Troubles in store among the British Mr Brown forgot to mention

On Tuesday 25 March 2008, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, chose to publish an article on the theme of Britishness in the Daily Telegraph. What is remarkable about the article is that it defined Britishness as a Welsh, Scottish or English quality, but completely omitted any mention of Northern Ireland. Ironically, in the same week, Tony Blair’s old chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, had just published his memoir, Great Hatred, Little Room. Powell insists that at the core of Blair’s strategy for peace in Northern Ireland was his speech given in Balmoral in 1997 – much disliked by the Irish government – in which he insisted that he valued the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Somewhere along the way in the transition from one prime minister to another, that insight seems to have been lost. The inevitable result was much unionist anger in the House of Commons and a less than convincing attempt of palliation by Gordon Brown. A question is thus raised: how safe is the working of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland in the face of such prime ministerial absent-mindedness? There are those who also argue that Gordon Brown’s decision not to take new radical steps to fund the new dispensation in Belfast is risky and short-sighted. In fact, there was no reasonable prospect of the prime minister reaching for his cheque book this time. The fact remains that Northern Ireland has just experienced several months of uncanny quiet, and it would be unreasonable to expect things to continue in quite the same way. The origin of the looming crisis is clear enough. Within days of the Good Friday Agreement — created essentially by the SDLP and the Ulster unionists — Sinn Fein claimed ownership having, in the words of Gerry Adams, adapted and turned party policy on its head. It took the DUP somewhat longer to perform the same trick. But now those two parties dominate Northern Irish politics, at the price of accepting the political philosophy of others. The trouble is that not all their supporters fully grasped what was going on inside the beltway. Jonathan Powell’s new book shows that Tony Blair explained early on to Adams and McGuinness that a united Ireland was not on the agenda. They offered to bring their people along in this new context. Powell’s book also shows that the DUP was maintaining a back-channel contact with the Provos at a time when their supporters were publicly assured that no such thing was happening. Unsurprisingly now, both parties face a degree of disillusionment from within their support base. The recent Dromore by-election showed a defection of perhaps a third of the DUP’s natural election base. For Sinn Fein, the matter is further complicated by the party’s disastrous election result in the Republic of Ireland last summer. The all-Ireland political strategy, which had replaced the IRA’s armed campaign, died in the killing fields of the ballot boxes in the Irish Republic. There is even a sign in Belfast that the personality cult which surrounds Gerry Adams is becoming somewhat tarnished, as previously loyal organs such as the Andersonstown News now pop up with independent criticisms. The great outstanding issue is the devolution of policing and justice. Sinn Fein argued that they were promised it would happen by May 2008; the DUP is determined that this so-called deadline will be broken. But here is the paradox: if, as the DUP claim, their great victory has been to force republicans to accept policing and law and order, why is there a problem with devolving policing and justice powers to a Northern Ireland Executive? But this inconsistency is likely to be brushed aside by the DUP. The new incoming Robinson leadership will be determined to assert that — as opposed to Dr Paisley, who was perceived by a significant section of Dromore electors to have gone soft — that they are tough. But if not in 2008, why should the DUP yield in 2009 when it faces a potentially difficult European election? Indeed, why should it yield before the next general election whenever that comes? The stage is set for a traditional test of wills. Gerry Adams leaning on the British and Irish governments to help deliver the final stage of the deal; the DUP leadership resisting but determined still to protect their jobs in the new Stormont. This time, of course, the republicans negotiate without any latent threat of force, real or imagined. These are new rules which make it very difficult to predict the outcome of the pending crisis. What is not in doubt is that the unnatural amity of Northern Irish politics over the last few months is coming to an end and that a severe test of the new institutions is just round the corner — even though it would be exceptionally pessimistic to believe that those institutions will not survive. Jonathan Powell’s decision to borrow a line from W. B. Yeats for the title for his new book reminds us of another theme articulated by that great poet. Yeats noted that the Irish revolution had a habit of eating its children. The same might be said of the Good Friday Agreement process. David Trimble and Seamus Mallon both created and embraced it. Both have been pushed out of Northern Irish politics today. Dr Paisley was the next in line. To the surprise of many, late in life, he too embraced the deal. Within months he was ruthlessly cast aside by his party who were worried about a nervous mood in the Province. Mr Adams is in a stronger position, and calls on greater reserves of discipline and emotional support. The poor old Andersonstown News, after its attack of independent critical spirit, had to publish an apology for its ‘inappropriate and untimely’ article. Nonetheless, there is something rather worrying about the price imposed on those who go down the path of political compromise in Northern Ireland: some of them have disappointed the ethnic passions they have played such a large part in arousing. This is the difficulty with the type of settlement that we have. An operating deal based on moderate leadership would have enhanced the politics of co-operation and mutual understanding. A deal based on the erstwhile ‘extremes’ of the political spectrum has no such operating logic. The leading parties have the position they have because they are seen to have stood up more effectively to the political ‘other’. This sour reality does not mean that devolution in Northern Ireland will necessarily fail, but it does mean that the capabability of the new institutions to tackle the problems of the Province is not quite what they would have been.

Lord Bew, Professor of Politics at Queen’s University, Belfast, is Northern Ireland editor of Parliamentary Brief