular and distrusted in Northern Ireland, and that has seriously reduced their ability to do brokerage. They've also adopted an increasingly restrictive stance towards the involvement of the Irish government. And traditionally, the British and Irish governments working together were the people who drove constructive political change in Northern Ireland, and who came to the rescue – who manned the lifeboats – when a crisis loomed. And we've seen less of that. And I think the situation we have now is in part a product of that. So I think a new British government has got to start in a different way.
The starting point would be an attempted inclusive political dialogue. So bringing in all the main Northern Ireland parties and the Irish government, as we've traditionally done and often ends up in a country house somewhere, and there are three days or sort of intensive negotiation.
And that is, in some ways, rather important because process is often as important as substance in bringing about political advances in Northern Ireland. The first attempt should be to try to get the institutions back up and running. But I think, more importantly, to get the Agreement operating in all its aspects. As I suggested earlier, some of the underpinnings are crumbling.
One of the great achievements was, for example, policing by consent. That was an outworking of the Agreement to which the Agreement opened the way. Chris Patten's commission then drew up the blueprint. And that has been an extraordinary success. But we have seen in the last few years that has been crumbling – the last Chief Constable had to resign in a political row. And that is all now a bit more in question.
And other aspects of the Agreement aren't working: there are still widespread paramilitary influence; there is a mess about dealing with the past – the legacy issues which we may come on to. And, as I suggested, the institutions have really not delivered in good government terms. And just bringing them back into place doesn't guarantee that, but getting them back into places is the first step – the aim should be to do that by agreement across the board.
But failing that, I think if we are not going to get government in accordance with the rules, then I think there is a good case for temporary changes to the rules least that would permit some Northern Ireland-based government to function while political dialogue went on. And the Northern Affairs Committee to which all three of us gave evidence, deliberated-
Alan Renwick 28:44
So a committee of the UK House of Commons, we should say.
Alan Whysall 28:47
-Of the UK House of Commons, yes, considered this and produced a report last month. It actually suggests further study of the issue, which is entirely right, because there hasn't been much informed debate.
It also suggested some unilateral changes to the Agreement to be brought about by the British government to the rules by which the institutions function. I think that is a bit more questionable to accord the British government the right to very significant aspects of the Agreement without a large measure of consensus.
But temporary changes agreed with the Irish government, who are absolutely crucial players in all of this, I think may have a role under a new government in getting this moving again.
Conor, what do you think is the possible way forward here?
Conor Kelly 29:36
Well, just to go back slightly on looking at the stalemate at the moment and looking at the Agreement since 1998. If people are coming to this as an as a completely new listener to Northern Ireland affairs, I think the key thing that you need to understand is that the Agreement did two things.
The first thing is that it's a peace treaty. It has remarkably changed Northern Ireland society. Despite all of the problems that we've been outlining, Northern Ireland is a much better place to live, to work, to raise children. You know, the security situation is much diminished; the paramilitaries still exist, and that's not acceptable, but they don't have the influence that they used to have on people's everyday lives. As Alan said, policing by consent – the army are no longer on the streets.
When we ran our focus groups, the Constitution Unit’s focus groups, lots of people talked about just the ease of everyday life in Northern Ireland now compared to the Troubles – just something as simple as going out for a drink in Belfast or in Derry City Centre.
The problem with the other side of the Agreement, which is the political arrangements and the institutions, is that they have got to a point now where they're becoming so dysfunctional and so prone to collapse that people fear that they are undermining all of the progress that has been made in terms of peace and security, and that the issues of good governance around the economy and the health service and everything else are not being addressed, and are increasingly becoming more and more dysfunctional.
So you know, the proposals laid out by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, you know, lay out some options. And there are often ideas floated around moving away from mandatory correlations between the two parties, towards a system where you had a sort of weighted majority. So you didn't have a simple 50% plus one like you do in normal, you know, the Irish or British political system. You have a large degree of consensus. But one party can no longer bring down the institutions.
Alan Renwick 31:24
So it's essentially still power sharing, but it's like softening of the edges, if you like, of power sharing.
Conor Kelly 31:29
Exactly, yes. And essentially what it would do – the real effect it would do – would be if that Sinn Fein or the DUP, who were the two largest parties from either tradition, didn't want to participate, the institutions could still function, and that they could go on addressing some of the issues that we've been talking about, and continuing the peaceful process on a forward trajectory.
The problem there is that if you lock one of the two largest political traditions or the two largest political parties from the two largest political traditions out of the power sharing arrangements, you could also undermine the peace process and the overall ethos of the Good Friday Agreement. And people are very worried about that. And that's quite telling.
It was quite telling that the DUP who had members of that committee in the House of Commons didn't support the final report that was produced. And Sinn Fain, who, of course, don't take their seats in the House of Commons, didn't cooperate or submit evidence to the committee and have given it a very lukewarm response in the media since then. It's quite clear that they don't support the idea of removing the kind of veto from the two largest political parties.
So you know there's an inevitable trade off here between the idea of getting the institutions back up and running on a more stable footing and trying to protect what is a very successful peace agreement, which has transformed everyone's life in Northern Ireland.
And temporary changes definitely warrant consideration. I guess the problem that people might see with that is that temporary changes might become permanent. And if people are locked out temporarily, and it works, then it might lead to permanent change.
