Local Government in Northern Ireland is in essence little more than selecting people to ‘manage’ \u00a0bin collections, burying the dead, providing leisure facilities, issuing fines for dog fouling and litter, and planning; maybe some other bits and pieces, but few notice or care. No surprise that reporting by the local media rarely focuses on local government performance. Instead it continues on report crudely through in the prism of constitutional division and sectarian headcount.<\/p>\n
The recent May election<\/a> was no different.<\/p>\n Sinn Fein is now the Party with the largest number of Councillors in local government in Northern Ireland. To read or listen to some of the press and commentariat anyone would be forgiven for thinking that meant it had won a majority of all seats. It did not. It did hoover up a bit more of the nationalist aligned \u2018independent\u2019 vote and captured quite a bit of the SDLP electorate.<\/p>\n In an election where the vote can generally be relied upon to be higher than other parts of the UK, Sinn Fein still managed to get its vote out. The grievance this time was that those nasty Unionists were stopping Michelle O\u2019Neill from becoming joint First Minister in Northern Ireland. Nothing to do with local government, and not true, but that didn\u2019t seem to matter.<\/p>\n Hardly surprising, when for weeks preceding the election all focus was on why the DUP wasn\u2019t restoring the Executive at Stormont and getting \u2018back to work\u2019! In all this there was absolutely no focus on Unionist objections to the Northern Ireland Protocol, part of the UK\u2019s Withdrawal Agreement with the EU. It was all about the DUP \u2018having\u2019 to go back to the Executive, enabling the Assembly to get back up and running. Just because.<\/p>\n It is a fact that the DUP is the stumbling block to the restoration of the Stormont Assembly and Executive. It has every good reason not to return to Stormont until issues with the Northern Ireland Protocol are satisfactorily addressed.<\/p>\n There are a range of reasons being given as to why the DUP ought to enable the restoration of the Stormont institutions though, other than the DUP itself, few commentators or media seem to believe issues around the Northern Ireland Protocol are at the centre of this obstinacy.<\/p>\n Starting with the immediate aftermath of the local government elections, the first reason provided by commentators is that the TUV gained only a few additional councillors and the overall TUV vote fell from the 2022 Assembly election. It was fear of the TUV that made the DUP \u2018hard-line, apparently. Therefore with the TUV \u2018beaten\u2019 the DUP could more easily consider a return to Stormont, we were told.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. \u00a0The DUP has seen off the threat of the TUV<\/strong><\/p>\n Not quite. In the previous local government election, the TUV gained a number of seats in Mid & East Antrim and North Down & Ards Councils. In the recent election, the Party lost its seats in a constituency with the one of the lowest turnouts in Northern Ireland, North Down & Ards, despite being close \u2013 same as with the Assembly, it is not transfer friendly. However, in the council election the TUV gained its first seats in Belfast<\/em>, Causeway Coast & Glens<\/em> and Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon<\/em> Councils. That seems as if it has broadened its electoral base into far a greater number and more \u2018traditional\u2019 Unionist areas than previously. If the councillors\u2019 elected can use their positions to gain profile, this offers a far greater threat to the DUP than before. The TUV \u2018threat\u2019 still lurks, menacingly. Jim Alister retains the ability to hold the DUP\u2019s feet to the fire.<\/p>\n 2. \u00a0The Windsor Framework resolves the issues of the NI Protocol. <\/strong><\/p>\n No, it doesn\u2019t. The Windsor Framework is simply an agreement on how to implement the NI Protocol. The NI Protocol will start to be fully implemented this Autumn, as agreed, unless it isn\u2019t. The only pressure on the Conservative Government and possibly the EU (though the EU doesn\u2019t seem to have cared, as the Irish Government has cheered it on) is that the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) is seen to be broken if the Stormont Assembly isn\u2019t up and running.<\/p>\n It is clear, as articulated by Jeffrey Donaldson in the House of Commons<\/a>, that the border in the Irish Sea is no more acceptable to Unionists than a border along the EU\u2019s land border would be to nationalism. Without that being accepted, the GFA is meaningless and a principal plank on which the Northern Ireland Protocol was founded to achieve is actually as unachievable as the Protocol is unworkable.<\/p>\n Unionists are unlikely to start talking about the \u2018spirit of the Protocol\u2019, to believe in something that isn’t reality, in the same way many (nationalism) talk of the \u2018spirit of the Good Friday Agreement\u2019, inferred, the reality of a promise of gold at the end of an Irish rainbow.<\/p>\n In the wave of optimism and fine words after the Rishi and Ursula show of unity at Windsor, the fog thickens around what is actually going to happen as the Protocol tightens this Autumn 2023. Previously supportive national supermarket retailers have been scathing<\/a>. Parcel rules will become an unwelcome bureaucracy<\/a> within the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n When the Protocol was first enacted, the process for sending goods into Northern Ireland was so unworkable that around 80% of goods that should have been within the Protocol were under \u2018grace periods\u2019 ie largely exempt from the Protocol arrangements. Of the rest, there were still major issues around the bureaucracy mostly on level of form-filling required. What the Windsor Framework has done is reduce the number of boxes to be ticked to around 20% of what was required previously.<\/p>\n Not mentioned is that that the 80% of goods that were previously exempt will now be back under the unworkable scheme. Maybe in some management consultancy world the reduction of the number of boxes to be ticked makes what was previously unworkable magically seamlessly streamlined and efficient, that the added bureaucracy and cost across the board is \u2018an improvement\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n To people with common sense, fewer boxes to tick doesn\u2019t sound like much of a solution to an unworkable process.<\/span><\/p>\n DEFRA’s advice to companies about what the Windsor Framework means for the Irish Sea border: Register for NIRMS, proving you are a UK FBO. You then will complete a GC for EHCs. As with STAMNI, use the CHOP system. DAERA will check your CHEDS & CHIPS… pic.twitter.com\/ixFXzVvSf3<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Sam McBride (@SJAMcBride) July 31, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n