I’ll be exceptionally blunt in this post (some may be pleased to hear). Carla Lockhart and now Diane Forsythe want Michelle O’Neill removed as First Minister. Whilst unionist anger over Drumcree is real, as I argued on Nolan yesterday, neither of these two are minding the road.
At the weekend Carla Lockhart told the crowd: “Michelle O’Neill must go…” and “this lady is not for turning.” Both famous lines borrowed from the dim and distant past. One from Ian Paisley when he had a rising movement behind him.
The other was Margaret Thatcher in 1980, with a Commons majority at her back. Each spoke then from a position of relative strength. The borrowing of old words from the past is no sin, but truthfully anti Agreement unionism is weaker now than it has ever been.
But Lockhart is only answering the easiest question that unionists can ask, ie whether O’Neill deserves to be First Minister (I must say my own personal confidence waivers considerably), rather than the much harder one: what would removing her cost?
So, as if to prove the point, to remove O’Neill the DUP would have to withdraw Emma Little-Pengelly as deputy First Minister. That would take O’Neill out with her, but it also stops the Executive, exactly as the still Anti Agreement TUV wants.
If it were done now as Lockhart, Forsyth (and Jim Allister) are all commanding, Assembly parties would then have up to 24 weeks to renominate before an election is forced. That runs almost to polling day on 6 May.
However, no Executive means no budget, and the penalty for that would hit twice over. Firstly departments would be held to 95% of their current spending, which means a real-terms cut in services already under strain.
And, as the SDLP’s Matthew O’Toole has warned repeatedly on social media and the mainstream, Northern Ireland would miss out on any boost to the Barnett consequential from today’s UK Budget, since no Executive could allocate the money.
If you take an intelligent unionist view any budget failure currently belongs to the Sinn Féin Finance Minister. But if the DUP is daft enough to pull the deputy First Minister this fiscal screw up will belong almost entirely to the DUP.
And for what? By every poll this year Sinn Féin is still the largest party. If O’Neill goes now, she will walk back in as First Minister in May (the same cannot be said even about Emma Little Pengelly’s attempt to actually get elected in Lagan Valley).
In addition, the DUP would pay an extra penalty for the frozen budgets and lost money over a gesture the nationalist electorate is an odds on certainty to reverse just six months later. This most pointless of gestures won’t even open the Garvaghy road.
Gavin Robinson knows this, which is presumably why he’s holding the line against a tiny minority unionist party (the TUV) that has nothing to lose. Robinson’s choice is between a cul-de-sac from which he knows there’s no exit or the more open road of government.
Sinn Féin’s poll numbers slipped from 29% in 2022 to 22% in July, but this TUV-powered row could give it momentum right up to the May elections. If the DUP cowpe, and government collapses, the only issue in the news will be one that unionism cannot win.
Of course most voters won’t follow the mechanics of a stalled budget. But they will feel a 95% budget and new money stranded in London. And in those circumstances only the DUP would get the blame rather than the party which is failing (yet again) to set one.
Robinson’s problem is that some colleagues are listening to the TUV, a party which is big on nostalgia and short on solutions, more than him. But as noted on Monday a unionist leader who puts culture above the wellbeing of NI will pay heavy price for such recklessness.
Lockhart, camped out on a cold lonely rock all of her own, has come up with the “genius” idea of asking Robinson and her own party to pay the whole bill. But it’s the pressure from Burrows and the broader middle to which he and his party should pay most attention.
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
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