The 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement won't be a cause of celebration for everyone, particularly within unionism.
WHILE THE 25TH anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement is a cause for celebration for many, there are some in the North who won’t be celebrating this milestone.
Support for the Agreement has also sharply dropped within the Ulster Unionist Party, whose party leader at the time David Trimble campaigned in favour of the ‘yes’ vote.Jon Tonge, British and Irish politics professor at the University of Liverpool, notes that unionist support for the deal has always been “fragile”.
“So the DUP will not celebrate the Good Friday Agreement, because they viewed it as morally expedient and politically expedient, as it let prisoners out.” “The DUP would argue that it showed that violence does pay and can pay political dividends, and so it’s not an agreement that should be celebrated and certainly not celebrated unconditionally.
Tonge said other reasons for opposition was that unionists “didn’t want Sinn Féin in government and they felt that decommissioning was fudged”. “Remember that Jeffrey Donaldson and Arlene Foster were big hitters within the UUP at the time and were against the deal.Tonge said there is still “unionist scepticism” to the Agreement because “they don’t feel that there’s been a great peace dividend from it”.
Tonge said that unionists are also wrestling with the idea that “there’s likely to be a border poll at some point, and possibly a United Ireland at some stage, so they feel on the defensive”. However, the Stormont Assembly has been dissolved since February 2022 due to DUP opposition of the Northern Ireland protocol.Stormont was also dissolved for three years between 2017 and 2020, a world record for a regional assembly; “It’s not the greatest thing to trumpet,” said Tonge.
“The British government’s approach has always been, ‘just give them more time to sort things out’. But the issue for the DUP now is that when they go back to Stormont, it will be in reduced circumstances. Another reform Tonge said should be considered is allowing the next largest party to govern if a leading party doesn’t want to take part in Stormont.
Tonge notes that Alliance, which designates as “other” and is the third largest party, is “chomping at the bit to reform”.“But Alliance, even had they came in second place at the election, couldn’t have nominated a Deputy First Minister because it has to be from the unionist designation. “Look at Iraq, Lebanon, Bosnia, Belgium, they have all got problems forming a government, where you’ve got different ethnic groups.Tonge said that the “political will” to make the institutions work has too often been lacking.
“And at the top, if there’s still plenty of hostility between unionists and nationalists within Stormont, to the point where sometimes the institutions don’t function at all, why shouldn’t the grassroots take their lead from that.” Tonge also said the DUP isn’t committed to power sharing because it is no longer the largest party in Stormont.
However, a change in 2022 now means that petitions can only be triggered by members of two or more parties. But after the most recent election, the DUP only has 25 MLAs and would require the support of others to lodge a petition. “So winning those people back round to approving power sharing and the political institutions associated with the Good Friday Agreement is difficult.
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