SINN Féin MLA Philip McGuigan has described Tuesday’s attempt by the DUP in Stormont to stop a new EU law from being implemented in the North as “a sham fight”. He’s right, of course, but it’s a sham fight that perhaps party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson should be allowed to dress up for – and win.

The ins and outs of the issue are complicated enough to ensure that anyone can claim a win if they should be so inclined without that claim being comprehensively dismantled; and if a win (of sorts) allows Mr Donaldson to continue the rather decent job he’s done of neutralising the TUV and assorted loyalist bucketmouths in his long-delayed return to Stormont, then it’s all to the good.

Briefly, Mr Donaldson has managed to postpone a new EU regulation by losing a Stormont vote; the loss of the vote is unimportant as the statement of division made by it means that under the new rules cobbled together by the British government to provide the DUP with a fig leaf for their Stormont return, the matter now goes to London for consideration.

Does that mean that Mr Donaldson has scored big? No it does not. What it means is that he can point to the fact that the legislation will not be enacted because of what the DUP did – and if that’s enough to keep him a few steps ahead of his super-unionist detractors then let him crack on.

Mr McGuigan – along with the SDLP and Alliance – have professed themselves unimpressed by the DUP move, but how much of this is heartfelt and how much of it is performative is impossible to tell. In retrospect, we can see that the statements made by Mr Donaldson in explaining why he ended his party’s two-year boycott pointed with considerable exactitude to exactly what happened this week: A setpiece Stormont ‘battle’ which would prove to the detractors that valuable concessions had in fact been wrung. Claiming the win would prove rather difficult in the absence of non-unionist opposition, and that was duly forthcoming in the distinctly passionless words of the non-unionist parties.

Are those parties then consciously part of the sham fight to which Mr McGuigan alluded? Are they mouthing opposition on an issue of mind-numbing inconsequence as part of a choreographed process agreed back in late January? Who knows? But if the vote/charade (choose your own word) does the job of giving substance to Mr Donaldson’s promise to his supporters that the deal he struck was a good one, we may ask, who cares?

There will, of course, be collateral damage if the DUP succeeds in getting its way, as MLAs have pointed out. There are manufacturers, artisans and craftspeople who deserve to have the fruit of their talents protected and will not. They should and can be given help in the future in the event that the DUP’s little tableau damages their interests, which is not at all certain, even if the new EU protections are not forthcoming.
Sometimes it’s necessary to sigh and indulge in pursuit of a greater good.