Analysis: For the DUP to gain power, the IRA will have to facilitate a return to devolution, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor
The DUP annual conference in Belfast on Saturday served to reinforce the inter-dependence of the Rev Ian Paisley's party and Sinn Féin. Even Dr Paisley, in his own inimitable manner, managed to convey that message to the faithful.
In the midst of an unusually short (for Dr Paisley), sometimes paranoid leader's address, Dr Paisley made a comment that not so long ago would have stuck in his craw. "The DUP stands ready to enter real talks provided total decommissioning has been accomplished," he said.
We've known for some time now from the likes of DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson that the party was prepared to deal face-to-face with Sinn Féin based on the usual conditions.
But to hear the man himself tell the party that a day may come when the DUP must engage directly with Sinn Féin was a new departure that will have an impact on the party from its grassroots to its senior ranks. And implicit in his qualified willingness to parley with Gerry Adams is Dr Paisley's suspicion, at least, that the IRA might leave the battleground. And that too is a departure.
Hitherto, Dr Paisley himself would not in any circumstances entertain that notion. When asked would he talk to Sinn Féin if the IRA retired from the scene, his stock, trenchant answer was: "That is a stupid question because the IRA will never go out of business."
Saturday marked another shift. His hectoring choice of language didn't make it easy for P O'Neill to respond positively, but after all, this was a rallying conference where nuance is a frivolous French word. But nonetheless Dr Paisley said what for him previously was unsayable.
"IRA/Sinn Féin must learn that there is a price to be paid by them for a place at the table and until they get rid of the guns on the table, under the table and outside the doors of the negotiating chamber they will have no place in the talks. They have a choice to make, and until they make it, the door of democracy is locked against them," Dr Paisley told delegates.
By the same token the door to democracy, or devolution, is locked against the DUP as well. There is that mutual dependency again: for the DUP and Sinn Féin to gain power in the North requires the say so of the IRA.
But again that has been obvious for some time. The unknown is whether the IRA will facilitate the return to devolution. We weren't any wiser after the DUP conference. That's work in progress, but what was clear was that if the IRA ever makes that huge leap Dr Paisley, the "Never, Never, Never" man, will allow the DUP trade with Sinn Féin.
Otherwise though, his speech was traditional Paisley, with the usual attacks on the Pope, the "Church of Rome", the Jesuits, and Catholic Primate Archbishop Seán Brady. Hardly pleasant, but hardly surprising knowing the man.
This contrasted with the goodwill apparent in inviting one of Northern Ireland's most senior Chinese figures, Dr Patrick Yu of the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities, to address the conference on the evils of racism and of the conference taking time to debate and emphatically deplore racism. It's a change to hear Martin Luther King quoted at a DUP conference, as he was during this debate.
To be fair to Dr Paisley he went off-script at the end of his address to outline in Martin Luther King fashion his "dream" of a future Northern Ireland of equals, with no one side or religion lording it over the other.
Delegates naturally were in great good form on Saturday. "Top of the world, Ma," was the mood with the likes of Sammy Wilson and the Rev Willie McCrea entertaining and inspiring the faithful. And why wouldn't they be in fine fettle now that the DUP has finally eclipsed the Ulster Unionists.
Speaker after speaker happily crowed about how the party had defeated David Trimble, who came in for more abuse than even Gerry Adams.
Fiercest of these attacks came from former Ulster Unionist Jeffrey Donaldson attending, with fellow UUP defectors Arlene Foster and Norah Beare, his first DUP conference. Jeffrey was accorded a standing ovation before and after his speech. Here was a man who felt he had come home.
The medium to long-term project for the DUP is to restore devolution but on Saturday the party was also sharply focused on next month's European election. Peter Robinson, Dr Paisley, Mr Donaldson and several others set out a strategy for the election that, if it works, will create dread in the UUP and the SDLP, but ironically will delight Sinn Féin.
Time after time they warned that Sinn Féin's Bairbre de Brún had her eyes fixed on topping the poll and that only DUP candidate Jim Allister could thwart her. If that message gains currency it will create difficulties for the UUP and SDLP candidates Jim Nicholson and Martin Morgan.
It could cause their would-be supporters to desert them and vote along basic sectarian lines for the DUP and Sinn Féin.
The DUP and Sinn Féin may hate each other. But they need each other.