Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Blair Will Regret ItSource: Fortnight, No. 415 (Jun., 2003), p. 3Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25560882 .

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| Fortrnight JUNE 2003 |

leader

BAI WLL REGRE IT

The Prime Minister should not have suspended the assembly elections due on May 29. His decision shows a very half hearted commitment to the principles of democracy that he speaks so highly of.

Three out of the four major political parties here wanted the election to go ahead. They have their different motives of course. The DUP was itching for a chance to overtake the Ulster Unionists and force a renegotiation of the Agreement. Sinn Fein was hoping to overtake the SDLP, and even secure a mandate for its management of the peace process which they could have argued legitimised their defence of the IRA's continued activities.

The SDLP, it is easy to imagine, didn't relish the election at all, but could hardly say so. No nationalist party or Irish government can ever endorse the decision of a British government to unilaterally suspend the democratic process in Northern Ireland; they would hardly be nationalists if they did.

The most they can give by way of approval is token, half hearted disapproval. In fact, there was little doubting that SDLP leader Mark Durkan was livid

when it was called off. Now we have no mandated assembly members,

though the old batch are still to receive reduced salaries and be treated by government as elected representatives. The mandates they had have expired.

Parties will go into talks again with the governments to resolve the deadlock without actually representing the people. Yes, of course they are the same parties that will be elected, if and when the election proceeds, but no one knows what the relative proportions between them are now, and the longer the drift continues the less likely it is that anyone will be able to predict the the balance of forces that will follow an election. Governments may find that they have been talking to the wrong people.

The logic of suspending the election is that this is the only way to save the Good Friday Agreement.

The point is obvious enough. In the present unresolved tangle between unionists and Sinn Fein, those unionists opposed to the Agreement may take the lead and Sinn Fin, identified as the party best able to annoy them, may overtake the SDLP.

In that event there would be a hung assembly. But it is not normal in other countries to scrap

elections if the result is unclear in advance. Indeed it may seem naive to say it, but don't we have elections to find out what people want, and to prevent any political leadership presuming to know?

Blair argued that people would be voting towards outcomes which they could not foresee, but that is the reality in many European countries governed by coalitions. The parties reap their votes and then negotiate with each other to find a way of

working together. The people were entitled to their say. If they are

sick of the Good Friday Agreement, then that is sad and perhaps even tragic, but if it is the reality then we have to live with it.

If nationalists prefer Sinn Fein to the SDLP and are ready to indulge the IRA's "activities, strategies and disciplines" then they have a right to express that sorry mix of feelings at the ballot box.

The Blair hope, of course, is that with a little

more time he can secure a deal with the IRA that will enable a more amenable outcome.

That may be true. If the IRA disarms completely the Jeffrey

Donaldson wing of Unionism can be faced down more easily. It can be confronted with the argument that Jeffrey's initial objection was simply to the failure to disarm the IRA within the terms of the

Agreement. However, the candidates selected in the

constituencies give us a map of the likely spread of attitudes within the Ulster Unionist Party after the election, and it is clear that David Trimble is not likely to retain his personal power base there. Jeffrey

Donaldson and Reg Empey are widely seen in the party as imminent contenders for the leadership.

Suspension puts off the day of the challenge perhaps, but unless Tony Blair is going to go round the constituencies and plead with unionists to change their selections, then the ascendancy of sceptical unionism is going to happen, regardless of

what the IRA does. There is a challenge waiting within Unionism

against the Joint Declaration and at the time of going to press it seems likely that the Ulster Unionist Council will be recalled to vote on it. Jeffrey Donaldson objects to several elements. The involvement of the Irish Government in the

monitoring group is, he believes, a breach of Strand One of the Agreement which governs purely internal matters.

Many in the party are appalled at the provisions for OTRs, the "on the runs".

David Trimble has already started selling the package to the party in anticipation of a fight over it.

One could speculate on creative outcomes. If the Joint Declaration survived such a meeting,

then Trimble would be able to assure republicans of its survival under him, and they in turn would have an incentive to improve their package in order to help save him.

There would be clear water between two different unionist approaches. The argument that republicans exercise - that it makes no difference to them now whether the DUP or UU takes the lead in the next election - would be lost.

If the UUC rejected the joint declaration then the prospects of further moves from the IRA and another election would diminish.

Blair would find himself further tempted to postpone democracy here.

He m ight be tempted to stage an election simply to demonarate that the balan(ce needed for the

Agreement to work had gone, an,exercise in 'I Told You So'. That would be demoralising.

If he continues to defer elecions until he can foresee outcomes that will work, then he will lose his own credibility in an important part of the commitment he is making under the Joint Declaration, that there will be no further suspensions.

A day may come when he will wish that he had simply let this election proceed, because it would have granted him a kind of moral absolution.

The Agreement may have crashed, but he would have been able to refer all complaints about that to the people of Northern Ireland themselves.

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