Sinn Féin and DUP say you wreck my bill, I wreck yours |
SINN Féin and the DUP have begun openly sabotaging each other’s legislation.
The DUP denies it is trying to sink Sinn Féin’s Good Jobs Bill by holding it up for discussions in the Executive.
There are some issues with the Bill and the DUP has been under pressure from business organisations to address them. Sinn Féin implicitly accepted this last Friday when it watered down one of the Bill’s provisions.
Nevertheless, discussing it in the Executive instead of referring it to the Assembly, as expected at this stage of the legislative process, makes it possible the Bill will run out of time and fall before next May’s election.
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Sinn Féin has responded by attacking the DUP’s Education Bill for supposedly removing teachers’ rights to strike.
In reality, the Bill merely outlaws obstructing a school inspection, an offence everywhere else in the UK and Ireland.
The DUP had already watered this down at Sinn Féin’s request so that teachers will never face fines or a conviction, only professional sanctions. Sinn Féin had accepted this, so its sudden outrage was blatant tit-for-tat.
Both Bills are central to both parties’ programmes in office. Trying to wreck them indicates rapidly deteriorating relationships within the Executive.
Things could not spiral down much further without bringing all business to a halt.
However, that is likelier to involve deadlock than a walk-out, as New Decade, New Approach rule changes mean it now takes six months for a walk-out to cause a collapse.
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Sinn Féin may be misjudging public opinion in its battles within the Executive.
The party clearly believes most of its supporters and the population in general will be naturally outraged by the idea of limiting teachers’ scope for industrial action, or of not giving workers more rights and trade unions more power.
But there may be scant public sympathy for disrupting children’s education. The damage from lockdown is still raw in many parents’ minds.
Northern Ireland’s five teaching unions........