Stormont resignation signals time for Socialist Republic
At 4.30PM today the DUP’s Paul Givan, ‘First Minister’ of the failed Six County statelet, attended a press conference in the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Belfast and formally resigned his seat. His departure ejects ‘Deputy First Minister’ Michelle O’Neill from her joint role as well, effectively halting all government business for the Stormont regime until the roles are re-nominated.
The massive face-saving exercise was delivered initially by a pathetic Paul Givan choking back tears as press and photographers jostled for position, followed up by a DUP conference featuring party heavyweight Jeffrey Donaldson who, noting their strategy and reasoning, blamed everything on the ‘Northern Ireland Protocol’.
Among the concerns noted by Donaldson were the supposed rising costs for consumers in the Six Counties, an issue his party didn’t seem to have when it came to the public millions lost through the massively fraudulent RHI scheme and other Stormont debacles such as Red Sky.
What is clear however, is that a looming election in the Six Counties is likely to bring the DUP’s world to a sudden crashing halt. The impending car crash will no doubt eject multiples of their MLA’s from their Stormont teams, alongside advisors, workers and support staff if the most recent polling is to be believed.
The writing is on the wall for the Irish language hating ‘Democratic’ Unionists and rather an abrupt and crashing halt, a controlled collision within the context of supposed opposition to the ‘NI Protocol’ will no doubt allow the DUP to slow their hemorrhaging of support from the Loyalist and Unionist community.
Sinn Féin also held a press conference today in response to the unfolding events, this time in Belfast’s Europa Hotel. Mary Lou McDonald, flanked by Michelle O’Neill and Conor Murphy, delivered their message to the assembled press; in short, ‘we want an election and we want one now’.
Sinn Féin have had their eyes on the big seat for a period of time now. It is expected that in the coming election they will become the biggest party in the Six County executive, allowing them to nominate a ‘First Minister’ into the role. Due to the nature of the Stormont regime and the workings of its remit as underpinned in the ‘Good Friday Agreement’, this means absolutely nothing beyond the acquisition of a title for the party. The ‘First’ and ‘Deputy First Minister’ roles are a joint office, with equal footing, and a position that Sinn Féin have held for several years already.
A Sinn Féin ‘led’ Stormont executive will bring no qualitative change for the people of the Six Counties. Given the neo-liberal, public-sector-redundancy economics of Sinn Féin, it will be business as usual for the capitalists in our midst. How do we know this? Because Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty, the party finance spokesperson in the Twenty Six Counties, told us so when he said, “Big business and investors know Sinn Féin won’t go after them”.
Indeed, in recent months Standard & Poor’s (S&P), the main analyst on the creditworthiness of the Twenty Six county state said that the state’s “business friendly” economic model and “strong institutions” should remain intact through any government changes, when asked if they saw a Sinn Féin-led government posing a negative risk to the country’s credit rating. S&P’s “base case assumption” is that the Republic’s openness to trade, flexible labour market and commitment to put its high public debt levels “on a downward trajectory” will remain in place “regardless of the election outcome”. Big business and those that are profiting us out of our homes are not afraid of a Sinn Féin government.
Our rents will keep rising, our energy bills will continue to soar, our food costs will escalate alongside them, and real-term wages will continue to go in the other direction.
In short, this latest ‘crisis’, strategically created within the headquarters of the Democratic Unionist Party, is simply another bump in the long and winding road that is Stormont. A road that, if the past is anything to go by, will be littered with bumps and pot-holes along the way so long as Stormont continues to exist. You cannot build institutions upon the foundations of a sectarian headcount in order to ensure the continued existence of the failed Six County statelet.
The DUP can’t deliver.
Sinn Féin can’t deliver.
Stormont can’t deliver.
Only a 32 County Socialist Republic can bring about the desired change that we all so desperately need.
