Sir Jeffrey Donaldson absent from a leadership panel of hopeful stubbornness
Scott Marshall
‘The Parties In Conversation’ panel as part of the Agreement 25 conference at Queen’s University Belfast on Tuesday 18 April
As part of Agreement 25, a panel featuring most of the leaders of the major political parties in Northern Ireland was held at Queen’s University Belfast on Tuesday morning. The panel was chaired by BBC correspondent Mark Simpson and included UUP leader Doug Beattie MLA, Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald TD, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood MP, Alliance leader Naomi Long MLA and Emma Little-Pengelly MLA from the DUP.
The crisis in democracy in Northern Ireland cast a dark shadow over the event, a conversation more poignant than ever with only 30 days until local council elections. The push and pull between the present and future was clear with all leaders conveying a great deal of stubborn hopefulness about the way forward in returning to Stormont and fulfilling the entirety of the Good Friday Agreement.
“What has to change now is that we have institutions, as imperfect as they are, functioning for everybody.”
Mary Lou McDonald TD
One major through line was a conversation around a ‘politics of exclusion’ with Emma Little-Pengelly, reinforcing still 25 years on the reluctance that the DUP had to support the Good Friday Agreement. The gap between the two major parties couldn’t have been more visibly wide to those gathered at the Whitla Hall on Tuesday morning. It remains to be seen whether the Agreement 25 conference will create any movement between parties, or if the ideological differences about the status of Northern Ireland will deepen in the absence of a Stormont Assembly, ensuring that issues both around but also detached from the Troubles cannot be dealt with.
One notable moment from the panel was the rapturous applause that Doug Beattie MLA received after making his position clear on the result of the last Assembly elections in May 2022. Whilst clearly defining his commitment to the union, he remarked that “we were trampling all over democracy” if Sinn Féin was unable to take up their majority decision in Stormont as a result of the current gridlock.
Whilst this panel was not designed as a forum of negotiation, it did become an exhibition for the problems that have placed Northern Ireland in its current political impasse, with sentiments being lost in an echo chamber of words with no action to cut through cyclical discussions. Mary Lou McDonald argued that the issue of identity was “incomprehensively resolved by the Good Friday Agreement”, and whilst this is definitely an optimistic take on the progress made by the Good Friday Agreement, on its 25th anniversary it is an echo of some of the problems that still remain. Securing peace has perhaps been misunderstood by political groups as being the same as seeing the Good Friday Agreement in complete absolutes, which has only led to empty rhetoric and crises.
Scott Marshall is an MA Media & Broadcast Production student at Queen’s University Belfast