RESHUFFLE A RUTHLESS HOUSEKEEPING EXERCISE

Posted By: September 27, 2014

NEWTON EMERSON. IRISH NEWS ( BELFAST). SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2014
DESPITE what a vengeful Edwin Poots might claim, Peter Robinson’s reshuffle is not
the act of the leader preparing to step down. It is a ruthless housekeeping exercise
ahead of all-party, all-encompassing talks that could have forced open DUP splits
and threatened a DUP coup. So the Paisleyite Poots faction has been brutally
despatched, the accident-prone Nelson McCausland has been sidelined (but not
alienated), both ministers have been replaced with more loyal yet equally religious
figures, while Robinson’s great secular hopes for the future – Simon Hamilton and
Arlene Foster – have been quietly left in post. None of this ensures Robinson will
survive, of course, but every colleague pondering his departure has once again been
reminded of his irreplaceable party management skills.

IT APPEARS that Edwin Poots finally went off the reservation at a DUP Stormont
meeting, where Robinson revealed the all-party talks to be chaired by the British
and Irish governments will include the outstanding Haass issues of flags, parading
and the past. This means Dublin will be involved in parading, while the ‘graduated
response’ north Belfast parade inquiry set to be announced by secretary of state
Theresa Villiers will end up as sidelined as Nelson McCausland. However, the inquiry
still needs to be taken seriously enough to avoid throwing away the gains of a
peaceful summer. Because stand-alone talks for all north Belfast stakeholders were
also recommended by the Parades Commission, republican complaints that the inquiry
will undermine the commission should not be difficult to resolve – assuming that
republicans want a solution to unionism’s annual self-destruction.