The Orange Order and the DUP

“Given the seriousness of the concerns outlined above, the Grand Lodge voted unanimously not to support a return to the Stormont Executive until there is substantial and tangible progress which resolves these fundamental issues.”

That’s a recent statement from the Orange Order. The Orange Order is, of course,  a religious organisation, not a political organisation. But the Rev Mervyn Gibson, who is the Grand Secretary of the Orange Order, has explained. It apparently is a religious organisation that has a political point of view.

The DUP has welcomed some changes to the protocol in the form of the Windsor Framework, but there are more changes that need to be made. It’s sometimes difficult to shine a light into the dark cavern that is Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s mind, but I get the impression that any deal which allows the EU any control over any aspect of NEI – it doesn’t matter how small this intrusion – is a non-starter for the DUP.

Which would be grand if each country/stateen  didn’t need to form links and sign treaties with other countries. Then the country/stateen would be undeflled by any contact with others. But the fact is that we have to trade with our neighbours, so there must be some legal interference, however small. Give and take – that’s what agreements are.

So the big question: will the DUP ever sit in Stormont with the appalling vista of SF MLAs and a SF First Minister? The consensus view appears to be that it’ll wait until the May council elections are out of the way, then the summer with its crack-brained thousands of Orange marches,and then in September, say, it’ll go back into Stormont.

Meanwhile, the rest of us have to stand by and allow the DUP to keep on keeping on, like a dark cloud of negativity showering its acid rain of insecurity on all and everyone.

Maybe a psychiatric  analysis might help both the Orange Order the DUP separate the present from the past. God knows the rest of us would support any move to have them stretched on a couch, remembering their political childhood back in the 1950s, when blood-and-thunder bands went wherever their fancy took them, when taigs knew their place cowereing indoors, and any southern politician foolish enough to cross the border into NEI was met with a shower of snowballs.

All together now: ‘Those were the days, my friend/We thought they’d never end’…