The summer months tend to be slow news months, filled with repetitive clichés and trivial ‘good news’ items. Northern Ireland is no exception with the July parades marking only a brief annual blip. What also appears to be a slow news item this year, though, despite its profoundly damaging effect on the region, is the collapse of both executive and legislative branches of the devolved government.

Everyone knows the story by now: the millions lost on a mismanaged renewable heating incentive scheme, Martin McGuinness’s resignation, and an election in March 2017 with results as inconsequential as they were predictable. 541 days after the government collapsed in January 2017, the RHI millions are still unaccounted for, Martin McGuinness has passed, and so too have people’s hopes that negotiations between the DUP and Sinn Féin will succeed.

While many, not least the politicians, attempt to turn the debate into another round of the blame game, there is a palpable sense of anger and betrayal among the local population. There are many sources for our anger. The one I hear and read most often is the outrage that a total of £9million has been paid to MLAs since Stormont collapsed. This is a complete slap in the face to representative democracy and should be fully suspended until whatever time politicians decide to do their job again.

But there are two other sources of anger – or maybe despair and precarity – that might cause people to rethink their own levels of political involvement. In the spirit of Dylan Quinn, a Fermanagh man who is organising a protest in Enniskillen on 28th August, I outline them here in the hope that people from the area might join him, or organise their own in another part of the region.

 

Good faith squandered

The cause of despair emerges from a sense that the two largest parties in Northern Ireland have squandered the good faith that appeared to keep Stormont alive for almost ten years. I remember, as a school student in May 2007, watching the installation of Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness as First and Deputy First Ministers. I had reservations at the time, which have shifted with my political inclinations. But like many I was optimistic that there would be a general détente between the unionist and nationalist communities as a result.

With the range of cross-community initiatives, new schools and hospitals, new infrastructure projects, and investment in the local economy, the statistics speak for themselves. The past ten years have made a difference. But they have also left a lot to be desired. Reimagining a constitutional polity beyond sectarianism has proven difficult, particularly when this divide has been cemented into our governing institutions. While more economically prosperous than twenty years ago, the region has also been harshly affected by austerity cuts from Westminster. This is not just a word, but means people losing their jobs, families splitting apart in search for work, and fewer leisure centres, libraries and community centres – institutions local communities cannot exist without.

None of this is to go off point: these kinds of problems cannot even be discussed, let along addressed, without a functioning government. That the DUP and Sinn Féin had a chance to create a functioning democracy but usurped their responsibilities by prioritising their party interests must be laid squarely with them.

The cause of precarity is the effect that these 571 days have had on workers and communities across the region since January 2017. Despite what resembles a technocratic caretaker government run by civil servants, the reality of anarchist NI is much less promising. Most affected are the voluntary and charitable organisations which have lost large pots of government funding, leading to redundancies and the reduction of services to a skeletal degree. These are organisations advocating for the rights of persons with disabilities, victim support groups and local youth and elderly clubs. The political and cultural life of the region exists now in spite of the government, a state of affairs which I hope keeps DUP and Sinn Féin politicians awake at night.

To quote Lenin, then, what is to be done? At least two things spring to mind. First, enduring the past 18 months and witnessing the shambolic triangulations of the DUP and Sinn Féin are evidence enough that neither have the local population’s needs and interests in mind. Aware of the stranglehold which orange and green politics has on the electorate, this episode calls for deeper reflection on the basic questions that should drive democratic participation in any country: who are these parties? Who/what do they represent? What have they done? If the response to the final question comes with a rolling of the eyes, then the next question must be: what can I do?

Although this is only the first of many more questions that need to be asked and decisions to be made, one reaction will surely be to never vote for either party again. Easier said than done, particularly given the fearmongering that emanates from the big parties on a regular basis. It is enough to say that voting decisions dictated by fear are hardly worth making.

 

We deserve better

Second, NI is nothing if not constantly politicised, from a collapse of government to a gay cake. Decades of violence, negotiations and stop-start government have apparently created political apathy. I don’t quite believe this: political apathy is a luxury the middle class can always afford to have; for those on the economic fringes of society, political apathy is yet another unaffordable thing.

So complain about the politicians if you must, but don’t just say that nothing can be done and things will never change. Because in the Northern Ireland of 2018, people who have been made jobless or have lost funding as a result of this collapse are unable to resign themselves to defeat. Everyone, in one way or another, is affected by our lack of government, which means everyone has the ability to make their voice heard and their views known. We might start by joining the protests across the region on 28th August.

For further information on the protest, see the We Deserve Better campaign on Facebook and on Twitter using #wedeservebetter.