Foyle MP MARK DURKAN says his comments in a speech in Oxford last week have been misquoted and misrepresented, and he certainly did not call for an end to power-sharing.
For anyone who read or heard my recent speech in Oxford to say that I have called for an end to power-sharing is a wilful lie.
My speech was a robust defence of the Good Friday Agreement’s power-sharing structures of democratic inclusion. I spelled out why the right of all parties to be included in government according to their mandate was at the core of the Agreement and why its rules must be adhered to.
It is actually Sinn Fein who, while misrepresenting me, are planning to abandon and subvert the Agreement’s power-sharing rules. Perhaps it is another example of a “big lie” from Sinn Fein to distract from the reality of their conniving to by-pass the d’Hondt principle in the appointment of a Justice Minister.
More than anyone else, I wrote and negotiated Ministers appointed by d’Hondt into the Agreement. Sinn Fein offered nothing in those talks on inclusive government except to snipe at the SDLP – inside and outside – for even advocating power-sharing. As reluctant late-comers to power-sharing they have no right to pose as its champions. Especially, just as they are about to collude with the DUP to breach it.
I have consistently rejected all demands, offers or arguments for voluntary coalition in Northern Ireland during the Agreement’s negotiations and since. I still do.
Far from advocating any departure from the inclusion rules of the Agreement, the SDLP and I have resisted the attempts by others to do so at Leeds Castle, in the so-called “Comprehensive Agreement” in December 2004 and in the documents and draft legislation in the whole run-up to St Andrews.
In all of these Sinn Fein and the DUP agreed that the law would be changed to exclude from ministerial office any party who did not vote for them as First and Deputy First Ministers. Under the open inclusion of the Agreement, the DUP and Sinn Fein supplied ministers even though they voted against or abstained in the vote for First and Deputy First Minister.
The democratic inclusion principle in the Agreement is that parties are entitled to office according to their own mandate. But they, with the two governments, were prepared to insist that the UUP and SDLP could only take office if they submitted their mandate to Sinn Fein and the DUP – no longer by our own mandates. Peter Hain produced draft legislation to this effect and it was only the SDLP’s negotiation with the DUP which stopped it.
During our challenges to this new anti-agreement exclusion law we were told “everywhere else (eg the South, Scotland, Wales and the continent) you can only be in government if you vote confidence in the head of government”. To which we pointed out that they were arguing for the essence of voluntary coalition and majority rule as operated “everywhere else”.
Abuse and misrepresentation
Those who are abusing and misrepresenting me for something I have not argued for or hinted at have, meanwhile, applauded or ignored these cynical attempts to breach what they mistakenly call “mandatory coalition” in favour of a form of voluntary coalition.
Similarly, they seem to be supportive of the current moves by Sinn Fein and the DUP to breach the Agreement by ensuring that there will be a Departmental Minister appointed not by d’Hondt but those two parties’ grace and favour. This departure from the Agreement allows a blatant act of political discrimination against the SDLP, denying us the 11th ministry which the d’Hondt rule would give us.
For Sinn Fein their “No d’Hondt” deal with the DUP is about denying the SDLP a democratic entitlement under the Agreement. If people’s own prejudice against my party makes them complacent about that, then maybe they should consider the DUP’s motives in this.
For the DUP the “No d’Hondt” rule for the Justice Ministry will apply not just to the appointment of the first devolved minister. They are clear that the “not d’Hondt but cross-community vote” condition for appointing the minister will apply into the future. This is the means they will use to veto the appointment of a Sinn Fein minister in the next Assembly, and the next and so on.
Those now accusing me of lacking political nous do not seem to have the cop-on to see and expose this. They similarly failed to see that Sinn Fein conceded the “triple-lock” veto on the devolution of justice and policing into law before St Andrews, did not challenge it at St Andrews, and pretended it did not exist after St Andrews. With all my alleged “naivete” I, and the SDLP, challenged this veto throughout and predicted exactly the position that Sinn Fein and the DUP got to this summer.
If people compare my record with my critics, they will see that the SDLP and I are the rigorous defenders of power-sharing and the most vigilant against domination and veto by the leading unionist party.
In relation to designation [Each MLA is free to designate themselves as "nationalist", "unionist" or "other" as they see fit, the only requirement being that no member may change their designation more than once during an Assembly session - Ed note], I also explained and justified why this oft-questioned provision was in the Agreement. As the person who first drafted the designation paragraph and related points in the Agreement, I always defend its necessary inclusion in the Agreement on a number of grounds.
In both the negotiations and publicly during the referendum campaign, the SDLP and I expressed the hope that such arguably unseemly provisions would prove biodegradable as the political environment changed over time under the Agreement.
We also stated this during the Strand One Review, established in November 2001 to specifically consider the designation provisions. That Review, involving all parties and the two governments, reported a shared recognition by parties that aspects of designation and its effects would have to be reconsidered in a future Review. It also re-affirmed the need to allow key decisions to attract cross-community support and possibly adjusted in the future - but not then. The consensus on this included Sinn Fein.
In my speech I reflected some concern that the cross-community voting protections based on designation are currently being abused in order to stymie progress on more and more important issues. We only have to consider things like the Irish Language, education reform and The Maze to see this.
Old Stormont returning
I also showed that the DUP and Sinn Fein are happy to abuse cross-community requirements and their numbers to do their own questionable deals in Stormont Castle and then ram them through the Assembly in accelerated passage. We saw this with the flawed Bills on the four Victims and Survivors Commissioners and new local government boundaries. Decisions from Stormont Castle pushed through the Chamber with little or no meaningful say for opposition or those effected by them. This was a feature of the old Stormont that is now being allowed to return.
Such problems, along with concern that the Bill of Rights promised in the Agreement appears to be badly stuck, are surely matters of legitimate concern for a responsible democratic leader.
I did not call for an end to designation or dropping it in the vain hope of getting a Bill of Rights. What is so wrong about suggesting that those now opposing a meaningful Bill of Rights and those of us who want one “maybe …need to start thinking about how a sound Bill of Rights in Northern Ireland might offer more productive and articulate protection for all our rights in a new democratic society than vote-locks and tit-for-tat vetoes in perpetuity”?
For instance, in my view, if a Bill of Rights guaranteed the rights of Irish language speakers, the cross-community protection should not be allowed to frustrate their implementation - as is happening now.
Furthermore, I said “the possibilities for political realignment with new or changing party offerings in the future could be stunted by permanent reliance to the present degree on designation.” Again, no call for its immediate, early or complete removal
Sinn Fein and others have selectively misquoted and misrepresented this sentence.
“As we move towards a fully sealed and settled process we should be preparing to think about how and when to remove some of the ugly scaffolding needed during the construction of the new edifice”. Inclusive power-sharing, which I describe as the core of the Agreement, is clearly not scaffolding. But Sinn Fein are dangerously chipping away at it with the DUP.
That is a failure of leadership and a betrayal of nationalist and other democratic interests: not my asking that people “prepare to think” or “start thinking” about positive possibilities in the future.
Sinn Fein’s dishonest attack on me this week reminds me of the hysteria and venom with which they denounced the SDLP in the early months of 1998 for trying to put in place the very institutions and protections of the Agreement. They had done this before at the time of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. They did it again, in often sinister tones, when we took our places in the Policing Board and DPPs to deliver most of Patten before they eventually took theirs.
Sinn Fein have always attacked SDLP leads, only to follow them years later. They always misrepresent our ideas before misappropriating them.
As SDLP Leader, I will stand up with my party against the poor judgment and bad leadership of Sinn Fin and the DUP on these important issues for the future of Irish democracy.
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Thursday 09 February 2012
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