When, or indeed if, Mr Chris Patten takes up his post as chairman of the independent commission on RUC reform - his appointment is dependent on a Yes vote in the referendum - his political tenacity and reputation for impartiality will be called on in abundance.
His credentials for the post are impressive as he is a former Conservative Party chairman and former governor of Hong Kong. Mr Blair's offer to him to head the commission is seen as a canny decision intended to dilute Tory unrest over decommissioning and prisoner releases.
Mr Patten (54), whose great-grandfather left Ireland during the Famine, took a history degree at Oxford, and began his rise through the Tory ranks when Sir Edward Heath appointed him as the youngest-ever director of the Conservative research department. His relationship with the former prime minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, never blossomed because she regarded him as a "wet" and in 1978 she removed him as secretary to the shadow cabinet.
He has been described as "seriously" Roman Catholic with a "peculiarly Roman sense of service and charity". He has also been described as an old-fashioned Tory interested in "obligation and community".
In choosing Mr Patten, the British government is aware that he will bring with him his intimate knowledge of Northern Ireland politics, having spent two years there as under-secretary of state with responsibility for the environment, health and social services in 1983-1985. During this time he also played an important role in negotiating the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985.
Before the agreement was signed, the then Northern secretary, Mr Douglas Hurd, appointed Mr Patten as a low-profile mediator between the parties in the North to sound out their common ground for political development. The tense relationship between the SDLP and the DUP and Ulster Unionists had not been helped by Mr John Hume's decision to met representatives of the IRA earlier in the year.
Committed to his task, Mr Patten dismissed the unionist critics who viewed his Catholicism as a sign that he could not be impartial. However, he angered the unionists when he allowed nationalists in Derry to rename their council Derry City Council.
In 1992, when he was Conservative Party chairman, he suffered the humiliation of losing his Bath seat, and the former prime minister, Mr John Major, immediately offered him the post of governor of Hong Kong. As the last British governor, his proposal for political reform incensed the Chinese government. However, Mr Patten's "chummy" diplomacy before Hong Kong was handed back to the Chinese in 1997 was viewed as a measured success.
Since returning from Hong Kong, he has toyed with the idea of running for mayor of London and he has criticised the Tory leader, Mr William Hague, for his anti-EMU policy. However, he has so far resisted attempts to step back into mainstream British politics.
Earlier this year, the owner of the Irish Independent and the London Independent, Dr Tony O'Reilly, appointed Mr Patten to the board of Independent Newspaper Publishing.