Is Sinn Féin fit for government?
Ian Paisley asks the question and demands that Tony Blair answers it. Even though the question has a moral tone, it is asked in a political context and therefore is almost certain to receive an evasive reply. But like every question that remains unanswered, it has the ability to hang around like a flag on a lamp post.
Ian Paisley goes on to outline the standards against which the question should be answered. There must be verifiable decommissioning, an ending of criminality and a full-hearted support for law and order. Decommissioning has undeniably taken place. Verifiable is an imprecise concept that has echoes of the Apostle Thomas who would not believe unless he put his own fingers into the holes in Christ's hands. Since the announcement of the standing down of the IRA there has been no criminality attributed to that organisation.
The law and order issue is the most controversial but also the most interesting. The two governments and Sinn Féin gifted this issue to the DUP.
Had any of them grasped the nettle then Ian Paisley would never have dared raise it as a hurdle to be jumped. The reality is that any time during the past five years Sinn Féin could have taken seats on the new policing structures and no-one could have done much about it. The only action then open to the DUP would have been to behave like the Ulster Unionist Party is presently behaving.
No-one is very sure if the UUP are on the Policing Board or not on the board. Politically, their behaviour is about as effective as a flag flying on a lamp post.
Sinn Féin has opted to abstain and to protest. Their absence has managed to slow the pace and the efficiency of the much-needed rooting of policing in every community. Their absence, however, hasn't added one jot of new legislation that was not already in the pipeline. They used policing as a bargaining tool. What they were bargaining for and what they achieved in their bargaining is far from clear.
The two governments should have made the support of policing a sine qua non in achieving a full implementation of both Plan A and Plan B.
The Irish government in particular should have insisted on this support not just because it is the most pragmatic and the most moral position in the current political context. It would also have been some recognition that it was the Irish people who led the IRA from the path of violence to the path of politics. It would have countered the vacuous claim that the DUP are the moral guardians of law and order.
Closer to the truth is that the SDLP laid their political bodies across the moat that separated violence and politics, so that the IRA could cross over.
The leadership of Sinn Féin were brave and farsighted in that journey.
During the long and arduous years of negotiations that followed it was various Irish governments who laid the standards that were appropriate to peace and morality. To gift the DUP with an imprimatur around law and order is an affront to many good men and women.
It is even more outrageous when the violent events that took place after the Whiterock parade last year are recalled. At that time many members of the DUP withdrew their support for law and order. Ian Paisley did not then ask the question: "Is my party fit for government?"
The Irish government are tasked with representing all the people who claim Irish identity. It is they who should interpret the will of their people. It is they who should spell out the standards that are acceptable.
No political party in Ireland would join in government with Sinn Féin if they did not support the Garda. Equally, no political party in the north should join in government with any party which does not support the PSNI.
It is a shame that the present Irish government has not shown greater clarity and courage on this particular issue.
So, is Sinn Féin fit for government? Of course it is. It is as fit as the DUP.
As soon as it has had its ard fheis and persuaded its delegates that it is impossible to be in government while remaining apart from the institutions that form the criminal justice system then, of course, it should be in government.
