Three years on from the collapse of the Northern Ireland Executive m prompted by the RHI scandal, a power sharing government has returned to Stormont on the back of a deal that promises a ‘new approach’. Alan Whysall analyses the new deal, how it might work in practice and what pitfalls might await the new ministerial team.

We have devolved government in Northern Ireland once more, with a new political deal, New Decade, New Approach. This is a cause for real hope, responding to the public mood, and the politics dictate it must operate for the moment. Many of the underpinnings are, however, fragile. Government and politics need to operate differently if they are to succeed in the longer term.

The last thousand days

Government in Northern Ireland has been in abeyance for three years. In early 2017, one of the two main parties, Sinn Féin, withdrew over the involvement of the other, the DUP, in a mismanaged sustainable energy scheme, the Renewable Heat Incentive. Beneath the surface were other tensions, notably around respect for Irish identity – crystallised latterly in demands from Sinn Féin and others for an Irish Language Act. Division between the parties was sharpened by Brexit, which the DUP favoured but others did not; and later by its Westminster alliance with the May government. 

While devolution operated, parties in government had moderated their language. Once it collapsed, rhetoric, and feeling in parts of the community, became hardened and polarised, reminiscent of the atmosphere before the Good Friday Agreement. The British government, under uninspiring Secretaries of State and writhing in its Brexit agonies, incurred universal mistrust. Relations between London and Dublin became tense. The prospect of Irish unity through a border poll – which the Agreement makes in principle a matter for simple majorities in both parts of Ireland – featured increasingly in Sinn Féin’s approach, and appeared from opinion polling to be growing closer. Paramilitaries on both sides saw opportunities in the political vacuum; last spring dissident Republicans, seeking to kill police officers, murdered a journalist, Lyra McKee.

There was at first remarkable equanimity over the extraordinary situation of Northern Ireland being left without government, beyond civil servants minding the shop. The British government hesitated to impose direct rule, as in the past; its dependence on the DUP would have made such a step destabilising. 

A report late last year by the new Northern Ireland think tank Pivotal shows how seriously Northern Ireland has suffered from inattention to its grave economic and social problems, under devolution and since. (more…)

As was the case last year, 2019 has been a fascinating time to be writing about the UK constitution, its institutions and those involved in working within them. As the year draws to a close, blog editor Dave Busfield-Birch offers a roundup of the blog year just gone, as well as a look at the reach of the blog through the lens of its readership statistics. 

2019 has been a year of constitutional flux and tension, with a new Prime Minister, a new Brexit deal and a new parliament, with a significant number of new MPs. The blog has benefited both in terms of increased general interest as a result, but also because there are niche topics being discussed in public now that would have generated little interest in other years. Few, for example, would have predicted in June 2016 that prorogation of parliament would be a hot topic and pose a constitutional dilemma that only the Supreme Court could solve.

Below are our most popular blogs from the past year, which follow a personal selection from me, at the end of my second year as blog editor.

Editor’s picks by category

Brexit

Brexit and the constitution: seven lessons, by Jack Simson Caird.

Written back in June, but still relevant today, the Bingham Centre’s Jack Simson Caird discussed how the process of exiting the European Union has revealed that the relationship between law and politics was perhaps not as sound as it might once have appeared, and what lessons that had to teach us.

Parliament

Leaving the European Union, leaving the Palace of Westminster: Brexit and the Restoration and Renewal Programme, by Alexandra Meakin.

This may well have been the post that I found most fascinating this year (in a very tight contest). Alexandra Meakin (now Dr Meakin — many congratulations) discusses the relationship between the UK’s upcoming departure from the EU and the plans for MPs and peers to temporarily move out of the Palace of Westminster. Her analysis shows that there is a correlation between an MP’s stance on Brexit and their position on how best to handle the restoration and renewal programme.

I also want to offer a special mention to the trilogy of articles on the role of parliamentary legal advisers and the desirability of publishing their advice, which you can read here, here and here. They make fascinating reading, despite (in the case of the first two) coming to oppposite final conclusions.

Elections, referendums and democratic engagement

Is there an app for that? Voter information in the event of a snap election, by Joe Mitchell.

Digital technology has transformed the way we access information and interact with services. Democratic services have not kept up, risking a situation where democracy is seen as out of date. Joe Mitchell argues that it’s time to dream big: the UK has an opportunity to create a new digital-first office of civic education and democratic information, to restore trust and grow public understanding of our democracy. (more…)

The latest issue of Monitor, the Constitution Unit’s regular newsletter, was published today. Since the previous issue was published in March, we have had two Brexit extensions, two — the first two — recalled MPs, multiple inquiries into the functioning of parliament and its members, and two party leadership resignations, one of which means that we will almost certainly have a new Prime Minister before the end of July. If the constitution was ‘in flux’ when Monitor 68 was published the previous March, then it must now be acknowledged that the ordinary logic of British politics has been changed — perhaps permanently — by the events that have flowed from the 2016 Brexit referendum. Here, Meg Russell and Alan Renwick review the last four months of constitutional events in what is also the lead article from Monitor 72. The full edition can be found here.

