Attitudes in the North have been hardening, as the shut-out of the Alliance, SDLP, and UUP parties in the last election shows. As the DUP refuses to carry out the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, both the Loyalist and the dissident Nationalist paramilitaries are growing stronger. Refusal to compromise, combined with the RHI scandal, undermines people's confidence in a political solution to NI's problems.

Even before the Tories allied with the DUP, they did little to resolve the Stormont impasse; most of the parties have complained that May's NI Secretary Brokenshire has not yet brought all parties together to discuss the problem even though Stormont collapsed in January. Now that the Tories have allied with the DUP, how can any of Nationalists trust a Tory mediator? It is time for an independent mediator--perhaps George Mitchell, John Kerry, or one of the Clintons, who have all served that function in the past and know the situation--to be named before the Troubles break out again.