So all of these ideas around reform, permanent or temporary, definitely warrant consideration, because the current situation is completely untenable. But it is definitely a difficult situation to find an agreed pathway forward. And as Alan said, the idea that London could do this unilaterally is not going to be a runner.
Alan Renwick 33:28
So if I can ask you one final question, and then we must wrap up. I think what I'm hearing from both of you is that, as Conor's just said, the current situation is untenable – a fundamental reset is required. But you can't move away from the fundamentals of the 1998 Agreement – the power sharing system is still absolutely essential in Northern Ireland. And in a sense, therefore, it's more about kind of going back to the spirit of 1998 than changing any of the institutional details that's required.
And I guess my question is: is that likely to happen? Is it in the interests of the various players within Northern Ireland to move in that sort of direction? Can we expect a future UK government to move in that direction? Can we expect a future Irish government to move in that direction?
And I guess, Alan, you were talking about a window of opportunity potentially arising after the next UK election. But it's quite possible that the UK election will coincide with an election in Ireland, which may see the election of a Sinn Fein led government, which might have less inclination to cooperate in the way that you have suggested would be desirable.
So can we really have hope that there's something better around the corner?
Alan Whysall 34:43
There's always been in Northern Ireland the sort of sense of fatalism that says that nothing can change. And at times that has been proved to be wrong. And as with the Agreement itself, about which as I said, there was there was great scepticism, the hope is that the political climate can be changed. And that did happen with a lot of hands-on attention from London and Dublin, and indeed the wider world.
There are the elements there on the basis of which – though absolutely nothing is guaranteed – you might be able to create a different political climate in which those, as Conor says, large numbers of people in Northern Ireland who actually want the thing to work – that they are willing to make sacrifices in order to ensure that a workable system gets up and running.
I think we certainly shouldn't write off in advance the prospects of political advance being possible – absolutely nothing is guaranteed. But the effort must be made, because we are at the moment in a phase of decay. And it will continue to do so unless there is some change.
Conor Kelly 35:56
Yeah, just I was really struck by Alan's point earlier about process and substance. I think what we need to get right in the first instance is agreement on process around talking around some of these issues, and around the idea of getting everyone into the room and thinking about what long term solutions to some of this might be.
And for that to happen, what we need is a government in London and a government in Dublin that are willing to invest a lot of political capital and a lot of time in what can be a very frustrating political issue. I have absolute sympathy with anyone that has to wade into this, of the complexities and fragilities of the political system, and trying to kind of hold the main glass together. But what we really need is politicians and civil servants to give Northern Ireland sustained political attention, and to make a concerted effort to work together – that's London and Dublin – and also to work with all of the different political actors in Northern Ireland, even the ones that they might find quite frustrating to deal with.
You know, Alan Whysall often will say that there are prizes for statesmanship in Northern Ireland and I agree with him. And the public, I think, agree: when we ran our focus groups, you know, people were recalling the efforts made by people like John Hume and David Trimble who won the Nobel Prize for bringing about the Good Friday Agreement; they also talked about Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley and the steps that they made in the 2000s to work together; they talked about loyalist leaders like David Ervine; they talked about Labour politicians like Mo Mowlam and Tony Blair. And they look back at the efforts that those politicians have made with pride and with admiration. So, you know, if politicians can in the next couple of years make a push to set some of this right, I think they will be politically rewarded for it.
You mentioned a Sinn Fein government in Dublin. That inevitably would bring complexity and it would change political dynamics somewhat. You know, there has never been an Irish government that has not been led by a political party called Fianna Fail and Fine Gal who are seen as having much more moderate positions on constitutional politics than Sinn Fane.
But it's worth remembering that, you know, Sinn Fein have invested decades now in the peace process, and they've gone kind of fully in on a political route to achieving their political objectives. So I think it's unlikely that they'll want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. They might be more combative in their approach, but I don't think that they will want to undermine the Agreement.
And it's worth noting, you know, we may have a Labour government in the next 12 months in the United Kingdom, and it was the Labour Party that was in power when the Good Friday Agreement was reached. But it's also worth remembering that the last Conservative government before Tony Blair, led by John Major, really set the scene and laid the groundwork for the 1998 Agreement; and the Conservative Party, Conservative ministers and a Conservative Prime Minister, you know, did a lot to get the parties and the relationship with the Irish government to the point that, you know, the Northern Ireland was ready for that landmark agreement in 1998.
So all of these actors have been involved from Sinn Fein to the Conservatives in London. They've all done it in the past – they've managed to get around the room and reach an agreement. So there's no reason why they can't in the here and now.
Alan Renwick 39:16
Well, thank you so much, Conor and Alan. You've given us a message of hope for the new year, but hope that can be realised only with a lot of hard work over the coming months and perhaps years.
Next week, we'll be taking a look at European integration from the perspective of a political theorist.
We have been discussing several reports published by the UCL Constitution Unit, including two written by Alan Whysall and one co-authored by Conor and me, I have to confess. You'll find further details in the show notes for this episode, including links to the Constitution Unit's website, where all of those reports are available to read free of charge.
As ever to make sure you don't miss out on that or other future episodes of UCL Uncovering Politics, all you need to do is subscribe. You can do so on Apple, Google Podcasts or whatever podcast provider you use. And while you're there, we'd love it if you could take a moment of time to rate or review us too.
I'm Alan Renwick. This episode was produced by Alice Hart and Eleanor Kingwell-Banham. Our theme music is written and performed by John Mann. This has been UCL Uncovering Politics. Thank you for listening.