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The Chucks Have No ChoiceAuthor(s): Richard EnglishSource: Fortnight, No. 408 (Nov., 2002), p. 5Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25560689 .

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IFortnight NOVEMBER 2002

Richard English political coltumn

THE CHUCKS HAVE NO CHOICE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~........ ......

There were two obvious problems with the Good Friday Agreement. First, it was sold to different people on very different terms.

Republicans were encouraged to vote for it because it represented a transition towards a united Ireland; unionists were told to vote for it because it guaranteed the exact reverse. Second, while nationalist Ireland endorsed the GFA overwhelmingly, unionist Ulster couldn't make up its mind and was pretty much split down the middle as a result.

Now most of the political difficulties in Northern Ireland over the last four years have resulted from the interaction between these two problems. In order to ensure that republicans continued to support the 1998 deal, a governmental blind eye was subsequently turned to repeated contraventions of non-violent, democratic politics on the part of the IRA. This helped to convince those unionists who had always been hostile to the GFA that they had been right all along. And it persuaded many lukewarm pro-Agreement unionists that

maybe they had, after all, been mistaken to vote Yes in 1998. In turn, the more that unionists seemed to hold back from enthusiasm for the deal, the more republicans dragged their own feet over key shifts such as decommissioning. And so the cycle of violence which the north had seen for thirty years was replaced by this cycle of

mistrust, of repeated stalemates and crises. It's not that massive changes have not

occurred. They clearly have, and many of them have been enormously beneficial. In 1992 nearly a hundred people were killed in the troubles in Northern Ireland. This year, the figure will be a fraction of that awful tally. And if, ten years ago, one had been told in these pages that within a decade the IRA would have ceased their war against the British state, and that unionist politicians would sit in government with a former IRA fellow-minister, then many people would simply not have believed it.

DESPITE For, despite unionist scepticism about the sea change in Irish republicanism, a sea change there unquestionably has been. The Provisional IRA fought a long war because they believed that force was essential to the achievement of a united Ireland; now republicans tell us that demography and electoralism will do the job instead. Republicans for years despised and condemned those who called for the unionist consent principle to be respected; now, in the GFA, they have themselves recognized that crucial principle. For the shift in Irish republican outlook has been easily the single most significant change in

the politics of Northern Ireland in the last decade.

So when republicans call for firmer leadership on the part of Ulster unionists, it is in part because they themselves have

brought most of their supporters with them on an impressively long road of ideological transformation. Why should we save David

Trimble, they ask, when it is his responsibility to deliver his section of the community just as we have delivered our own? If Trimble

wants to pull down the Executive inJanuary 2003 then that - republicans might say - is his problem. Replace him with a leader who can actually lead.

Yet if Trimble is ultimately forced to depart from the position of UUP leader, it will be because his followers and colleagues judge him to have been too cosy with republicans. The chances of his being replaced by a figure who is more cosy with republican politicians and more in line with republican preferences are very slim indeed. The irony is this. It is precisely because republicans have made such dramatic moves in recent years that they need to save a politician who repeatedly criticises them for not having moved far enough. If republican investment in the peace process is to pay off, then republicans need a unionist leader who wants to make and sustain an historic deal with Irish nationalism.

Despite his frequent failings from a republican perspective, Trimble's speeches and actions over the last few years clearly show that he is the most likely (the only?) candidate for that position. It's precisely because republicans have moved so far that they need to help him even though he seems to offer only grudging recognition of how far they have moved.

INVOLVE This will involve more republican gestures (of the kind which Alex Maskey has

helpfully made in recent times) and it will involve mature engagement with new policing in the north (a shift likely to happen after rather than before the next bout of electoral competition with the SDLP). It will not solve all the problems in Northern Ireland, where class divisions remain appallingly stark and where sectarian polarisation is deeply entrenched.

A measure of the latter problem was the recent survey which found that even the

DUP had more Catholic support than Sinn Fein had Protestant backing: the figures were 1% and 0% respectively.

But while republican and unionist opponents of the GFA can eloquently -

and, at times, movingly - set out what they don't like about the deal and its

implementation, that deal remains the only serious political route currently available.

And if republicans want their welcome political investment to pay off then their best option - however distasteful - is indeed to save Dave.

Which brings us to the latest adventures at Stormont, to the arrests of republicans in Belfast and the allegation of IRA intelligence gathering. If there has indeed been further republican misbehaviour, more flouting of the democratic rules of politics, then the implications for the peace process are bleak. Necessary trust cannot survive such actions. Castlereagh and

Colombia were disastrous for the GFA, and further transgressions will surely wreck it. The republican transition from Semtex to Stormont was a truly impressive one. It would be tragic if republicans themselves helped to destroy what that transition had achieved, but they may already have done so.

Richard English is Professor of Politics at Queen's Universit,v, Beffast.

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