‘SOFT EXIT or HARD EXIT – what next in the Stormont standoff?’ By Brian Rowan

Is there still room for manoeuvre – some way out of the political corners and crisis or is collapse now inevitable?
That word inevitable doesn’t really fit with the politics of this place. The process here always seems to allow itself some wiggle room.

But what about the here and now – in the heat of the RHI battle and in the fallout from that disastrous Stormont day of December 19th?

Back then, the DUP did things its way, brushing aside and undermining the joined-up politics negotiated in 1998.

After all of that, is there still space in which to talk, work out and agree the next steps?

On Friday (December 30th) a statement from Gerry Adams said the “behaviour of the DUP” had “seriously damaged” the credibility of the Assembly, Executive and the office of First and Deputy First Minister.

“The position of the Speaker is now untenable,” he continued.

“The DUP’s actions are not acceptable and this issue is not going away.

“I hope that First Minister Arlene Foster is using this time to reflect on the crisis and that she will facilitate the sort of robust and thorough investigation that is required to deal with this scandal,” the Adams statement read.

Hours earlier, a statement from Michelle O’Neill repeated the Sinn Fein line that: “Arlene Foster should stand aside to facilitate that judicial led investigation until it brings forward a preliminary report.”

There will be an investigation into the RHI scheme. The standoff is over Sinn Fein’s position that the First Minister should step aside until there is that preliminary report.

This is the ‘soft exit’ option – that Arlene Foster would voluntarily step aside but, up to this point, the DUP has dismissed the Sinn Fein statements.

A ‘hard exit’ would require Martin McGuinness to resign as Deputy First Minister – opening up the possibility of early elections.

These were the “grave consequences” signalled before that Stormont day of December 19th but, on that date, Sinn Fein allowed a breathing space or some thinking time.

Since then, its position has toughened, but has it closed down all wiggle room?

What if this issue of whether the First Minister should step aside was left to the chair of the independent investigation when appointed?

This thought was introduced in a non-attributable conversation on Friday.

Was the person on the other end of the phone introducing some possible compromise or were his words no more than wishful thinking?

I asked did he think that we had arrived at the impossible standoff?

“No I don’t,” was his immediate response.

There are a couple of weeks until the next Stormont day on January 16th – still some thinking time left and, possibly, still some wiggle room within which to work.

But a lot of political damage was done on December 19th – as well as before and since.

Sinn Fein has big cards to play. We still don’t know whether it will be a soft exit or a hard exit.