The Brexit tumult goes on, and is increasingly challenging some central tenets of British politics.

Having been due to leave the European Union on 29 March, the UK will now remain until at least 31 October. Right up to the original deadline, the government was making frenetic efforts to negotiate addenda to the Withdrawal Agreement (see page 2), but it could not gain concessions adequate to persuade MPs to accept the deal (see page 4). Extensions were agreed, first just for two weeks, then for seven months. A key obstacle is fragmentation on the government side, with Conservative MPs (mostly those who are pro-Brexit) refusing to compromise. With great reluctance, the Prime Minister ultimately turned to seeking a pact with the Labour Party – a distinctly un-British approach whose necessity her European partners had apparently seen long before she did. But, with the pressure of an immediate deadline gone, and with looming European Parliament elections that she had never wanted to hold, the perilous politics of a cross-party deal proved unnavigable. Following her promise that a proposed Withdrawal Agreement Bill would include a referendum clause, Theresa May’s cross-party flirtations sufficiently infuriated sections of her party that she was eventually forced to acknowledge defeat. On 24 May she announced her intention to step down, triggering a contest for the leadership of the Conservative Party and (very likely) for the country.

Throughout these months of tumult the role of parliament has been central, and hotly contested. The 2016 referendum initiated such tension, by pitting popular sovereignty against the conventional logic of parliamentary sovereignty. Most recently there has been a long battle of wills between government and parliament. A key argument (see page 4) has concerned parliament’s ability to control its own agenda, with initiatives from backbenchers firmly backed up by the Commons Speaker. While these had mixed success, many MPs are clearly now willing to use all the powers they possess to prevent an outcome they believe would be deeply damaging to the country. (more…)

On 23 May, the UK participated in elections to the European Parliament. Now that we know who our MEPs are going to be, the question becomes: with the UK currently set to leave the EU on 31 October, what can they actually do? Simon Usherwood explains how the UK’s new MEPs can influence control of both the Parliament and the European Commission, and discusses the potential political consequences of exercising their legal authority.

In all of the hubbub around the European elections, the small matter of what the 73 individuals elected to serve as the UK’s Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) will actually do has been somewhat overlooked.

With that in mind, it’s useful to consider what MEPs do in both general terms and more specifically on Brexit, as well as the tension between political understandings and legal rights.

A quick refresher

The European Parliament’s role in the EU is to represent the popular will, in both making decisions and providing scrutiny of the work of the rest of the organisation. It does that on the basis of being composed of directly elected members and from the powers given to it by the treaties that underpin the EU as a whole.

This role comprises a number of different elements, each involving the 751 MEPs either as a whole or in representative sub-groupings.

The most substantial element is that of being co-legislator. Under the EU’s Ordinary Legislative Procedure – which covers most areas of EU decision-making, as the name implies – the Parliament has to agree with the Council of the EU – made up of ministers from the member states – on a piece of legislation in order for it to pass. The EP thus has not only a say, but also a veto, on most EU legislation including matters relating to the budget; and in the other cases it usually has at least some rights of consultation.

The second element is that of oversight. The Parliament’s various committees can summon officials and politicians from the other institutions of the EU to appear before them to answer questions about their conduct. Those committees can then produce reports that highlight issues and which can often force problems onto the agenda for action. In extremis, the Parliament has the power to seek the resignation of the entire Commission, the threat of which in 1999 brought about the early end of the Santer Commission. (more…)

Last week, voters across the UK (and indeed, across the European Union) took part in the European Parliament elections. Now that we know the outcome, Alan Renwick examines the impact on the results of both the rules that governed the election and the strategies of the parties.

The European elections raised important questions about how the voting system – and parties’ and voters’ reactions to it – might influence the results. Would the imperfect proportionality of the system harm the smaller parties? Should those parties – particularly the three Britain-wide anti-Brexit parties – have formed an alliance? Could voters maximise the impact of their ballots through tactical voting? Now that the results are in, it is time to take stock.

The impact of the rules

As I set out in an earlier post, European Parliament elections in Great Britain use a list-based system of proportional representation (while those in Northern Ireland use Single Transferable vote, or STV). This system is proportional, but not very. The D’Hondt formula for allocating seats favours larger parties. So does the fact that the number of seats available in each region (ranging from three in the North East of England to ten in the South East) is fairly low.

The results would certainly have been different had the elections been held using First Past the Post, as was the case for European elections in Great Britain before 1999. This system, still used for Westminster elections, awards a seat to the largest party in each constituency. Had voters cast the same votes as they did on Thursday, the Brexit Party would under First Past the Post have won almost every seat in England and Wales outside London and the Home Counties; the Liberal Democrats and Labour would have dominated in London and parts of its environs; the SNP would have captured every seat in Scotland; and the Conservatives would have been wiped out. In fact, many voters would not have cast the same votes as they did. For example, the anti-Brexit parties could probably have agreed joint candidates much more easily than under the actual system, helping them to secure some extra seats. But the Brexit Party would very likely still have scooped up most seats on less than a third of the vote. (more…)