I will collapse Assembly if necessary – Robinson
FIRST Minister Peter Robinson has confirmed that he was prepared to collapse the Stormont Assembly if Sinn Fein does not honour the two parties’ policing and justice agreement.
Earlier, the News Letter revealed that Mr Robinson’s “clever device” to ensure Sinn Fein honours its commitments was to bring down the Executive if Sinn Fein refuses to accept the removal of the Parades Commission after policing and justice is devolved.
Speaking in the Assembly later, Mr Robinson said he was sure his Sinn Fein partners in the power-sharing government were fully committed to the deal and did not expect to need the ‘nuclear option’.
But the DUP leader warned: “I think everybody has recognised that there are methods available, particularly to the two main parties in this Assembly, which can be used at any and all times if they wish to bring down institutions to make sure that things don’t work, to act as vetoes.”
Elaborating on his cryptic reference last week to the “clever device” he had to ensure Sinn Fein compliance, Mr Robinson cited the example of former Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, who triggered the suspension of the Assembly after resigning on the issue of IRA decommissioning, and recent rumours of a similar move by Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.
“It’s well recognised that just as the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party once wrote out his post-dated resignation and eventually caused a suspension of the Assembly, just as it was reported in the newspapers that the Deputy First Minister was prepared to resign — and unquestionably if he had done we would have probably ended up with something worse than suspension of the Assembly, probably the collapse of the Assembly — so too have I the ability to do exactly the same things as both of them if I felt there was bad faith on the part of the signatories to this agreement.”
But he added: “There has to be a time in any negotiating process when you look across the table at the person you are negotiating with and you make a determination whether you believe that that person is seriously going to keep the commitment that they are entering into and quite frankly if you don’t believe that they are going to do so, you should walk away from the table and have nothing to do with it.”
The DUP and Sinn Fein agreement hammered out at the marathon summit at Hillsborough Castle set out a number of interlocking processes around devolution and changes to parade management structures that are intended to culminate with the transfer of justice powers from Westminster on April 12.
Yesterday Mr McGuinness insisted his party would not shirk its responsibilities.
UUP deputy leader Danny Kennedy said that Mr Robinson’s “clever device” was “not big, not clever and certainly not original”.
“The First Minister’s safety net for policing and justice is far from a clever device, particularly when just a matter of weeks ago he called similar threats from Sinn Fein ‘dumb’.”
