That is, he is thought to be one of those with whom the pro-agreement parties, including Sinn Fein, will eventually be able to do a deal. So it is fitting that just before Christmas, Dodds should show up to make an important speech in Coleraine, Co. Derry. However, the speech will not be seen as a gift — not at any rate to those who still hope that the so-called pragmatic wing of the DUP is eager to do business any time soon.
Dodds outlined the areas that the party wants to talk about when in January the Good Friday agreement comes under review. He said that his party will negotiate to get rid of the human rights agenda, the equality agenda and the cross-border implementation bodies. It also believes that the North’s assembly should be reduced in size so that it resembles more the much smaller Scottish and Welsh assemblies.
The fact that the equality and human-rights agendas, and the cross-border bodies are for nationalists core aspects of the agreement without which there would have been no agreement in the first place seems not to have occurred to this representative of DUP pragmatism, wise man or not.
Of course, when the British and Irish governments included a mechanism for reviewing the agreement after five years, they did not intend to engage in a complete overhaul such as Dodds proposed. Any such undertaking would mean that the nationalist parties would bolt. However, Dodds’s agenda should serve as a wake-up call to those who are dreaming about DUP pragmatism.
Getting rid of cross-border bodies, and the human rights and equality agendas, as well as reducing the size of the assembly, in order to streamline things, is not exactly the idea of pragmatism that the pro-agreement parties had in mind.
It is quite clear from Dodds’s speech that the DUP to not intend a review mechanism but the entire renegotiation of the agreement. That is, after all, what they said they intended during the election. And they mean what they say.