The News Letter is attempting to stimulate debate around what legislation might be usefully presented at Stormont, with a series of articles entitled ‘Laws We Need’.

By way of background, there has been some debate recently about the fact that months after the Assembly election there is still no agreed programme for government at Stormont; which would set out what the Executive would be focussing on over the next four years. Nor is there any sign of a definitive and substantial plan for Cohesion, Integration & Sharing; which would in itself go some way to shaping future Government programmes.

By contrast, the Scottish Executive has set out proposals for 16 pieces of legislation – everything from creating a single Scottish police force to a law tackling sectarianism, introducing minimum pricing for alcohol and an attempt to breathe new life into farming. A programme 2011-2012: just ONE YEAR!

Stormont is a ‘legislative assembly’. With devolution it was envisaged that the Executive would be able to address local issues through legislation. Yet week after week the assembly spends the bulk of its time either debating non-binding private members’ motions (bit like the local Councils) or the often scripted ministers’ question time slots (Jim Allister notwithstanding).

The News Letter series is intended to provide a platform space for individuals to set out one or two, proposals on which Stormont should legislate. In the first couple of weeks or so, although the series is barely into its swing, some contributors seem to be at a loss on the nature and role of legislation: though for clarity they probably shouldn’t ask an MLA.

thedissenter’s contribution is not an original idea, but in that respect is entirely possible.

This following appeared in the Belfast News Letter on Monday 17 October 2011, with minor amends.

One Rights body for all.

In the current economic environment there is intense pressure on Government at all levels to assure public finances are used efficiently and effectively, and to avoid duplication or gold-plating.

At Westminster, the 2007 merger of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) and the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) into the new, single, Equality and Human Rights Commission was given muscle by the Equality Act 2010 which brought together over 116 separate pieces of legislation into one single Act, merging nine main pieces of legislation (1970-2007).  The Act underscored the Commission’s statutory remit to promote, protect, enforce and promote equality across the nine “protected” grounds – age, disability, gender, race, religion and belief, pregnancy and maternity, marriage and civil partnership, sexual orientation and gender reassignment; and to promote and monitor human rights (the Human Rights Act).

In Northern Ireland we have only recently had yet another ‘Commission’  added to a line up that includes an Equality Commission, Commission for Victims & Survivors, Commission for Children and Young People, and Human Rights Commission. The most recent addition is a Commissioner for Older People for Northern Ireland.

These Commissions seem only to serve the lobby group interests, dressed up to suggest that there is a representative voice for your particular interest/rights. The Human Rights Commission review of a Bill of Rights showed how ‘group’ rights are so embedded in the culture of the political classes in Northern Ireland.

While it is too early for the Older People Commissioner to make a massive impression on public discourse, the record of the rest would suggest we shouldn’t be holding our breath. If you believe this viewpoint to be unfair, then please use the letters page of the News Letter to bring to our attention the outstanding successes of any of the above.

It would of course have been a waste of legislative time on the Commissioner for Older People had there been other more pressing matters to fill our MLA’s Assembly schedule. That this is one of few items the Assembly  has to show for its existence leaves nothing much to add by way of comment. Other than providing comfortable Commissioner jobs for ever-so worthy individuals, with nice offices, it is hard to see the justification for so many offices and commissioners when a single body would do, and a template is already there. Equal citizens, equal rights.

More government is an easy solution where there is only a vague question. More Government is rarely, if ever, conducive to good Government. Forget the Bill of Rights. Better use of legislative time would be to bring forward legislation creating one definitive and focused Equality and Human Rights Commission for Northern Ireland, abolishing the rest.

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The Northern Ireland electorate heads towards the 5 May with little enthusiasm for the choice being presented, little interest in the institutions, and little understanding of what the Assembly has achieved over its past four years.

No doubt there will be general media attention in the run-up to the election on issues around the budget, perhaps, education, almost certainly, and health.  Why bother? With all the main Parties at the Executive table, and assured a place if not the same seats following the election, the electorate has little alternative but to vote for the same old same old, or not at all.

Constitutional matters are never far away from the discussions and serve all parties well in avoiding having to answer the question of what has actually been achieved for the past four years. Some would say that a full four years was an achievement (ignoring the Sinn Fein six months sulk over the delay in transferring Policing & Justice). With nine years prior practice, it was about time a full term was possible – the Assembly has been in existence since 1998.

It seems that everything remotely positive is claimed by all, whether Unionist, Nationalist or Republican, DUP, UUP, SDLP and Sinn Fein, and even Alliance. Who wouldn’t or couldn’t claim to be responsible for free bus passes and prescriptions, or low household rates and taxes? Just don’t mention or question the cost.

