Politicians like to pretend they're guided by high-flown principles. They don't like to be reminded of the truth which is that they're guided by the date of the next election. That dictates the timetable of their actions, their inaction and the direction their policies take.
For that reason it suits the victors in each community, Sinn Féin and the DUP, to pursue the same electoral goal in the next 18 months. But, in the nature of politics here, their route to that goal will follow diametrically opposed directions: sweetness and light from SF, dogged refusal from the DUP. The goal? To overwhelm their rivals, SDLP and UUP, and clear the field.
Ian Paisley, if he can remain standing until June, even if he has to hang on journalists' lapels for support, will blatter the UUP's invisible man in the European elections. Could he possibly repeat his stupendous 1984 vote tally of 230,000?
For the rest of the DUP the target is the next British general election, now looking likely to be June 2005. Their bulls eye will be David Trimble if he's still around.
Sammy Wilson looks set fair in East Antrim where his party beat the UUP 3:2 last week.
Donaldson, Martin Smyth and Burnside are DUP fellow travellers.
On the other side of the fence the European election is a problem for Sinn Féin. Even though he is unwell, John Hume, if he still insists on running, will beat Bairbre de Brun. No matter: Hume is not the SDLP.
SF's real target, like the DUP's, is the British general election. On last week's showing, the SDLP will struggle to retain one MP in South Down. Conor Murphy will win Newry/Armagh and Mitchell McLaughlin will win Foyle, boundary changes permitting.
The current political climate could not be more conducive to the achievement of those DUP and Sinn Féin goals. The DUP will tough it out for the next 18 months. They will not want to give any hostages to fortune in negotiations before an election to allow any opponent to accuse them of doing a U-turn, let alone committing that most heinous unionist sin – selling out.
For their part, Sinn Féin will prosper by demanding acts of completion of the British government which will not be forthcoming. They will not be forthcoming because the British will entertain the forlorn hope that the DUP will be induced to come into talks with Sinn Féin and that any move to meet Sinn Féin demands will be seen as, altogether now, 'a sop to republicans'. Nothing suits Sinn Féin's electoral cause better than to be able to rail against British and unionist intransigence. There will be no pressure on them from the nationalist community to decommission. If they wouldn't complete the process for Trimble, are they going to rush out to do it for Paisley? So don't look forward to any statements from P O'Neill in the near future.
On the other hand, as Gerry Adams pointed out, this is where we were in 1996 with David Trimble and the UUP refusing to speak to Sinn Féin.
Remember, the whole Good Friday Agreement was finalised without any negotiations between SF and the UUP and that Trimble wouldn't even shake hands with Adams until last summer.
Will the DUP want to sit on the sidelines for five years while SF educates them in the political process? Peter Robinson will be 60 in December 2008. Even Sammy Wilson, the party's jester, will be fifty by then. Will he remain content to perform his present political role of waving a pig's bladder on a stick at republicans? Will they all sit on their hands while the position of First Minister and three other ministerial limousines lie empty and waiting for them? No. The real question is, if not now, when?
Intransigence may suit the DUP's immediate political goal of seeing off Trimble and splitting up the UUP. By 2005 we will all know whether they have succeeded. Ironically that same intransigence will help SF achieve their goal too. But SF has bigger fish to fry. Their immediate interest is the party's continuing growth in the Republic which has local government elections on the same day in June as the European election.
The DUP's intransigence and the inevitable stupid decisions by the British will help that SF project too. But a couple of well timed, magnanimous gestures would do wonders for Sinn Féin, say another slice of decommissioning in return for British movement on OTRs? After months of DUP stone-walling, the timing would be just before the European/local government elections in the Republic, a pure coincidence of course, but highly principled.
