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The
boredom factor referred to by Briedge Gadd on UTV
last Sunday probably means that most people neither
know nor care what our political class is up to in
the latest stage of our interminable peace process.
For an ennui saturated public fearful that it may
succumb to terminal tedium it hardly really matters
anyway. The political class has not been allowed to
run its little fiefdom since last October and can
anybody really claim to have noticed? The only difference
has been in its whining which now has a slightly altered
focus.
So
many times has the political class, steeped in its
own self importance, summoned Blair and Ahern here
that one observer suggested both premiers must have
season tickets by now. Yet the two leaders continue
to come and inflate its bloated ego each time it threatens
to belch and spoil the party. When the president of
the United States arrived last week the political
class may have felt he came to see them rather than
him having summoned them to see him.
The
present squabbling within our centre-right political
class has resulted in Sinn Fein having been sent to
the dock of public opinion where rather than appear
as the accused it behaves as the judge assigning culpability
to everyone other than itself. At times it seems there
is a reluctance on the part of the republican leadership
to let go of the peace process and reach what one
commentator termed a peace settlement. Like everything
else preceding it, an anticipated act of completion
never comes in its completed form, always being split
into this that and the other. In a sense the peace
process defines Sinn Fein. It is the myth of republican
struggle by other means rather than the reality of
defeat by constitutionalist means. But even myths
have their shelf life.
There
has been much speculation about the thinking underlying
the republican leadership’s machinations of the
week gone by. Amongst these was the view that the
leadership felt Blair, as a result of the war on Iraq,
might not be as focussed as he was last October when
he showed a red card to the IRA and could therefore
be bounced that more easily. Another view was that
the leadership was hesitant about opposition gathering
within its own grassroots particularly on the issue
of Sinn Fein embracing the structure of a renamed
RUC. Whatever the truth in any of this, those who
look for some great but as of yet indiscernible strategic
wisdom in the Provisional republican leadership’s
reluctance to meet the requirements of both governments
might perhaps consider looking the other way and see
a debacle.
The
past week has left the party facing a publicity backlash
as a result of the IRA failing to meet the general
expectation that the demanded acts of completion would
be delivered. With a little foresight combined with
a planned damage limitation exercise, some of the
thrust of this backlash could have been disarmed.
Had the Sinn Fein leadership refused to have turned
up at the Bush-Blair war summit venue last week the
party would have been left with some cover for the
present stance. By attempting to clothe itself in
the garb of anti-war sentiment and declining to go
to the venue on the ethical grounds of conscientious
objection the party could have offset much of the
criticism certain to come its way merely by not having
inflated the balloon of hyped expectation that was
generated as a consequence of the Hillsborough gathering.
Coupled with this was the party standing to gain considerably
from the fall out it knew would result as a consequence
of today’s release of the Stevens Report. Ultimately,
the thrust of public opinion against it would have
been attenuated somewhat. What after all is damage
limitation about if not limiting certain damage?
But
by attending the Hillsborough summit in order to avoid
alienating American public opinion by appearing to
snub the country’s president, Sinn Fein has merely
postponed the snub by failing to go the final mile
that their attendance at Hillsborough caused most
people to anticipate that it would go. There is a
certain price to be paid for allowing the president
of the USA to hail the success of the Irish peace
process, and then be seen to drag it back down into
the quagmire of endless posturing and positioning.
Now the Republican Movement faces massive institutional
opprobrium in an open space where there is little
camouflage behind which to conceal blushes.
As
matters now stand Sinn Fein is perched on precarious
political ground. It can capitulate to the governments'
demands in the coming days, jettison what remains
of its republicanism, and salvage its constitutionalist
project; or it can procrastinate and wander aimlessly
for some time to come deprived of the anchor of institutional
power. The party needs the executive more than the
unionists. The latter can live happily enough with
direct rule feeling it is better than being in government
with people they regard as the IRA. With direct rule
the republicans will have received little return for
their war other than an end to their war.
