Leeds
Castle fitted the peace process like a glove. Described
as ‘an English castle as envisaged by Hollywood’,
the building’s artificiality synchronised perfectly
with the false dawn that forever accompanies our
money-for-old rope politicians as they work to prolong
the interminable processing that has now come to
define Northern Irish political life. Promised sunrises
have been plentiful in the peace process, but the
vampire political class which has drunk licentiously
from the veins of public hope has never yet failed
to scurry back to the comfort of darkness at the
first sign of the ultra violet rays that might bring
the curtain down on its perpetual processing. The
only agreement that stirred its interest ahead of
Leeds was agreement not to agree.
Each
side crossed the Irish Sea fully aware that the
other was not yet ready to deal. The challenge for
both was to deploy enough sleight of hand so as
to emerge post-Leeds to a backdrop of positive if
indecipherable atmospherics while at the same time
appearing less culpable than the opposition. They
had only to complete the course not howling and
bawling at each other, allude to progress made and
hint at more to come. Regardless of ‘the moment
of decision’ rhetoric, the Irish and British
governments, now hostage to the acute embarrassment
of yet more failures, would do the rest and trumpet
out the necessary mood music. Whatever London and
Dublin say about the threat posed by ambiguity,
honesty is not what the peace process is about.
Their professed eagerness to move from peace processing
to cease processing is rarely matched by detailed
knowledge of how to get there. The type of sanctions
suggested by Davy Adams, writing in the Irish Times,
never manage to find sufficient spring in Anglo-Irish
intent to complete the leap from thought to action.
The
Leeds negotiations were a debacle only from the
governmental point of view. The main protagonists
slept fine, dined well, chatted long, concluded
nothing, and departed to certain electoral reward.
It was well signposted in advance, the analytically
illiterate alone thinking they could read what was
not written between the lines.
Gerry
Adams’ suggestion in the run up to the talks
that the Provisional movement needed to consider
removing the IRA and thus deprive unionism of an
excuse - without making any attempt to divest itself
of the IRA - was a loaded offer the DUP could only
refuse. It had become the dominant force within
unionism by portraying David Trimble as a gullible
man who three times bought a horse from a swindling
Gerry Adams, only for Adams to ride off after every
transaction on the same horse, in typical gunslinger
fashion, discharging his weapons triumphantly into
the sky. Having usurped Trimble in order to become
Trimble and eventually reach agreement even if it
is packaged and presented as the Shrove Tuesday
Accord, the DUP made it clear it was not into the
business of paying for a horse and purchasing a
mere saddle. It would sit in government with Sinn
Fein but only in a post-IRA world and not in response
to post-IRA words. For now, ‘ne`er the twain
shall meet'. The scene was set for a choreographed
disagreement.
Sinn
Fein, still on the rise in the Republic is not about
to subvert its island-wide expansionist project
by reaching the only agreement possible with the
DUP and kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
That is the statesman-like profile of its leader
enhanced exponentially by the peace process, in
turn fuelled by the IRA - always on the verge of
going but never quite leaving. Sending the IRA out
to graze before the electoral grass has grown as
high as it can does not figure in Sinn Fein’s
strategic calculations. The peace process exists
only because of the continued existence of the IRA.
Few would be remotely interested in a peace process
that existed in a post-IRA Ireland, seeing little
point in pursing an objective already secured. For
now the peace process remains an electoral asset
for Sinn Fein in the Republic while the IRA in its
current mode is not yet an electoral liability.
When the IRA starts to inhibit Sinn Fein’s
electoral growth, as it at some point shall, it
will be sold off in exchange for even more electoral
growth. The Republic’s electorate and not the
DUP will determine when the IRA goes into retirement.
At that point, far beyond Leeds, Sinn Fein will
come to the plate. For Adams the Good Friday Agreement
is subsidiary to expansionism. The lack of certainty
about its future institutional status generates
a creative tension from which Sinn Fein stands to
profit. What does it matter to Adams if the Agreement
is parked in institutional abeyance for some years
to come? That he is not blamed by the electorate
for placing it there, and at all times is seen to
call for its re-enactment, is sufficient to ensure
that both his star and that of his party continue
to rise.
Likewise
the DUP wanting to strike a deal this side of a
British general election is fanciful. Trimble felt
compelled to listen when Adams said in 1999 ‘follow
me I am right behind you’, formed a power sharing
executive and then brought it down within three
months because no decommissioning took place. The
DUP will hardly want a rerun of that. With Paisley
pointing to a comment by Martin McGuinness that
the IRA was not at Leeds and had given no undertakings
it would be an ill judged move for the DUP to attempt
to convince the unionist electorate that Sinn Fein’s
words were somehow less slippery than they were
previously. Like Sinn Fein, the DUP has little to
lose. Direct rule and no joint authority - it is
as British as it gets.
With
plenty of incentives for the political class to
shout 'steady as she goes' and absolutely nothing
to induce a change in course, we can expect any
Anglo-Irish imposed 'moment of decision' to be sliced
into 60 separate negotiating seconds. There will
be agreement eventually. That is not in doubt. The
remaining question to tax our minds is how many
more times will the British and Irish governments
be castled before that point is reached?
