Sir, - So, we approach the end-game of the Belfast Agreement, the denouement when the respective governments' handling of the coming crisis mixed with a volatile summer will place the future of the Agreement and consensus politics in the balance. The two governments vacillate between spin and tail-spin, but really, no one should be surprised at the current predicament.
The British election results confirmed what every unionist knew for months in advance: the UUP (and therefore, by implication, the Belfast Agreement) would take a beating at the hands of the sceptical DUP. At first sight the reasons seem obvious, but the reality is probably more subtle, a combination of minor grievances and perceptions centred on decommissioning.
For the past two years unionists have been forced to confront an increasingly demanding pan-nationalist front combining constitutional nationalism, militant (and still armed) republicanism and the authority and power of the Irish Government. An alliance of convenience to be sure, but an unholy alliance nonetheless, and one that forced unionists to make an apparent choice between the Belfast Agreement and an angry hardening of attitude.
So, from a unionist perspective it was pretty clear. While Sinn Fein retained a small private army and with it the implied threat of a gun under the table, consensual politics, parity of esteem and community rapprochement were going to founder. Sinn Fein can't be faulted for pursuing relentlessly its stated goal of a united Ireland, but in its rush to out-Sinn-Fein Sinn Fein, the SDLP failed abjectly to support moderate unionism.
But the worst criticism must be reserved for both governments. Unionists no longer trust British governments of any colour, perceiving an unspoken desire to cut their losses and save the taxpayer from a tiresome burden while removing an international diplomatic headache. You're only British when you're useful, and unionism has begun to realise this.
The Irish Government, on the other hand, had an opportunity to play the interlocutor, to prove its credentials as a prospective all-Ireland government for all the people.
Instead, it played a petty hand and managed only to confirm unionist suspicions that it can't be trusted to deliver equally for both communities. Unionists cannot reconcile the Irish Government's hand-in-hand approach with Sinn Fein while the IRA brazenly thwarts Ireland's democratic will and Constitution.
Add to the equation the perceived injury when the IRA allegedly commits post-Agreement murders but nothing is done or no one re-imprisoned for breach of their parole; that 98 per cent of the Patten Report has been enacted, but Sinn Fein and the SDLP hang on for that extra concession: that every incident from alleged collusion of the security forces with terrorists to a rainy GAA picnic seems to warrant an inquiry; and one begins to understand the unionist perception that the Belfast Agreement is a one-way street.
I believe in the Agreement, have argued long and hard for it and want it to work, but when people like myself become disenchanted or even hostile, those most closely associated with the process must start to listen and take some lessons. There can be no gun under the table and in the end the onus is on the IRA and its Sinn Fein proxies to deliver what they signed up to deliver. They can't have it both ways forever. The time when talking-the-talk becoming walking-the-walk is upon us. - Yours, etc.,
Paul Coey, Kemnay, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.