It
is now expected that elections to the Northern assembly
will take place before the end of May. If they do
Sinn Fein is hardly likely to trail the SDLP when
the votes are counted. This is small comfort for a
party leadership intent on the acquisition of institutional
power. But by failing to deliver on the acts of completion
such institutional power is likely to remain beyond
them. The type of unionism required to share power
with a republicanism still characterised everywhere
outside of Sinn Fein discourse as a politico-military
nexus will be considerably weaker in the wake of the
election. The UUP, while likely to emerge as the leading
unionist party with David Trimble at the helm, will
have even less room to manoeuvre than it does at present.
That means even greater constraints on its ability
to deliver the type of deal Sinn Fein so badly needs.
Sinn
Fein’s Mitchel McLaughlin a few nights ago expressed
the view that the UUP would remain the dominant party
within unionism after any election but that the DUP
would still deal if this proved not to be so. He also
referred to the old argument that Trimble fails to
sell the agreement. The problem with this perspective
is that it is insufficiently anchored in realpolitik
and is in many respects a polemic. If republicans
think they can fashion the snowballs for Trimble to
throw at his own party they can hardly feign surprise
if the snowballs then melt in the fiery environment
that is unionism at this particular juncture. And
republicans must take some responsibility for the
fires that blaze therein, having thrown enough petrol
on them over the past number of years. As for the
DUP, if it does emerge as the leading unionist party
it will ultimately do business, but only after republicans
deliver on what is demanded of them now - and perhaps
even more.
It
is therefore puzzling why Sinn Fein remain so insistent
on elections when the outcome, while delivering a
victory over the SDLP, will also mould a political
environment in which the restoration of the political
institutions becomes much less likely and which leave
any new voting strength considerably devalued in the
short term. This raises the possibility, however slight,
that privately the party leadership hopes that elections
are in fact postponed on the grounds that a unionism
which is more susceptible to deal is not in fact weakened
and marginalized. Postponement would also allow Sinn
Fein to take the moral high ground of defending a
democracy denied if the British decided not to proceed
with elections.
Another
seeming conundrum is to be found in Taoiseach Bertie
Ahern's insistence on elections taking place in May.
It may well be that if he were to give the nod to
the British that such elections should indeed be postponed
until October he would be pushing an open door. Sinn
Fein’s votes or supremacy over the SDLP, he must
know, are nothing more than a pyhrric victory for
republicans outside of the institutions. He may therefore
have second guessed the party and by refusing to make
the call on its behalf he may be using leverage on
the republican party by nudging it into a situation
where it will be denied the institutional power it
so desperately craves.
These
are imponderables and without access to the minds
of those at the heart of matters will remain as such.
But in terms of political arithmetic the current Sinn
Fein stance does not add up and cannot be sustained
for long. The party’s strategy of seeking to
incrementalise the process has come up against a wall
every bit as obdurate as Sinn Fein is evasive. There
is now less strategic space for the republican leadership
to insert a wedge between Trimble, Blair and Ahern.
The old trick of devising a package that would please
London, Dublin and indeed Washington but not the unionists
is becoming more difficult to conjure. A unionism
further destabilised simply will not deal.
Subsequently,
getting by Easter Sunday will figure in the considerations
of the Sinn Fein leadership. It is at that point that
the gap between Easter Sunday republicanism and Good
Friday republicanism seems so vast and irreconcilable.
In the days up to the Easter commemorations no small
number of messages will be transmitted by republicans
with the aim of encouraging or cajoling Trimble’s
deadline of today to be pushed back. The coming week
creates a new backdrop and the chances of a deal are
not yet dead in the water.
For
the Provisional Republican Movement the long slow
one-way journey away from the core tenets of republicanism
which sustained it throughout its struggle will at
some point be completed. Twists and turns delay the
inevitable but like rivers that change their course
the only destination that awaits them is the establishment
sea of constitutionalism. It is time for those who
claim that the war is not yet over to face the fact
that it is not going to start again.
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