Perhaps the greatest difficulty arises for the UUP and SDLP who will of course wish to claim the specific successes of their Ministers. This inherently also praises the Executive and the institutions, and the two large parties with whom they are in the Executive alongside. This also lauds the huckster’s shop, built with ugly scaffolding. Following Hillsborough 2010 (Section 3) it was the UUP and SDLP leaderships who were charged with bringing forward recommendations on improving the working of the Executive? Not much progress there.

For the DUP and Sinn Fein there is a fine balance to be walked between condemning coalition partners, with whom the success of the past four years must be shared, while claiming that it is they who have held the entire edifice together. Balanced indeed; while seeking the adsorption or marginalisation of their two respective principal rivals.  At the same time the two largest parties must also ensure that they keep the UUP and SDLP on the inside and not drive either or both into opposition outside the Executive, even if an ‘unofficial’ opposition.

In the short term the DUP and Sinn Fein would find an ‘opposition’ easy enough to handle. However, over the next four years the collective ‘blame’ for all the hard decisions (and at this point those decisions are barely being admitted) would be shared alone by the DUP and Sinn Fein together. This will involve implementing fiscal tightening and, as would seem likely, increasing the burden of tax (called rates/charges/levies) on individual householders and businesses.

The most recent outcry over the decision by Michael McGimpsey as Health Minister to postpone the new radiotherapy unit at Altnagelvin is a good example of political rhetoric trumping rational discussion of the issues, and the absurdity of political posturing when all parties are in Government. Was McGimpsey’s decision political? Was the decision by Barbre de Brun to place a new maternity unit at the Royal Victoria in West Belfast, rather than at the City Hospital in South Belfast political? Was Martin McGuinness’s decision to abolish the 11+ within his final days of being Education Minister political? Is the decision to fund the A5 rather than other bottleneck and poor links inside Northern Ireland political?  All of these decisions could be believed, or presented, as playing to ‘core’ constituencies. The fallout from the decision was certainly political. Of course it was, its politics; a politics without purpose or progression. A politics of the past. The politics of blame.

Martin McGuinness’s statement provided a clear demonstration of the dysfunctional nature of the Stormont structures and the consequential ease of placing decisions into a sectarian context: shoring up that ugly scaffolding. Ministers are able in the first instance to make decisions outside the collective of the Executive. There followed a response from Ministerial colleagues that was also outside the collective. A Government that is also it’s own opposition is, at best, confused. This doomed the Major government, ultimately, when the country was presented with an credible alternative. Ministers of the Stormont Executive lack the democratic credentials of being accountable or responsible to anyone, even within their own collective. Where is the credible political alternative in Northern Ireland?

Northern Ireland needs a political opposition. True, it would be fair to say that neither the UUP nor SDLP would be likely to offer much by way of policy alternative to the DUP or SF in the near term – though in the bigger national picture, Ed Milliband does not seem to be doing too badly at present.

The absence of any coherent alternative proposition does not help an opposition in the run-up to an election. David Cameron might not have had to enter coalition politics had he been able to convince the electorate on what he actually believed: many are still unsure, which may be why Ed Milliband does not have to try too hard just now. Lesson learned?

Once the election is over in May it will be at least three years before the next scheduled election (Europe 2014). A lot can happen in politics over the course of three years. There is plenty of time for any Party at Stormont to become a challenging opposition and to provide an entirely valid and valuable ground-breaking democratic function. An opposition holds the potential of bringing accountability to the Executive and to the process of Government.

It is entirely wrong to suggest that there needs to be money to create an opposition at Stormont. It does not. It takes courage, imagination and determination to fulfil an essential function of democratic government.  Hopefully, in time, an opposition party (or parties) could show the electorate that there is an alternative leadership that is worth voting into the Executive to take the top posts, on merit of ideas and policy commitment.

Of course Parties need to get over the idea of a natural place in Government, or that there is some right to be at the Executive table by virtue of being.  Both counts ignore electoral will. The electorate should have the right to choose a Government through the ballot box rather than the dictate of legislative pre-ordination.  But to choose a government there must be a choice. What choice has the electorate in the forthcoming election to the NI Assembly?  Will anyone’s vote be cast with the hope of change?

There is an argument that opposition might tinker with ‘stability’ of the current institutions. Underlying that argument is an attitude that that the electorate should not be trusted with that choice, that it is not mature enough to make a choice, or that the electorate is somehow not ready to make that choice? Is the Northern Ireland electorate less ready than Iraq’s to make that choice?  Is choice in the face of instability not an essential aspect of embedding democracy in any state, divided or not? The streets of North Africa and Middle East are alive with the sound of the people demanding the right to vote for a government of their choice where previously, for example, in the ‘democracies’ of Syria and Egypt a vote returned the same old government time and time again.

