Week of political departures on both sides of the border

World of Politics with Harry McGee

Politics is a human profession and, therefore, is subject to all the frailties and unpredictability of human life; no matter how well you engineer a system or a process, it does not know how to deal with impulse.  We saw two good examples of it last week with the resignation of Eoghan Murphy and a dramatic coup against DUP leader and the North’s First Minister Arlene Foster.

Some of my colleagues said after the event they could see Murphy’s impromptu resignation from politics coming. If they did, I’m very surprised they didn’t report it because in the sleepless news cycle of the 21st century, anything that’s even the sniff of a whisper of a rumour tends to be published in some form or another.

With Foster, we have known the detractors were gathering strength in the past few months. That was evident in the loss of DUP support from working-class loyalists over the decision not to prosecute anyone over the Bobby Storey funeral (it was the prosecutor’s office which made the decision but it reflected badly on Foster).

And then there was the controversy over the Northern Protocol and her handling of it (she went from tacit support to downright opposition over the course of two months, which is not a good look).

The final straw was her decision to abstain on an Assembly vote on gay conversion therapy (which infuriated the fundamentalist protestant wing of her party).

So all the conditions were there to topple her leadership. But when the motion of no confidence was tabled, it was game, set and match.

An overwhelming majority of her own MLAs and MPs wanted her out. It was over almost before it began. She was gone.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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