Cross-posted at Slugger O’Toole…
We’re unlikely to know for a long time exactly why talks on restoring devolved government collapsed in such spectacular fashion last week. It’s always worth asking, in those circumstances, ‘cui bono?’
A long-term collapse in devolved arrangements, and a return to Direct Rule, whether or not it is acknowledged as such, would seem at first blush to benefit the DUP, at least in the short term. It also represents a significant shift in power within the DUP, away from Foster and the Assembly group with its stratum of moderates like Simon Hamilton, and towards the consistently hardline Westminster group, which is currently keeping Theresa May in power.
That in turn gives the DUP Westminster group a free hand to push for a hard Brexit with a relatively hard border, not tied into any Executive or wider Assembly approach which would see the DUP constrained by the need for consensus with Sinn Féin and a broader majority of pro-European opinion in the Assembly.