As
more deadlines in the land of final deadlines pass
and any remaining public interest is slowly strangled
by the 'give us your votes men', the DUP and Sinn
Fein continue to perform a little pirouette of procrastination
in their search for a mutual understanding not to
reach any agreement in the near future. Once that
is secured, then between them, they can continue
as before squeezing London and Dublin for even more
goodies. Each refusal will meet with a howl that
the ‘fleece process’ faces the greatest
crisis ever. If the next greatest summit ever or
the following most crucial election ever is to move
the process forward, then London and Dublin must
heed the siren calls of our oleaginous political
class.
Will
there be a deal? Of course. But probably not this
year; and possibly not next year either. While the
Anglo-Irish one armed bandit continues to be robbed
blind, paying out far more than is ever put into
it, only a fool would point out to the owner, while
filling his pockets, that the machine is faulty.
Even children will stand in front of a slot machine
that pays out on demand for as long as they can
and answer 'I'm coming now' every time the management
shouts, 'hurry up'.
Our
two main gangs of Northern politicians strive to
outdo each other in claiming that they both want
a deal. But as Idi Amin once said people often mistook
what he was saying for what he was thinking. Does
either the DUP or Sinn Fein need a deal any time
this side of 2006? Each party will only embrace
a deal sooner rather than later if it facilitates
its own particular grander ambitions. For the DUP
this is to comprehensively consolidate its position
as the dominant force within unionism while at the
same time seeing off the IRA. An agreement with
Sinn Fein that does not deliver these objectives
can have little appeal for the DUP. Why go to an
electorate with Trimble terms for which the unionist
electorate savaged the UUP leader? As one DUP source
put it, ‘we have no intention of being “Trimbled”
and tricked into signing up to something that will
not be delivered by the Provisional IRA.’ Better
from the DUP point of view to go with no deal than
a flawed one. That way one objective at least is
assured.
The
wider ambition of Sinn Fein is to expand throughout
the island as a whole. The peace process is crucial
to this and cannot be prematurely ended by reaching
deals on terms set by the DUP, which would see the
process morph into a solution. When Sinn Fein looks
at its prospects for continued expansion in the
Republic it must be struck immediately by two things.
Firstly, the performance of the party's five TDs
in the Dail is lacklustre. Entering Leinster House
was no march on Batista’s Havana. Secondly,
policy differences between the party and Fianna
Fail are of such a nature that Gerry Adams and Bertie
Ahern can both proclaim themselves socialists. It
is a dual combination that is unlikely to energise
a sustained growth spurt.
What
then does Sinn Fein have? The most potent wind in
the sails of the Provisional party in the Republic
is the profile of its leader. The statesman-like
character that Gerry Adams has constructed for himself
is Sinn Fein's biggest asset there. The raw materials
that made that construction possible were mined
from the peace process. While he continues to ride
his biggest wave, the same process, there is no
reason for Adams to beach it in Northern political
institutions. If the DUP sticks to its terms and
Sinn Fein acquiesce then the peace ‘process’
becomes a solution. The IRA is off the public radar
screen and Adams becomes just another political
leader up to his elbows with the rest of them in
the normal political sleaze.
What
serves to fuel the peace process, and the resulting
positive public exposure for Sinn Fein in the Republic,
is the permanent Northern institutional instability
caused by the continued existence of the IRA which
invariably unsettles unionism. If the IRA goes out
to graze the DUP has what it wants but Adams has
no peace process and is thus deprived of his ace
card at the poker table of Southern politics.
Therein
lies the rub for those, who with Pollyanna zeal
inform us with emboldened banner headlines that
‘The Great Deal Cometh.’ Whereas Adams
can deliver what the DUP wants, Paisley’s party
cannot satisfy Sinn Fein. On the contrary it can
truncate the Sinn Fein project by striking a deal
that deprives the party of the peace process. It
makes no strategic sense for Sinn Fein to deal now
unless it can do so on the terms it offered Trimble
- whereby it can hold onto the IRA and the peace
process - albeit disguised by better word craft.
Why sell the IRA shop to Paisley today when a better
price can be obtained by selling it later on to
a Southern electorate?
The
DUP is no doubt aware that it is better to conclude
the peace process rather than let it continue fanning
the fires of Sinn Fein’s island wide expansionism.
The difference between the two perspectives is that
the DUP wants the peace process concluded much quicker
than Sinn Fein. There are gains for the DUP by concluding
it. There are gains for Sinn Fein in prolonging
it. When these permutations settle sufficiently
to permit some calculations the arithmetic suggests
that the DUP, while not absolutely ready, is confronted
with propitious circumstances that would nudge it
toward clinching a deal quicker than Sinn Fein.
For
now the objective of Adams is to disguise his unwillingness
to deal by portraying the DUP leader as a sectarian
ogre - not too difficult a task - impervious to
all reason, who uses ‘language that led to
pogroms in the late 1960s.’ Adams can wax plaintively,
depicting himself as the man who wanted to put the
IRA to bed and who could have done so were it not
for Paisley preventing him. His decision to meet
PSNI boss Hugh Orde, ostensibly to make demands
which Orde had previously told the SDLP were coming
anyway, was to create the impression of Sinn Fein
going that extra mile in its willingness to deal
while at the same time showing the DUP as standing
still or, worse, lurching off in the opposite direction.
Paisley has added ballast to the Adams line by saying
he wants to publicly humiliate the IRA, allowing
the Sinn Fein leader to argue ‘is it going
to be thrown away because Ian Paisley does not get
the process of humiliation that he wants?’
Ultimately,
blame-gaming rather than deal-making is the hinge
on which the present negotiations swivel. The Guardian
has observed that ‘neither Adams nor Paisley
want to look like the obstructive element.’
This is echoed in the Irish Times by Gerry Moriarty
who claims the two governments will invite the public
to judge who is ‘chiefly responsible for the
collapse of the deal’ The only way Sinn Fein
will deal any time soon is if it finds it has went
so far down the road of the mutual blame game, that
to avoid being left in sole possession of the blame
boomerang it feels compelled to sign on the dotted
line. Pundits have no way of deducing the configurations
involved. Like all brinkmanship battles the winner
makes the second last mistake. Judgment on the day
can lead to unforeseen consequences. Like two men
walking across a high wire to embrace each other
in the middle - not of their own volition, but to
keep the audience clapping - all the time furtively
trying to unbalance one another, the trick is to
force your opposite number to loose footing and
plunge to the moral low ground where you can shout
at him ‘you jumped.’ In the bid to maintain
audience approval, there is always the chance that
each tight rope artist will bump into one another
in spite of themselves; unsavoury but together nonetheless.
They may hold each other by the throat but enough
Journalists for the Peace Process will term it an
embrace all the same and lambaste those who ask
‘for how long?’
