Northern Ireland Devolution Talks STILL Ongoing.

After a marathon 10 day session negotiations are continuing over the devolution of policing and justice powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly. A widely anticipated breakthrough on Monday (01/02) failed to materialise after Unionist Assembly members rejected a deal that had been agreed by Democratic Unionist Party negotiators on their behalf.

Although my access to the negotiations is poor to none and the Unionist rejection was done by secret ballot I think it is fair to say that an agreement is being held up by other Unionist factions like the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the United Unionist Assembly Party (UUAP). Rather then being done because of any legitimate problem with the agreement this seems to be an attempt to stall the process in order to allow the Unionists to play for time. The hope is that if devolution can be delayed long enough it will allow the Unionist parties time to re-organise into a uniform Unionist block and force an assembly election that this Unionist block will dominate and use to secure a majority in the assembly. Coupled with an expected Conservative government in Westminster come June a Unionist majority in the Assembly is more then likely to permanently block the devolution of police and justice powers and roll back other aspects of devolution. This is made more likely by the fact that in the event of a hung Parliament in Westminster Unionist MP's would be the second choice kingmakers in a coalition government.

With the Unionist parties behaving like that if I was Sinn Fein I would let the Orange Order have their silly little marches in order to get a deal done. However as with everything else in Northern Irish politics it's sadly not going to be that simple.