The Ulster Unionist Party emerged from the election relatively unshaken while the DUP gobbled up smaller anti-agreement parties and gave Paisley thepolitical victory he has craved for decades. The question now is, will the DUP also swallow the dissident UUP MPs and will the Robinson wing try to lead the DUP and Northern Ireland into a new future?
The growing impression is that, despite histrionics, the DUP might be prepared to finish the job that David Trimble began. That job is the creation of a Northern Ireland capable of meeting the needs, as opposed to wants, of a diverse society that has already conferred legitimacy on our main historical traditions. It would not have been possible even to imagine such a society had not the UUP taken risks. It is now also possible to envisage full IRA decommissioning and disbandment. The principle of decommissioning has been conceded, Articles Two and Three have been altered, the principle of consent is enshrined, a Stormont assembly has been in place with international support and east-west bodies are in operation. Those items that are less palatable, from a DUP perspective, are already in place so the DUP can blame others for these. They include cross-border bodies, a role for the Irish government, Sinn Féin ministers, prisoner releases and so on.
Had the DUP displayed enough courage to engage directly with nationalists and republicans in the first place we could have made faster progress. However, it is also possible that they would have damaged possibilities because they don't appear to understand, or perhaps accept, the elementary rules of engagement that govern effective dialogue. There must be mutual tolerance and acceptance of participants even where there are fundamental differences.
Without that enemies will attempt to extract maximum benefit to the hurt of their opponents.
The DUP leadership have treated Sinn Féin and loyalists with contempt. The DUP leadership have acted in ways that are deplorable and so have undermined possibilities of a shared future over decades.
The DUP is also said to have been the greatest recruiting sergeant the IRA ever had. Their opponents in Sinn Féin tend to minimise the enormity of what so-called republicans did to the unionist people through intimidating, threatening and killing members of the unionist community.
The two parties needed each other to justify hard line stances and actions. Today the DUP electoral victory presents them with a chance to make history by tying up loose ends and clearing the battlefield. If they accept their responsibilities they could possibly claim to have resolved our historical problems and created stability. There are doubts about whether they have the courage and good sense to take the remaining steps. Their demands for a final end to the IRA and its weapons are entirely reasonable while republicans contemplate a place in government. But people are fed up with constant sniping and have placed responsibility for the future in the hands of the DUP and wait to see what they will do.
The DUP may gloat over their electoral victory but if they fail to deliver that victory will prove a Pyrrhic one that will be reversed as sure as night follows day.
There is a greater good to be achieved and the fainthearted need encouragement. The DUP should not let Sinn Féin off the hook by placing unreasonable demands upon them. This would damage all that has been achieved and bring the DUP and perhaps Northern Ireland, to a miserable humiliating final stalemate. In contrast, the task facing the UUP is one of getting their house in order. They have been overly tolerant and accommodating to erstwhile friends who are now dissidents who refuse to accept the leadership, policies and discipline of their own party.
The best solution would be for them to leave and take their chance with the DUP but by doing so they would forfeit possibilities of achieving leadership.
However, they cannot continue taking advantage of UUP membership while bringing the party into disrepute and damaging electoral prospects. The UUP could never ever out Paisley.
If this situation existed in any other political party those damaging the party would be expelled. In any organisation where a minority seeks to impose its will on the majority that organisation should insist upon a return to party structure and discipline and deal effectively with the wrongdoers. To fail to do so would jeopardise future possibilities. The message from the rebels suggests that they are not prepared to join their colleagues in the DUP and would rather inflict further damage on their own party.
This is unacceptable.
