Nobody seems to have paid much attention, but David Trimble has managed to slip in another pre-condition to help him avoid going into an executive again. Not content with instantly rejecting Gerry Adams's 'clarification' of the invisible IRA statement, Trimble added that he had no intention of proposing a candidate for first or deputy first minister or voting for anyone else who was proposed, until there are "genuine acts of completion by republicans". In other words, even if Trimble's nightmare comes about and Sinn Féin and the IRA manage to convince the Irish and British governments of their bona fides so that eventually elections can proceed, Trimble himself will ensure that any elections will be to an assembly which will not function.
Notice he could not care less whether there are any acts of completion by Tony Blair for in one respect at least Trimble has always been consistent, namely success-fully resisting the implementation of any measures of the Good Friday Agreement which would make for an equal society here. You can see what he plans. Just as he refused to accept General de Chastelain's decommissioning body as the arbiter of republican progress towards surrendering their weaponry, so now Trimble intends to set himself up as the arbiter of what constitutes 'acts of com-pletion' by republicans. Needless to say they will never be sufficient. Needless to say Bertie Ahern and Blair will let him get away with it. It will be very simple for him to drag matters out until the scheduled review of the workings of the agreement begins in the autumn.
Even if the IRA announced today that they are ceasing all activities and disbanding forthwith it would not be enough. Trimble would insist on a period of quarantine to ensure that it was true. Unionists would proclaim every incident at every interface as evidence of the IRA instigating confrontations. They did so last year despite unequivocal statements from the police and British army that the UDA was orchestrating the violence. Shamefully NIO ministers were less forthright.
You will notice that Trimble has also taken it upon himself to announce what is 'sufficient for the removal of suspension', or more precisely, what isn't, and there's you thinking it was a matter for the two governments. He can adopt this pose because he has managed to convince Blair that he is the only unionist who can keep the agreement afloat whereas in reality he has single-handedly done more to damage it than any other politician.
There are deeper wellsprings feeding Trimble's attitude though. Virtually every statement he makes steams with traditional unionist prejudices. His latest pronounce-ments are classic examples. It's clear he cannot see nationalists, especially not Sinn Féin, as equal partners in an administration here. Their admission to an executive will only be on his terms and on sufferance. If they don't conform to his expectations he will walk away. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that if they do conform to his expectations he will walk away. They better not be uppity. They must live down to the standards he expects if he is to tolerate them. He has still never shaken hands with anyone in Sinn Féin.
Now the folly of this approach is that opponents of the agreement in his own party and in the DUP can legitimately wonder that if Sinn Féin are so awful, what is Trimble doing contemplating entering a northern administration alongside these people he despises? He has made them into such bogeymen that his own electorate no longer support sharing power with republicans. If he finally attempts to do so it will only be on conditions which are intolerable to republicans and outside the terms of the agreement: even so it will be such a somersault his own party will repudiate him.
In short, by relying on Trimble, Ahern and Blair are clinging onto a broken reed. They both know this but what choice have they in the short term? Sooner or later though, Dublin and London will have to agree to let northern voters have their say. The longer they delay the more emphatic the result will be – the voters will demonstrate that the north is a failed political entity where, given a free choice, people can't agree on how to administer their own affairs. The supreme irony is that it will be the unionist voters who show conclusively that they can't elect a leader who is prepared to cooperate on equal terms with the rest of the people on the island. But then, isn't that what unionism's for?
