A double standard goes to the core of unionist disenchantment, writes Frank Millar, London Editor
'It's not just the DUP, stupid, it's the IRA as well." This anguished complaint from a leading Belfast commentator may provide a timely reminder for the pro-Belfast Agreement parties as they travel to London for this afternoon's post-election Downing Street summit.
Not that the Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble, should have any need of reminding. Nor, likewise, the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern. Indeed during his short flight Mr Ahern might usefully reread the briefing papers for a similar journey he made to London a year ago.
The destination on that occasion was the Irish Embassy; the purpose a private briefing of the cream of the British press. It didn't remain private for long. The headlines on Saturday, November 30th, promised imminent and "historic" moves by the IRA "to wind down its paramilitary activities" and make the "real, total and permanent" renunciation of violence demanded by the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, just six weeks before.
The Guardian's respected political editor, Michael White, had been told: "The IRA will announce a comprehensive act of weapons decommissioning - in effect giving up its secret arms dumps. It is also expected to promise an end to training, surveillance, punishment beatings and other violent activities."
The equally respected Donald Macintyre informed readers of the London Independent: "The republican shift could also include an equally momentous decision to endorse and participate in local boards overseeing the new Police Service of Northern Ireland."
Under the terms set for the briefing, this optimism was attributed to "senior sources close to the process." However, it quickly became clear that the source was Bertie himself. Indeed we discovered the Taoiseach's biggest worry was that the Ulster Unionists would get hung up on a demand for the formal, public disbandment of the IRA, because this was "the one thing neither Gerry Adams nor Martin McGuinness believes they can ever deliver while Ireland remains divided."
Well, it never happened in the terms prescribed by Mr Ahern - as later with Mr Blair, in the British Irish Joint Declaration. Not by the end of February as the Taoiseach had hoped. Nor by the end of April, when Mr Blair cancelled the Assembly election a second time.
Nor on October 21st, when delivery gave way to debacle at the Hillsborough summit, despite the fact - or was it because of it? - that Sinn Féin knew by then it had "won the argument" and that the election would proceed with or without Mr Trimble's agreement.
And it might be disturbing for democrats in both islands to realise that the two governments were ready to assure us their terms had been met, if only Mr Trimble had not pulled the plug at the last minute over the lack of "transparency" attending the IRA's third decommissioning act.
Within minutes of Mr Blair's car heading out of Downing Street for the airport, correspondents were being briefed by senior official sources explaining how the Hillsborough choreography was to unfold. By this stage the election date had been announced and Mr Adams had spoken, signalling another significant leap in republican thinking.
Yet - for the literal-minded - where were the words matching the demand in the famous paragraph 13 of the Joint Declaration spelling "an immediate, full and permanent cessation of all paramilitary activity, including military attacks, training, targeting, intelligence-gathering, acquisition or development of arms or weapons, other preparations for terrorist campaigns, punishment beatings and attacks and involvement in riots"? Where, likewise, the assurance that "the practice of exiling" was at an end, leaving the exiled "free to return in safety"?
The sources patiently explained that they were indeed there in the text of the Adams statement. To divine them required cross-referencing Mr Adams's words to paragraph 7 of the declaration which said it was "essential that each party has confidence in the commitment of the representatives of the others to the full operation and implementation of the agreement in all its aspects and accords respect to each others' democratic mandate."
So it was that Mr Adams was deemed to have met the requirements of Paragraph 13 as he defined the implementation of the agreement as providing the basis for unionists and republicans alike to pursue their goals by purely peaceful means; acknowledged that the agreement had been democratically endorsed by the vast majority of the people of both states on the island of Ireland; and offered: "Actions and the lack of actions on the ground speak louder than words,and I believe that everyone, including the two governments and the unionists, can move forward with confidence." For PhD students steeped in the minutiae of the process it was possible to see how this might fit the bill. However, it was impossible to imagine it could sell on the doorsteps of loyalist estates during an election, or why Mr Trimble would have thought to try.
Moreover, we now know from the Taoiseach that the Ulster Unionist leader would have been wrong to have done so. For Mr Ahern has again said Sinn Féin would not be an acceptable partner in government in the Republic. And it seems fair to conclude this can only be because Sinn Féin has not met the full requirements of paragraph 13 of the Joint Declaration, at least by the more exacting standards required for full entry to the Republic's democratic club.
As Mr Blair correctly divined in October last year, this double standard goes to the core of unionist disenchantment with the Good Friday accord. It was the absence of "acts of completion" which finally gave Dr Paisley his unionist majority.
If the DUP ultimately fails to engage the other parties, it is certainly possible to see how the Assembly's rules can be changed to enable the restoration of a power-sharing executive. But it is hard to see how Mr Trimble could lend himself to such a move until Mr Blair and Mr Ahern have laid the basis for the completion of the republican transition - preferably with P. O'Neill himself.