When Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, addressed the SDLP annual conference at the weekend, his frustration at the pace of events in Northern Ireland was palpable. He spoke of the "valuable months" which have been wasted since June on the sterile argument about arms decommissioning. He went on to list the urgent economic and social agenda which faces the incoming executive. In his leader's address, Mr John Hume also spelled out, in visionary terms, his image of a working democracy under the Belfast Agreement. Mr Mallon castigated both Sinn Fein and Mr David Trimble's Ulster Unionists for "ranking their own sectoral interests before the wider needs of the whole community". It was, he told the conference, "a classic reworking of the old confrontational politics - my party, right or wrong".
It is one of the many paradoxes of Northern Ireland politics that Seamus Mallon, the traditional nationalist, the waspish spokesman over many years on security issues, is thought of by many unionists as a preferred partner in government to John Hume. While the SDLP leader and Nobel laureate is often viewed with a mixture of fear and awe for his political skills and his ability to weave verbal formulae, his deputy is held to be a plain dealer who plays a straight bat and whose words mean what they say. It would be a great pity, therefore, if his conference intervention on decommissioning were not to be accorded full weight or taken fully on board by the unionists.
He and the SDLP are prepared to be the guarantors of the Belfast Agreement, he told the conference. If, by the agreed deadline of April 2000, Sinn Fein's allies in the IRA have not completed the decommissioning of their arsenals, the SDLP will remove from office whose who would have "so blatantly dishonoured their obligations". Similarly, if it were to turn out that unionists persisted in seeking new ways of excluding Sinn Fein from executive office, he and the SDLP would withhold compliance, support or credibility from such actions. Mr Mallon offered these undertakings in the form of a solemn guarantee which, he hoped, would give both Sinn Fein and the unionists the confidence to face down their fears. Mr Mallon will not have expected his initiative instantly to cause Mr Trimble to reverse his demands that the IRA begins decommissioning before Sinn Fein is allocated places in the shadow executive. He knows as well as anyone else that Mr Trimble's back is against the unyielding wall of middle-ground unionist opinion - which reality cannot be gainsaid for all that the letter of the Agreement is against the unionists. But he is offering Mr Trimble a potent weapon and a valuable assurance which the First Minister may be able to make use of. He is also offering a useful instrument to the Sinn Fein leadership which, by reliable accounts, is faced with intransigence from elements within the IRA proper. Mr Mallon is saying that if the IRA welshes on decommissioning, or if the unionists try to prevent Sinn Fein from taking its rightful share of power, he will effectively collapse their role in the executive.
Initial responses from the unionists have been negative. But it now appears that as far as London is concerned, the issue must be resolved sooner rather than later. Mr Blair's planned address to the joint Houses of the Oireachtas at the end of this month is being indicated as a significant date and it seems likely that pressure will be applied all round over coming weeks to devise some new formula. It will not be found however without compromise from both the unionists and from the Sinn Fein/IRA axis. In seeking to sell such a compromise to his own side, Mr Trimble has been given significant, additional leverage by Mr Mallon's undertakings. But Sinn Fein - whether it cannot or will not - has still not moved a millimetre from the IRA's declaration that it will never decommission.