‘Growing suspicion’ within grassroots unionism over Assembly reform – Foster

There is “growing suspicion” within grassroots unionism in Northern Ireland around reform of the Stormont Assembly, according to a former first minister.

Baroness Arlene Foster sounded the warning while giving evidence to the Assembly and Executive Review Committee as part of its ongoing review into institutional reform.

There have been calls from some quarters for reform of the Assembly following recent political collapses between 2017-2020 and 2022-2024.

The Stormont Assembly and Executive were set up following the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, while some changes were delivered to how the mechanisms work following the St Andrew’s Agreement.

Reform of the petition of concern is among the most popular calls.

It is a safeguard mechanism which requires the backing of at least 30 MLAs to force a cross-community vote rather than a simple majority on an issue, but some parties have been accused of abusing it.

Lady Foster told MLAs there must be clear cross-community support for any reform.

The former DUP leader, who described herself as now an “unaligned unionist”, cautioned that there is a “growing suspicion” from grassroots unionism around reform.

She said there is a view that the “language of reform is being deployed not to improve governance, but to tilt the constitutional balance or indeed marginalise one tradition following election results”.

“Whether or not that perception is fair, it exists, and in Northern Ireland perception has real political consequences,” she told MLAs.

“So reform can’t be something that is done to one section of the community, it must be something that is agreed in a broad consensus.

“If mechanisms such as cross-community safeguards are only to operate in a way that benefits one community then we must question the entire basis of people giving their support to the arrangements that have been in place since 1998, and amended by the St Andrew’s Agreement in 2006.”

Former deputy first minister Mark Durkan also gave evidence to the committee on Tuesday morning.

Mr Durkan, who had been involved in the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement negotiations, said he hoped some of the mechanisms would be “biodegradable”, and might fall away as the environment changed.

He said he wants to see reform, describing the current structures as having seen everyone’s mandate frustrated with various collapses of the institutions over the years.

“The structures that we negotiated in 1998 were such that people weren’t supposed to be able to vet or veto anybody else being able to take a position according to their mandate,” Mr Durkan said.

“But particularly courtesy of the St Andrew’s Agreement, we have ended up in a situation where people have been able to veto everybody else’s mandate, so structures that were designed to stop any one party’s mandate being discriminated against have ended up in a situation where we have had everybody’s mandate actually frustrated, and the Assembly itself grounded.”

Turning to the posts of first minister and deputy first minister, Mr Durkan suggested a change of titles to reflect that it is a joint office.

“Essentially that language was there because one of the parties that was in the negotiation of the agreement would only agree to the joint office if there was a differential in the titles, but the fact is the office was fully designed to be absolutely consubstantial,” he said.

“It is meant to be a joint office, I do think the titles should be equalised, perhaps more importantly I would commend the idea of reverting to that joint office being subject to election by the Assembly itself.

“It was very deliberate in the agreement that that joint office was to be subject to open nominations, any two MLAs could be nominated, it did not specify that it had to be a unionist, and a nationalist, any two could be nominated.”

Mr Durkan added: “The biggest strength there would be to restore the primacy that was intended for the Assembly.

“That sense of the primacy of the Assembly is something that has decayed over the years.”