Are democratic elections, the right to choose and to change your government, not the universal principle being hailed as fundamental across the world? Are the consequences of Western powers choosing stability over democratic change not being felt by the people of Libya today, or the protesters in Bahrain, or Yemen, or Syria, or China? Hasn’t ‘stability’ been the cause used to justify the suppression of democratic movements in these countries and the acquiescence of the West, left and right?

Stability is much over-rated, and can easily tend towards stagnation and sterility in ideas and innovation, in politics every bit as much as economy. Ultimately this leads to the suppression of any alternative because the elite have nothing to offer but more of the same, lacking the intellectual coherence to justify their status and resorting to a corruption of the process of government to avoid the emergence of any challenge to the status quo.

So the challenge to the UUP and SDLP is whether they will continue to shore up the DUP and SF oligarchy or strike a blow for democracy by making the ‘game-changing’ move into opposition. Are they part of the self -regarding political class, caring for the few, or do they care for the many in Northern Ireland ready and willing to move on to real, meaningful change. Are the UUP and/or SDLP chicken, comfortable with the status quo and unwilling to move on? Or will they provide the egg start of a new beginning, and a positive future politics bringing new life and to a sterile coop?

A new beginning http://www.photoshopnerds.com/index.php

The UK Government’s economic measures to tackle the country’s financial deficit will start to impact on all citizens in 2011. It will be a tough year ahead for everyone. The cost of living is rising, with households already noticing  increased costs creeping through to the weekly shopping. Just as households need to keep their spending under control, the need for good and efficient government at all levels is essential. Northern Ireland is not an exception in this regard.

Northern Ireland media focus in early 2011 seems to be on health inefficiencies and disorganisation, before that water was in chaos; before that, roads; an education department at odds with its schools; an agriculture minister who failed to properly account for the land being used for farming. And so on…

With each Department being largely independent of the Executive, except when requiring collective cover, it is no surprise that initial budget ‘agreement’ failed to indicate anything more than broad allocation of spending across Departments. Subsequent budget negotiation appears to be largely through the media rather than round the Executive table. The budget process is not building confidence. Rather than rethinking and shrinking government, the talk is of expanding revenue – taxing to spend on the same old, same old.

It is difficult to be very positive about politics in Northern Ireland in the months, or years, ahead. In almost every aspect of Government the Stormont Executive is a sorry excuse. Inspiration, ideas and impact are absent. Ideology, intransigence and incompetence seem to be the order of the day, to a greater or lesser degree.

Of course Party leaflets will drop through the letter boxes in the run-up to May’s election outlining the achievements of this government, of which almost every Northern Ireland political Party is now part.  Some of this is already being tested by the DUP and Sinn Fein, to greater or lesser success. Most 2011 election information will be little different to that provided for the Westminster election in 2010 – can anyone remember any of the key election promises from less than a year ago? Fine words bearing little momentum towards, or even capacity to kick start, necessary change.

There is no doubt that Northern Ireland would benefit from an effective opposition.

If ever there were a time for the UUP and SDLP to ditch government and enter ‘opposition’ it would be now. They are largely irrelevant to a Government steered by the DUP and Sinn Fein, serving only to underscore the validity of the system; strengthened in 2010 by the arrival of the Alliance Party to the trough.

Of course there is no ‘money’ available for an official opposition. Naturally, financial consideration comes before principle and doing the right thing.

The failure of a DUP/Sinn Fein led government is no surprise because there is no common cause; no common vision binding together the programme for government. Compulsory or enforced coalition, with a prohibition on voting a party out of government guarantees deadlock and failure.

Far from being “an extraordinary endorsement” of progress in NI, as suggested by Secretary of State Owen Paterson, Martin McGuinness as First Minister would only prove that the deck chairs on the Titanic have once again been moved.

The jobs that seem safe at present are those of the political class, who huddle around any of their number under threat. This represents the most often quoted success of Stormont, that it exists. That seems to be enough for our politicians. In the words of Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness respectively, following on from Hillsborough 2010:

“… there will be no going back to the past.”

“We need to make life better for our children and for our grandchildren.”

Of course we cannot go back in time, but neither should we stagnate without change. With the authority of power comes responsibility to use that power wisely ‘for our children’; and if the electorate believes that power is not being used wisely, that the future being shaped by an administration is not attractive, then surely it should have the democratic choice to vote for change.

The Belfast Agreement is over twelve years old.  It was a creation of its moment. Time to move on.

