Letter: Ending mandatory coalition to exclude unionists would be the scrapping of the Good Friday Agreement, and so cause Stormont to lack legitimacy

There has been recent speculation that if unionists don’t sign up to whatever deal emerges from the current negotiations over the Northern Ireland Protocol that the rules governing the power sharing executive could to be changed to allow some sort of majority coalition.

Unionism should not be intimated by such a threat.

Firstly such a move would not be a rule change but rather the scrapping of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) which clearly intended for a majority of both main communities to make up such an executive.

Secondly it would have been just as true at any point in the last 25 years that a majority coalition would function better as a government than an executive requiring a majority of both communities to be in it.

Our power sharing arrangement was designed for effective representation not effective government.

The threat of such a thing may sound impressive to unionist opponents but in the context of Northern Ireland society an executive without one of the main communities would lack legitimacy and would deprive the two governments and those parties most attached to the GFA of the ability to say they are implementing a peace agreement.

Any talk radio show would demonstrate the ability of Northern Ireland society to find offence in almost anything.

Any executive which tried to function without one community in it would find itself endlessly under attack as people interpret any number of different policies in ways which discriminate against their community.

I do not believe any such arrangement would be stable and I suspect the British government would find the reality of it much less attractive than the threat may suggest.

The only way to resolve the current impasse is to address the refusal of the current arrangements to respect NI’s place within the UK.

If there are deficiencies in government then London must step in to govern until power sharing can be restored.

Mr R G McDowell, Belfast BT5