Tony Lloyd: “If democracy isn’t there to solve problems, that is quite disastrous”
6 min read
Tony Lloyd is determined to rise above party politics and work with the government for the good of Northern Ireland. But with the stalemate at Stormont entering its 19th month, the Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary is worried that nothing is being done to end the impasse. Liz Bates tours the region with Lloyd and his colleague Stephen Pound
As a former Manchester mayor, Tony Lloyd is used to compromise and cooperation. But his time spent uniting the various stakeholders of the North West’s political scene couldn’t have prepared him for the powder keg into which he has recently been thrust. The Rochdale MP, who returned to Westminster politics in 2017, has taken on the Northern Ireland brief at a pivotal moment in the region’s history. Not only does it hold the key to Britain’s Brexit success on its border, but some of its MPs also have Theresa May’s fate in their hands in the Commons, with the DUP propping up her fragile minority government.
But just as it needs to speak up Northern Ireland has lost its voice, with Stormont still sitting empty after power-sharing collapsed in January 2017. Successive Tory ministers have attempted to get the main protagonists around the table and restore the executive – so far without success. And with Brexit dominating every aspect of political life this urgent issue looks set to be on the backburner for the foreseeable future.
Amid the deadlock, however, Lloyd believes that in this area more than most, opposition politics can be a force for unity and progress. His team tell me he is able to have conversations with people that Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley can’t, and on a much less formal basis. But this isn’t about point-scoring – he is determined to rise above party allegiances and work with the government for the good of the region. “We don’t say things to ‘get them,’ we say things constructively and they work with us constructively,” he tells me. “It’s not a vote-winning game.”
He adds: “In some ways it’s a more satisfactory opposition role as a shadow minister. Years back I was the shadow transport minister and frankly I don’t imagine that anyone remembers anything I said, including me. Whereas, there is something more real about the Northern Ireland role because you can be an advocate.”
It certainly feels real as we hurtle along Northern Ireland’s country lanes, going hurriedly from one meeting to the next. Lloyd and his shadow minister Stephen Pound have a tight schedule that includes talks with farmers, fisherman, senior police officers and local volunteers.
The groups have different priorities, but they are all preoccupied with one subject: Brexit.
Our first stop is at the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s headquarters to chat with the top brass, whose Brexit warnings have raised eyebrows in Whitehall. The usually reserved institution has publicly demanded extra resources to man the border. They remain unconvinced by the government’s reassurances on technological innovations and fear that new infrastructure could reignite sectarian violence.
Lloyd shares their concerns. “Chief constables don’t usually choose to go into areas of sensationalism,” he says. “But when you’ve got a chief constable saying infrastructure on the border is a potential target and puts people at risk you’ve got to take that seriously.”
Others that we meet along the way also see the border that separates Northern Ireland from the Republic – and in the near future Britain from the EU – as a potential source of conflict.
Sinn Féin MP Chris Hazzard says that on the doorstep voters have expressed anger at the suggestion that they could be stopped and searched in new buffer zones separating the north and south. “Ordinary people are saying: ‘they won’t be stopping me’,” he warns.
On the prospect of violence returning, he reflects: “It’s not so much violence. I would imagine it will be peaceful civil disobedience, or non-compliance.
“For a long time, David Davis and everyone was saying: ‘Oh there are technological solutions with drones in the sky and cameras’. Now I think the British government has come to terms with the fact that there’s not going to be a technological answer to this problem, so there needs to be a political solution.
“But we have no faith whatsoever that anything that they are proposing is going to protect what we have currently.”
The apparent disconnect between Westminster and the real situation on the ground is a recurring theme as we navigate a network of narrow rural roads. Both Lloyd – and shadow minister Stephen Pound, who joins us on the trip – raise the lack of basic understanding of Northern Irish politics as a concern.
“The problem is, of course, an awful lot of people in the Whitehall system don’t really know where Northern Ireland is,” Lloyd says. “They just see it as ‘you turn left at Manchester and it’s somewhere over there’.”
Pounds says: “You don’t get the same level of malevolence towards Northern Ireland that you had in the Conservative party fifteen or twenty years ago. There was a sort of an undisguised hatred.
“What it is now is a bemusement or a complete lack of any understanding and knowledge. So, a lot of our work is missionary work, it’s just trying to explain to people what exactly the issues are.
“It profoundly worries me how little is understood. I have spent twenty years here in one capacity or another and virtually every new intake that comes into the House, one of the things I have to do is explain to people where it is.”
One of the consequences of peace, Lloyd explains, is that the Northern Irish Office has shrunk in size and relevance over the past couple of decades – as has the level of attention given to the brief by MPs. And this brings us once again to power-sharing. With Westminster focused on Brussels rather than Belfast, there is arguably neither the capacity nor the inclination to return to direct rule. But without a functioning executive the region is increasingly paralysed.
Lloyd explains: “There are an awful lot of decisions that would have just been made in the normal course of things.”
Of the PSNI’s police chiefs, he says, “seven out of nine are acting in the role”. “The chief constable can appoint someone to an acting position, but he can’t appoint anyone to a permanent position.”
The same is true of a plethora of other vital roles from the Prisons Ombudsman to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Lloyd continues: “Across the piste there are lots of decisions that – each one individually – may seem small, but collectively there are an awful lot of things not being done.
“So, our demand to the Secretary of State is that she has got to start putting maximum pressure on the parties that matter in all of this to get back round the table and to work out how to get the power-sharing process back up and running.
“There is another consequence as well – it makes Stormont look like it’s not a serious place. If every now and again the democracy isn’t there to solve problems, it is the problem, that is quite disastrous for the democratic process.
“Power-sharing is a very unusual operation because of its history. So, getting it back and working really does matter for the integrity for decision-making and democracy. If the Northern Irish politicians don’t treat themselves seriously enough to want to make Stormont work they will lose the confidence of the electorate.”
Lloyd has certainly not yet lost his confidence, but whether he can inspire the same in others remains to be seen.
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