Empey says UK govt 'has blatantly abandoned principle of no RoI involvement in NI talks' - so is left with no basis for barring Mary Lou McDonald

Sir Reg Empey said that since the UK government has “abandoned” its historic opposition to the Irish government being involved in talks about internal NI affairs, they’ve left themselves little basis for excluding the Dublin-based Sinn Fein president from such talks.

Scheduled discussions between Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris, UK foreign secretary James Cleverly, and the five main parties in the Province were disrupted on Wednesday because Sinn Fein was upset at Mary Lou McDonald not being invited.

Regional Sinn Fein leader Michelle O’Neill was entitled to attend alongside a local colleague of her choice, but did not in protest.

The SDLP also walked out of the talks in solidarity.

The reason for Mrs McDonald not being invited was ostensibly a piece of diplomatic custom; it was said that for new foreign secretary James Cleverly to meet with her (the leader of the opposition in Ireland) before first meeting with leaders of the Irish government would have been bad form.

– ‘I DON’T BELIEVE FOR A MINUTE THIS WAS A PRINCIPLED STAND’ –

Sir Reg said that this whole Mary Lou McDonald row does not signal a new, tough stance by the UK government.

Instead it appears to have been a “blunder”, borne of the fact that the Tory government has “churned” through so many ministers in the Foreign Office and Northern Ireland Office that nobody has a grip on how to handle Northern Irish politics.

"They’re making some obscure diplomatic issue around her being opposition leader in the republic, and them not having engaged with Irish ministers first,” he said.

"I think, to be honest, rather than them taking some kind of principled stand – which I don’t believe they’re doing, or have any intention of doing – I think they got caught up in this diplomatic issue largely I suspect through lack of knowledge of how things have been happening here.

“In fact, if you look across at the churn of ministers there’s been in the last year, we’ve nobody left virtually who has any long-term knowledge of how this place works. The NIO ministers – are we on our fourth secretary of state now [in a year]? You lose count.

"There’s no institutional memory left. So I don’t believe for one minute this represents for one minute some Damascene conversion.”

– ‘GOVT SHOULD STAND FIRM OVER STRAND ONE… BUT THEY HAVEN’T’ –

One of the key aspects about the Belfast Agreement is that the whole deal was divided into three “strands”.

Strand One dealt with Northern Ireland’s own internal affairs (how the devolved Assembly would operate, and the like).

Unionists have long pointed to the wording of Strand One, saying it affords no role for the Irish government in any such affairs.

Strand Two set up a handful of cross-border talks bodies – the North/South Ministerial Council, North/South Inter-Parliamentary Association, and North/South Consultative Forum – whilst Strand Three did much the same, but on an “east-west” (ie, UK-wide) basis.

Sir Reg said: “In view of Strand One, if you follow the model of the agreement and the talks that led up to it, it is certainly true that [Wednesday’s talks] were a matter exclusively for the parties in Northern Ireland and the UK government.

"However, it’s become blatantly clear in recent years that the government pays scant attention to that.

"The whole process around ‘New Decade, New Approach’ was evidence of that. You’ll recall that that Julian Smith and Simon Coveney jointly announced down at Carson’s statue the outcome of those talks, while some of the parties were sitting up at Stormont reading the draft!

"So government has abandoned a lot of this in recent years.”

He pointed out that ex-Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams used to meet with UK government ministers while he was TD for Louth.

"He wasn’t even elected from Northern Ireland at that stage,” said Sir Reg.

"So they’ve already sold the pass, if you like, with having Gerry at the table, which they did for years when he represented Co Louth.

"So how do they construct an argument now that there’s a difference between Gerry Adams and Mary Lou McDonald?

"They should enforce the strands when they’re talking about our internal affairs – which they failed to do in ‘New Decade, New Approach’.

"But given the fact Sinn Fein has a mandate on both sides of the border it’s very difficult to conduct that argument, especially since they’ve already set the precedent of dealing with Gerry Adams.

"They’ve already passed that point, in my view, a long time ago… that horse has bolted.”

He said far more important than who was at what meeting are the problems confronting unionism around the Protocol.

He described the “absence of any meaningful discussions between the EU and UK”, and the exclusion of any Northern Irish politicians from those talks, as “gaping holes” in the negotiations.

More on this story:

• 1 – Sinn Fein talks walk-out: 'If people want to be petulant it is up to them' says Ulster Unionist leader

• 2 – TUV asks why Mary Lou McDonald feels entitled to be part of talks about NI when she has 'no mandate' here

• 3 – Unionists should catch up with others and start using human rights language more, MPs are told