There is still no alternative to the Good Friday Agreement
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Your support makes all the difference.Last week it seemed as though the Good Friday Agreement had only months to live. The pledge by Northern Ireland's First Minister, David Trimble, to the Ulster Unionist Council that he would walk out of the power-sharing executive if the IRA did not disband by January (an absurdly unrealistic demand) had made the collapse of the institutions inevitable.
A weekend of allegations about the intelligence-gathering activities of Sinn Fein officials in Stormont has now made even that assessment look wildly optimistic. The Northern Ireland Assembly and its power-sharing executive will be lucky to survive the rest of this week. The political will for the peace process to succeed, always contingent and always a little fragile, seems to have evaporated, crucially among mainstream unionists.
The levels of sectarian violence, and the persistence of punishment beatings, gangsterism and loyalist infighting, have undermined the "peace dividend". The trial of IRA members in Colombia suggests that the Provos have not yet given up the profession of violence. There is a pervasive mood of pessimism settling over Belfast.
It is as well to acknowledge that grim reality. But that does not necessarily mean that the war will restart, and the Provisional IRA will go back to its old ways, although the Real IRA will claim vindication. The fundamental point is the one repeatedly made by the Secretary of State, John Reid – that the critics of the agreement, flawed as it is, have no viable alternative to it.
Thus, even after a breakdown in the institutions, the parties will almost certainly retain the habit of talking, but the levels of trust must be raised from their current, depressingly low, levels. That means that moderate unionists have to realise that they can't "just say no" to unpalatable ideas. It also means that Republicans must make clear their commitment to peaceful methods. If they do not, they will allow extreme elements, in Mr Trimble's party and outside, to exploit the impasse, and any "Mark 2" agreement will be harder to achieve. It may be irksome for Sinn Fein, but that is a hard fact of political life, and they have to deal with it.
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