THERE are a few nonsenses about the Assembly which need to be dismissed and then dumped for ever.

The first is that there is some sort of magic formula, involving the jigging-about of the rules and regulations, which would allow the Executive parties to govern better together.

That is not going to happen. And it won’t happen because there is no reform of the institutions which won’t leave a unilateral veto option in place for unionism and nationalism: meaning that one or the other can topple the institutions whenever it suits their electoral interests.

The Good Friday Agreement was built and then sold in the 1998 referendum on the premise that it would protect the interests of unionism and nationalism.

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Those interests, by the way, were for unionism and nationalism – the largest party of each – to define. There doesn’t have to be any logic to what either of them defines as an interest which needs to be protected.

It can, quite literally, be anything they choose to define as of particular importance to their electoral base.

So important, in fact, that it can lead to the complete collapse of the institutions for months or even years on end.

As I say, that veto will exist in some form or other unless........

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