ALMOST 30 years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, people from other conflict zones around the world still beat a path to our door in search of lessons they can lift from us and apply to their own situation.

I have spoken to many of the visiting delegations and reminded them of the thumping irony at the heart of our peace process: it never actually resolved the key cause of our conflict.

And, in failing to resolve it, ensured that divisions remain as alive and well fed today as they were in April 1998.

Unionists still want a United Kingdom. Nationalists still want a united Ireland.

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Yes, Northern Ireland is a demonstrably safer place than it used to be, and we don’t gather around the radio or television for the latest grim headlines, or worry about family and friends when we used to hear the regular thud of a bomb or crack of a rifle. We inhabit a safer space.

There is more to-and-fro between people of different political and constitutional backgrounds, and relationships between couples from different religious backgrounds are no longer greeted with a silent, pursed-lip ‘Hmm’.

For all of that change, we should be grateful. But we mustn’t delude ourselves that safe spaces and mixed marriages and partnerships amount to genuine reconciliation.

The shadow of the gunman no longer dominates. Yet the shadow of partition, the primary source of the conflict, still hovers over every aspect of political life and governance.

Most conflict resolutions embrace a willingness by former opponents to work together in common cause; as well as agreement on the name and boundaries of the country to be governed.

That is not the case in Northern Ireland/Ulster/Six Counties/the North, or whatever else it may be called.

There is no agreement on the name. No agreement on the language or the street signage. No agreement on the constitutional future. No agreement on legislative priorities.

No agreement on a huge raft of decisions that have remained unmade or just simply abandoned since the first Executive was established in December 1999.

No agreement on narrative. No agreement on legacy. No agreement on the way ahead. No agreement on reforms that might make governance both easier and better.

Indeed, the loudest and omnipresent noise in politics here is the word ‘No’ – from just about everyone.

The weight of the past is everywhere. This week alone we have had a reminder of Bobby Sands, a car bomb outside a police station, and the local and national parties returning to the well-rehearsed squabble over a legacy bill which will never be capable of gathering all-party agreement, of course, because agreement on legacy – as with reconciliation – is impossible against a background of conflict stalemate rather than conflict resolution.

And the sheer weight of that past, underpinned by that stalemate, has proved irremovable.

There was, perhaps, a hope, that the weight might be shifted by a new, greater weight; the weight of new era politics, along with new era electoral voices and vehicles.

Yet, 30 years on and the Assembly, local MPs and local councils are still dominated by the pre-GFA parties.

Indeed, 80% of those who vote still do so for parties with a fixed position on partition (which is much the same as it was in the first assembly election).

There is still the same animosity between the parties. Crucially, there hasn’t been a significant electoral breakthrough by any post-1998 party.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised by any of this. In the absence of conflict resolution, how could there be anything recognisably new?

With partition still in place, wasn’t it always likely that the age-old conflict would continue, albeit without the terrorism and a heavy police and army presence?

How could political debate be shifted onto new ground when all of the parties (including Alliance) were still on the hallowed ground of relentless disagreement?

Ironically, the middle group, which was expected to grow post-1998, has only shifted a little overall; although Alliance is now regarded by most unionists as closer to nationalism than at any time in its past.

To be honest, I’m not sure what happens next. Nationalism – all of it – is fixated on a border poll.

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Indeed, it’s increasingly difficult to avoid the conclusion that, for all intents and purposes, the SDLP and Sinn Féin have no further interest in Northern Ireland as a constitutional entity.

The Irish government remains focused on the ‘Shared Island’ initiative and I’m assuming that it is, although under the radar for now, putting in place the building blocks for a united Ireland.

Which leaves unionism with an existential problem: how does it, in the words of UUP leader Jim Molyneaux after the Anglo-Irish Agreement, best protect, promote and preserve the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

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