Feeney: renegotiation is inevitable

Brian Feeney looks at the wider scenario and suggests that no matter how elections turn out in May there will be no First and Deputy First Minister or an Executive until the Belfast Agreement is subject to the re-negotiation process required by the current demands of the DUP and the Donaldson faction of the UUP.

He believes that the Agreement, as it stands, no longer has any effective support in any of the Unionist parties. Consequently there will be no acts of completion from the IRA this side of the scheduled May elections.

“Just suppose there are elections in May following some republican act of completion. The DUP will be fighting an election on the simple demand for re-negotiation. The UUP message will be a dog’s dinner and its candidates in disarray, though watch Trimble under pressure from Donaldson edge towards the DUP on re-negotiation.”

“Will a new assembly elect an executive? No. The reason is very simple. If you look at the UUP candidates selected, you’ll see Trimble could not deliver unionist consent in a new assembly any more than he can at present. Instead, a malign combination of the DUP and UUP dissidents will control unionist consent.”

We are reader supported. Donate to keep Slugger lit!

For over 20 years, Slugger has been an independent place for debate and new ideas. We have published over 40,000 posts and over one and a half million comments on the site. Each month we have over 70,000 readers. All this we have accomplished with only volunteers we have never had any paid staff.

Slugger does not receive any funding, and we respect our readers, so we will never run intrusive ads or sponsored posts. Instead, we are reader-supported. Help us keep Slugger independent by becoming a friend of Slugger. While we run a tight ship and no one gets paid to write, we need money to help us cover our costs.

If you like what we do, we are asking you to consider giving a monthly donation of any amount, or you can give a one-off donation. Any amount is appreciated.