Unionist Politics
by Feargal Cochrane
Cork University Press 2001
On the evening of 14 July, the UUP executive met at its party headquarters
and decided (after a fifteen-minute discussion) not to participate in the
d'Hondt procedure to appoint ministers to a new power-sharing Executive,
intended by the British government to take place the following day. On the
morning of 15 July, First Minister designate David Trimble announced his
party's decision to boycott the meeting at which an Executive was to be
established. At Stormont meanwhile, a political farce took place as the
remaining parties in the Assembly went through the motions of forming an
Executive without their UUP colleagues. While every-one looked at the rows
of empty UUP seats, an absent David Trimble was given five minutes to nominate
his first minister to the Executive. When the SDLP and Sinn Féin filled
all ten ministerial portfolios (due to the other parties declining to nominate
candidates) Assembly Speaker Lord Alderdice declared the whole procedure
null and void due to the lack of cross-community participation. The crowning
moment in this political non-event came when SDLP Deputy Leader Seamus Mallon
resigned as Deputy First Minister, launching a scathing attack on the UUP
in the process. Mallon accused the UUP of using the decommissioning issue
to: . . . bleed this very process dry. They stand by their demand of prior
decommissioning. A condition found nowhere in the agreement. A condition
alien to its principles. What they are doing is worse than failing to operate
an inclusive executive. They are actually preventing its very creation.
They are dishonouring the agreement. They are insulting its principles .
. . It is therefore necessary that I resign as Deputy First Minister. I
wish to inform the Assembly that accordingly I offer my resignation with
immediate effect.36 |
