This might sound odd. But the principles which underpin the Good Friday Agreement are not dead. In fact, they are animating the current political debate. We now see just how significant the peace process is. Criticism of alleged republican involvement in the Northern Bank robbery, and continuing loyalist activity, is anchored in a firm belief that we have moved on. And that has a basis in the Agreement, the peace process and the political values which have emerged from it. There are several aspects of the Agreement which can be implemented with or without the Assembly. It may make sense to push on with those.
After the prospect of a comprehensive agreement between Sinn Féin and the DUP in December things now appear grim. The allegations of republican involvement in the Northern Bank robbery have provoked a mixture of anger, disbelief and despair among some; and perhaps some jubilation among others. The evidence has yet to emerge publicly. But the certainty among the key political actors is enough to crush temporarily the political process. Many now believe the Good Friday Agreement is damaged beyond repair. Others sceptical of the values which underpin it go further. They suggest that recent events demonstrate that post-ceasefire politics was built on wishful thinking. No transition has taken place, they say, with the fear – bolstered by recent statements from the IRA - that we may be on the verge of a return to conflict. The Agreement is flawed, they say, and is constructed on a false premise and promotes division. But is this mood of despair justified? Have people really given up on the principles which underpin the Agreement? Are the core principles of post-Agreement political life really absent from the current debate? There is a danger that the wrong response to the recent bank robbery will fatally undermine a process that has achieved something of significance. A focus on tackling criminality makes sense. Abandoning the process and returning to old-style devolutionary thinking does not.
No supporter of the Agreement had any illusions about the withering away of existing political strategies and tactics. The aim it seems was to gain some measure of consensus around framing rules for a process and the agreed institutions within which politics would function. The conflict – and the people involved in it - would work within the political institutions and processes at all levels; it would not melt away. And here's the issue we keep returning to: communal identity matters to people in Northern Ireland. And this is why we have the politics we have. The constitutional question has always been, and will remain, 'real politics'. Perhaps after all the initial optimism it was unrealistic to expect that following a sustained period of violent conflict trust would emerge in less than a decade. The increased vote for the DUP and Sinn Féin tells us just how much national identity remains a live issue here.
Whether 'simply British' or 'simply Irish' or 'simply both'- it does seem to matter. But it is wrong to see this, as many appear to, as failure or the impoverishment of politics. People are opting for political representatives who will forcefully articulate their concerns. Political parties like the DUP and Sinn Féin are moving to where the people already are. They are not taking them places they have no wish to go. Tempting as it might be, it is unfair, and a bit condescending, to label this as intensified 'tribalism'. Yet the dominant policy response treats people as if their voting patterns reflect an irrational false consciousness from which they will wake with appropriate re-training. Who is guilty of wishful thinking here?
The response to the bank robbery reflects the depth of the consensus around what post-Agreement life means. This need not be viewed as destructive of the Agreement. In reality it reflects a consensus around one of the core principles: the commitment of all parties to exclusively peaceful and democratic means. Look at how the governments and the parties talk. Republicans still criticise the International Monitoring Commission with reference to the Agreement and talk of the need for full implementation. The SDLP insists on full implementation. The DUP looks as if it came very close to a comprehensive deal which contained all the fundamentals of the Agreement. People still seem to see the Good Friday Agreement and/or the principles which underpin it as decisive. It seems there will now be a renewed and intense focus on alleged loyalist and republican criminality. The demand for finality, which emerged during the process, will now be pushed hard. But why should the entire process be abandoned? Why talk in apocalyptic terms? Surely this is the implementation of agreed principles rather than the abandonment of them. I have suggested in the past that the Agreement simply reflects the core principles which will need to be present for any political accommodation that has a chance of lasting success. It appears that a historic agreement was close at the end of 2004. We should not forget that. What in the last few months has really altered this position? Breaching a core principle may well result in some form of sanction, but to repeat, this is the application of the principles rather that a divergence from them. If any participant in a process infringes a rule, and it attracts criticism/sanction, it strengthens the significance of the framework, not the opposite.
Some day we will be back to where we were in November 2004. However unlikely this sounds at present, things can be advanced without the Assembly. We will, it seems, go through a period of sanctions and exclusion. A process which will, I suspect, probably not disrupt voting preferences within the nationalist and republican community. That fact will need to be faced. You cannot insist on power-sharing between the two main communities and then exclude indefinitely the party which has electoral dominance in one of those communities. Eventually we will all be back to where we were. In the meantime should both governments and all political parties not get on with implementing those aspects of the Agreement which can be advanced?