A government that cannot be fundamentally changed has no democratic mandate. Just ask an Egyptian.

It often seems that the last issue to be considered by the Parades Commission is the particular parade under consideration.

Of course the Parades Commission is operating in a context that is highly politicised; though it is meant to be outside ‘political considerations, that idea was dashed when a parade on the Ormeau Road was denied in deference to the ‘Peace Process’ - which looked like not placing responsibility on republicans not to riot. The ‘political process’ has been elevated to over-write all other considerations and the consequent political interference or indifference with respect to parades has been to the detriment of the Rule of Law. No better example of that is the absolute breakdown in authority evident in violence across Northern Ireland in the week of the 12^th July 2010.  Politics and police just stood there taking the abuse and with little evidence of a longer-term response.

While parading by the Orange Order may have provided a context at the 12th, there was little evidence that the July rioters cared deeply whether the Orange Order paraded or not.  The principal battle for hearts and minds is being played out in the Republican/nationalist communities – violence in Lurgan and Londonderry, and elsewhere, was pure thuggery to demonstrate that Sinn Fein’s support for the devolution of policing means little on the streets. The new Republicans on the block have learned well from those who similarly brought anger to the streets in the past: a progression from one generation to the next.

Meanwhile a review of legislation on parades and protest is on-going. The OFMDFM consultation is now the seventh review of the Parades Commission since its inception.

From the outset the Parades Commission was an unparalleled and unwarranted interference with the peaceful expression of a people’s culture and had significant potential to undermine of the Rule of Law. There is no moral or human rights justification for political and legal interference with cultural expression: quite the contrary.  Trade Unionists claim the limitation within the OFMDFM paper are unique in Europe forget that they failed to raise a voice on the Parades Legislation which was similarly unique and intolerant.

Since the inception of the Parades Commission there has been a clear admission by Republicanism of a planned process to use the issue of parades for political advantage.

Sinn Fein has made no secret of its political activity in raising the parades issue.  In the event the political process has been used as a sledgehammer to demonise, diminish and disrupt the exercise of legal, peaceful and fundamental freedom of cultural expression.  The policy has been one of creating a cultural apartheid where no Protestant is seen, heard, or permitted within a stones throw of a designated, reserved, “sanitised” nationalist space:

There were a number of distinct advantages for Republicans in moving forward on the parades agenda. First it plays to the gallery and maintains a wedge between communities. In the absence of armed conflict it maintains a war of words that retains simmering sectarian tensions on which republicanism relies for purpose. This was a political hammer being used to crack a cultural nut. While leaders of the Orange Order may from time to time make pronouncements on broad political matters, it does not function as a political organisation. It was always poorly suited to a public political argument and certainly not to understand or challenge a political machine.

Political interference has prolonged the parades issue in Northern Ireland.  The Parades Commission was itself a buck-passing exercise by the NIO, supported by the police – a firewall to take the heat off the Secretary of State and Chief Constable.  It was born of political strategy and suckled by the political expediency of politicians who wanted to be seen as leading the fight (both sides), and by the demands of the ‘political process’ that meant not confronting the realities of rights and responsibilities as they should be within a society where the Rule of Law is paramount.

How the placing of the Parades issue into the Office of OFMDFM will not result in political interference/dealing/brokering is outside thedissenter’s ability to imagine.  The present proposals seem to have been predicated on a political deal at Hillsborough.  That the issue of Parades is being discussed in the context of a political deal is itself a weakness and indicative of a fundamental flaw in strategic thinking.  A principled and fair outcome to the resolution of parades issues should be a local matter, having due respect for the Rule of Law, and not reliant on externalities.  If the Review itself depends on a political deal, then how will parades not continue to be politicised and used to modulate tensions and division to the benefit of a few and to the detriment of all?

The process outlined by this most recent consultation process merely transfers the Parades Commission from being a quasi-judicial ‘independent’ body within the orbit of the NIO, to a quasi-judicial office within the orbit of the OFMDFM.  This does not inspire confidence in transparency, accountability or an end to political interference.    A previous ‘Quigley Report’ on parades had positive ideas with respect to an open, accountable and transparent process of addressing parading issues.  There were elements of the mediation aspects of that Report which were woolly, but if offered a strategic view rather than political fix.

The current proposals do not offer significant encouragement to believe that a Shared Future is possible while a process exists in law that can be used to politically delineate and define ‘our streets’, and ‘our territory’. That this process is given legal standing does not remove legislation on parades and protest from the status of base sectarian harassment of folks wishing to be free to express their culture or viewpoints in peace and without fear of threat or violence.

