Now that Westminster has resumed for a couple of weeks before the annual conferences of the main British parties, some of the time will be used to push through the legislation on the International Monitoring Commission, a device as relevant as a fifth wheel on a car. During the process you'll hear last Saturday's UUC result talked up as a victory for David Trimble. You will even hear people say Trimble's leadership problems have been resolved, but then they add, "for the time being".
The truth is nothing has changed since the joint declaration was published in April. That is the crux of the matter. Whether or not to discipline the three rebel MPs was a distraction from the real issue, which is that the UUP is irrevocably split on the joint declaration and cannot accept it as it stands: Trimble would never get it through. It's as big an item as the end of the RUC and Trimble was defeated on that at the UUC.
There is a major difference though. It didn't matter whether the UUC accepted root-and-branch reform of the RUC and the removal of its name, symbols and regalia.
That was all a matter for London. In the case of the joint declaration it does matter because, in case you forgot, it concerns the local administration here, and most particularly the administration of justice.
It shows unionists a glimpse of what this place will be like in the future with Sinn Féin involved in running justice and sitting on the Policing Board. Maybe even a Fenian attorney general.
When the declaration was published unionists could say they had seen the future and naturally they are agin it. On mature reflection they are even more agin it now. The bottom line is this: if what was published at Easter is the price for entering a partnership administration with Sinn Féin, then they ain't gonna pay.
In short, the inevitable outworkings of the Good Friday Agreement are too much for unionists to stomach.
The International Monitoring Commission, just the latest sweetie thrown at them to mollify the agreement's opponents in the UUP, will have no effect whatsoever.
It's simply a sign of how desperate the British government is to keep Trimble's head above water.
The fact that the Irish government yielded so readily to Donaldson's objection about southern involvement in northern affairs is an implicit acknowledgement that the IMC is only for the optics.
Remember, just because Peter Robinson or Jeffrey Donaldson criticises something doesn't mean they're wrong or their observations untrue.
So, when Robinson says the UUP is "irrevocably split" he's right, is he not? Equally, when Donaldson says the IMC won't work, can't work and is designed not to work in slinging Sinn Féin out of any executive, he's right as well. Let's face it, if all they could find for a representative from the north was a political nonentity like Lord Alderdice the former leader of the NIO's front party, that says it all.
Once Dublin and London have got an executive up and running there's not a chance they'll expel SF.
The IMC is a fraud, a fig leaf for Trimble. It shrivels to minuscule proportions of blushing embarrassment when compared to the extended ramifications of the joint declaration from which unionists are supposed to avert their gaze. They won't. They'll tie Trimble to opposing any sections of the joint declaration which might be attractive to nationalists. Trimble will agree and demand changes.
And do you know something? He'll get them. His appeasement of his own rebels has been a consistent theme of his weak and inept leadership for eight years now. As he chose to remind us on Saturday the same percentage in the party support him now as did in 1995: some achievement, eh?
On the granite foundation of Saturday's vote you'll hear talk of an election in November. How many concessions will Trimble have wrung from Blair by then? What difference will all his concessions make to his opponents in the party? None whatsoever.
What difference have all the cavities Trimble has drilled in the agreement since 1998 made to the proportion of unionists who support it? Quite a lot, in fact.
His own intemperate language and his rejection of any radical change the agreement requires have confirmed many middle-class unionists that their suspicions about the agreement were well founded. Don't forget that this time last year Trimble announced after, what was it, the 10th UUC meeting since Good Friday 1998, that the only difference between him and Donaldson was tactics. Their objectives were the same. So nothing has changed, nor will it.
