JUST AFTER THREE o’clock on Saturday afternoon, the three men from the Northern Ireland Office stepped into Stormont’s Great Hall.
NI Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris was there with Minister of State Steve Baker and Lord Caine; having a moment on the stage at this beginning of yet another new beginning in the politics of the North.
Time will judge how wise the UK Government was to engage in a one-party negotiation with the DUP, and to produce a selling commentary about Britishness, the UK internal market and the Union, as they tried to push Jeffrey Donaldson and his party over the line and back into the Stormont Executive.
It was the DUP’s week in the lights, but Saturday was a different day.
“If there’s a wow factor, that was yesterday,” a veteran Belfast republican commented; “a day like no other.”
He was talking, of course, about what it all meant for Sinn Féin; a day “replete with symbolism” as Michelle O’Neill stepped forward as First Minister.
She walked in careful steps and chose considered words.
Her walk down that grand staircase, into the Great Hall and towards the Assembly Chamber perhaps the image that will more than any other be remembered from this day in the Stormont theatre.
Many of us who have watched the politics of this place over many years, will remember her not-so-sure steps and her nervous words when she first took over the republican leadership role in the North in the period of Martin McGuinness’s illness and just before his death in 2017.
Who would not have been nervous taking on that role and following in those footsteps. That was then.
We now see a much more confident Michelle O’Neill. Watched it yesterday. Heard it in her words. We see how comfortable she is in the company of people. How good she is in conversation.
The 8 February deadline was a signal.
When that target was set by the UK Government, we had a sense that the DUP was moving towards agreement.
And, in recent days, we have watched as Donaldson, his deputy Gavin Robinson, Gregory Campbell and others have fought off the critics of their deal with a simple challenge; publish your achievements. It has worked.
Inside the Assembly Chamber, we heard more of that from others in the party yesterday.
Donaldson will have been happy about how he was heard by loyalist leaders during a private briefing in Belfast on Tuesday. He was joined in that meeting by Gavin Robinson; encouraged also by the reaction to a number of his media interviews, and by what he has described as a “decisive” vote in his party Executive.
Is his deal perfect? No.
Did he get everything he wanted? No.
No negotiation delivers that type of outcome, but he spoke yesterday of bringing about change that many said was not possible.
There is no sense of Ulster at the crossroads.
The Stormont roof didn’t cave in on Saturday.
One of Donaldson’s key backers, a one-time and short-time leader of the party, Edwin Poots, is the new Speaker in the Northern Ireland Assembly.
His support for Donaldson is viewed as critical.
We know what Sinn Fein and the DUP won’t be able to agree on.
Our Past is never far behind us, and when we talk about it, we walk on eggshells.
There is no agreed narrative. There never will be.
But can this new Executive, in shared effort, help to begin to fix what is broken in health and education and policing; get the pay disputes settled, end the strikes, show us a politics that works?
Can Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little Pengelly (the deputy First Minister) surprise us as Paisley and McGuinness did in 2007?
All go up there, and another chance. A week when we talked about the DUP, but today was @moneillsf 's day.
— Brian Rowan (@BrianPJRowan) February 3, 2024
Stormont can be a headline and, too often, a headache.
There is a need for a much wider review.
Another deal is another deal - how to make politics work is the challenge pic.twitter.com/Aa3gshhg6V
I spent Saturday at Stormont sharing thoughts and analysis with the BBC News Channel, chatting with them throughout the day alongside the academic Dr Clare Rice.
And, as it was getting dark at teatime, this was my last thought. I remembered the cold on that political hill in January 2020, and the New Decade New Approach Agreement jointly presented by then Secretary of State Julian Smith and then Tánaiste Simon Coveney.
And I remembered a couple of days later (a Saturday) when we watched the same theatre at Stormont with all of the same media attention, and then Boris Johnson arriving, on a Monday I think, for his slice of the celebratory cake, before the Executive fell again in 2022.
I guess Rishi Sunak will want to take a bow; have a photograph of the latest political rescue mission in Belfast.
And my point is this, Stormont has fallen too many times for us to believe in it on the basis of just one day.
It is about what happens next; about politics working and about the review and change that might put it on more solid ground.
A deal, another deal, that makes the theatre of yesterday, is not good enough.
Stormont, if it is to be Stormont and our place of politics, needs something more.
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