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The SDLP will seek to introduce language and culture laws for Northern Ireland at Westminster next week if the deadlock over Irish language legislation is not resolved.
Party leader Colum Eastwood said on Tuesday the party’s MPs would table amendments to legislation due to come before Westminster which would bring forward the language and cultural provisions agreed in the New Decade, New Approach (NDNA) deal in 2020. The deal, which restored powersharing in the Stormont Executive, provides for legislation to create an Irish language commissioner and official recognition of the language in the North. It also provides the same for Ulster Scots.
“The SDLP has been working with parliamentary drafters to craft amendments that will deliver the NDNA cultural package for weeks,” Mr Eastwood said.
“If the DUP and Sinn Féin cannot find a way to deliver the Irish language and other cultural commitments that they made last year, then we will step up, step in and seek to table amendments to legislation due at Westminster next week.”
The North faces a political crisis and the potential collapse of the powersharing institutions amid a row over the nomination of the first and deputy first minister.
The DUP and Sinn Féin have until June 21st to make nominations to the positions of first and deputy first minister otherwise an Executive cannot be formed and it falls to the Northern Secretary to call an election.
It follows the resignation of Arlene Foster as first minister on Monday. Under Stormont rules governing the joint office, once she ceased to hold office the deputy first minister, Michelle O’Neill of Sinn Féin, is also no longer in office and must be re-nominated.
Sinn Féin has said it will refuse to nominate a deputy first minister unless the UK government intervenes to bring forward Irish language legislation at Westminster.
The legislation is part of a package of cultural measures which were agreed by the five parties in the Northern Executive and the Irish and British governments as part of the NDNA agreement, but which have not been implemented.
Irish language legislation was the sticking point which thwarted the restoration of the Assembly after its collapse in January 2017 but which was eventually resolved through NDNA in January 2020.
The new DUP leader, Edwin Poots, has said he will implement all outstanding aspects of NDNA, but has not given a timeframe or committed to do so within the current Assembly mandate, the key demand from Sinn Féin.
On Tuesday, the leaders of five of the Stormont parties – Alliance, the Green Party, People Before Profit, the SDLP and Sinn Féin – signed a joint letter calling on the Northern Executive and the Irish and British governments to “urgently agree and publish a timetable” to pass the legislation by the end of the mandate.
The Alliance Party leader, Naomi Long, told BBC Radio Ulster on Tuesday that “we all signed up to NDNA knowing that there were parts of that agreement that would be more difficult, would be more challenging, but we knew that it had to be done.
“All we need to do is move on, get the Irish language Act under way, stop messing around and breaking promises and get on with the real business of government.”
The DUP MP Sammy Wilson on Tuesday warned the UK government against legislating on matters that were Stormont’s responsibility. “The [UK] government must not interfere in devolved issues at the behest of Sinn Féin,” he said.
To do so, he said, would “cause further damage to the credibility of the Northern Ireland Assembly” and he accused Sinn Féin of “playing the politics of ransom” and “placing culture above health, education and economic recovery”.
‘Engaged intensively’
Speaking late on Monday, Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald said “this evening we met with the British government and told them that they need to move the Irish language legislation through Westminster”.
She said the UK government had offered to bring forward the legislation “a number of weeks ago”, but “at that time we said our preference was that Irish language legislation would be delivered through the Assembly and Executive as was agreed in New Decade New Approach”.
The party, she said, had “pursued that option vigorously over the last number of weeks” and “engaged intensively with the DUP and with party leader Edwin Poots. He has told us that they will not be delivering Acht [the Act] in this mandate.
“This legislation was negotiated a year and a half ago and it is now incumbent on the British and Irish governments to act. This is the only way forward to finally resolve this issue,” she said.
Asked on BBC Radio Ulster on Tuesday morning if Sinn Féin would nominate a deputy first minister if the UK government did not make a commitment to intervene and to put forward some form of legislation, the Sinn Féin MP Chris Hazzard replied: “No, there’s simply no basis for powersharing if we don’t have movement on these issues.
“Powersharing was returned on the basis that we had partnership working, and that means people need to be faithful to the agreements we made.
“We can’t do politics here in the North of Ireland on bad faith and broken promises. Sin é.”