In a normal society, one in which cultural pluralism is the norm and freedom of conscience is cherished, where another’s culture and views are respected, there would be no need for parades regulation by whatever name that body is known.  The Ashdown Interim Consultation Report assumed the premise of a ‘normal’ society.  If OFMDFM believed that Northern Ireland society has the ability to move forward then why consider the regulation of a people’s culture to be at all necessary?  How does legislation that tends towards cultural apartheid and unreasonably and unfairly penalises a particular culture.

The Rule of Law should be sufficient to protect freedoms without regulatory bodies open to political interference. But authority, and the leadership that falls from that place of respect and standing in either politics or policing, seems absent. That we are where we are on parades and protests shows an attitude that all too readily accepts intolerance and exclusion as a norm, and for some is a political necessity.

For broad analysis on the state of the individual unionist parties by far the best has been that of the blogger Turgon on SluggerOToole.  The recent meeting at Hatfield House between the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Owen Patterson, and leading representatives of the DUP and UUP has created a great deal of debate on the nirvana of ‘unionist unity’. We are told the Hatfield House talks were about the UUP and DUP, and Conservatives, gaining some greater understanding in respect of future elections. Generally, however, the impact of the host party (the Conservatives) on elections is not discussed in detail. Perhaps this is because the Conservatives and the UUP are treated as one: that is a mistake; they remain two parties. Such a perspective misses the electoral questions arising from the Conservative and UUP non-merger.

Should an Assembly election to be held before Westminster elections there would be four Unionist parties in the fray as there is no agreement for Assembly elections between the UUP and Conservatives.  This would probably kill any prospect of the UUP being the largest Unionist party: the two are separate parties as we are constantly told, so they will be two separate Assembly Parties.

So too may the Conservatives. Without an arrangement with the UUP for Assembly elections the local party would rightly expect to stand, and win a few seats. But the strength of the Conservative offer is that it brings so much more to local politics than money to a party (the UUP) whose financial fortunes are much diminished. Conservative electoral strength would be exposed before the benefit of the ‘win’ at Westminster (and even one seat other than North Down will be a win, so the bar is low). The Conservatives would lose momentum.

Conversely of course the arrangement for the General Election will mean that the Conservatives who might get elected in Northern Ireland will be fully taking the Conservative whip as part of that Party, while the UUP will be taking the whip by agreement. So if, and only by example, the UUP/Con arrangement delivers four seats and two of those are Conservative it means the UUP has in effect only two seats at Westminster. Influence with the Conservative Party is thus diminished, and independence constrained by taking the Conservative Whip. Added to which the UUP has provided an electoral base for the Conservatives to make further gains in the next elections on the calendar (Assembly), and in much better shape to eat into the UUP vote than if it had no Westmnister seats in Northern Ireland. This further dmininishes UUP ambitions of regaining ground to the DUP as the largest Assembly Party.

If Westminster elections are first, in the context of a hung Parliament the two main unionist parties would be in a much stronger position with no pre-agreement with the Conservative Party. Obligations generated prior to the election severely restrain the capacity for the unionist parties to play their best hand.

It is hard to see how strategists within the DUP would not have anticipated these scenarios, or that the UUP could be so detached as to not even think about them.

Which is why any notion of talks at Hatfield being on ‘unity’ needs to be treated with caution. There can be no doubt that the Conservatives as a Party would have been fishing for DUP ideas on the future and specifically for indicators on what would happen in the event of a hung Parliament. The DUP would be similarly probing the Conservatives. The only thing on the Conservative leadership’s mind at the moment is ‘seats’. This gives the unionist parties a strong position prior to the election, or it would if the UUP was not already tied to the Conservatives.

All this speculation centres on considerations of electoral mathematics that only the timings/outcomes of the elections will prove. If a Westminster election is first, and if the Conservatives gain a majority of anything over 30 then both unionist parties will be largely irrelevant, and Northern Ireland as far down the agenda as events will allow. Which means short-term interest may be Westminster, but for Unionism there must be greater focus on Stormont.

That brings us to wider speculation of other talks and fevered speculation on any perceived signals that build on this story. Within the context of all of the above, a merger of the UUP and DUP is by far the more likely and electorally sensible in terms of unionist ‘unity’, particularly in respect of the Assembly elections.  The same sort of issues arise. This would have to be a merger and not a pact, because it is about Party and not political designation in d’Hondt. It is the largest Party that takes the First Minister role.  Something less would be enough to extract maximum value from a hung Parliament, where ten to twelve Unionist seats represent the difference. Timing will be everything.

There is a definite sense that something is stirring among unionists in Northern Ireland. It may be an interesting political Spring. Will it be a new Spring for Unionism?