Analysis A UUP ‘cart horse’ tramples its leader

By Jack Holland

The Rev. Martin Smyth, who challenged David Trimble last weekend for the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party, was ungenerously referred to by a unionist colleague as more of a cart horse than a stalking horse.

Well, it became clear on Saturday afternoon as the results of the Ulster Unionist Council vote were announced that the cart horse had succeeded in trampling all over Trimble. And in doing so, its ponderous hooves have also trampled into the ground any prospect of the Good Friday agreement being fully implemented in the near future.

Some Trimble supporters have tried, understandably, to spin the result — 56.7 percent for Trimble to 43.3 percent for Smyth — as proof that support for the leader and his policies remains "rock solid," in the words of one. That is an illusion. The truth is that the result of the Ulster Unionist Council meeting has undermined, perhaps fatally, Trimble’s leadership of the party.

Consider the nature of the challenge. It was mounted by a 68-year-old former grand master of the Orange Order, regarded with bemused tolerance by most party members, who, when he last launched a leadership bid, gave him only 60 votes.

It was mounted on only two days’ notice. Yet Smyth received 348 votes, to Trimble’s 457. The true nature of Smyth’s party status was revealed when, later in the day, he failed to regain his old post as one of the UUP’s vice presidents. That is, the UUC vote was an anti-Trimble vote, and an anti-agreement vote. It exposed Trimble’s weakness and will undoubtedly lead to a more serious challenger taking him on, probably sooner rather than later.

Not only has Trimble’s position as leader been drastically weakened. His ability to bring the party back into power-sharing government has been made almost impossible — within the short term at least — by the UUC vote in the afternoon to refuse to rejoin such a government unless the British agreed to abandon the recommendation of the Patten Commission on police reform that the name of the RUC be changed as part of an overall plan to restructure the force.

That means that there are now two huge preconditions blocking the road back to government where before there was only one: decommissioning.

By demanding that the IRA disarm as a condition of staying in government with Sinn Féin, the UUC effectively usurped the role of the De Chastelain’s decommissioning body, set up under the terms of the Good Friday agreement specifically to deal with that contentious issue. The UUC’s vote on Saturday in relation to the RUC’s name means that they are now attempting to usurp the role of the Patten commission.

In response to the setback, the British Northern Ireland secretary of state, Peter Mandelson, has called on the IRA to come to the UUP leader’s aid, presumably by declaring the war is over and committing itself to decommissioning at some time in the future. It is thought that that would allow Trimble to act on his Washington statement on St. Patrick’s Day in which he said he would be prepared to go into government again without prior decommissioning, provided he was assured that this time the IRA was serious about disarmament.

Such a gesture from the IRA is unlikely in the extreme. And informed sources suggest that the Irish government is unlikely to "gang up" on the IRA and Sinn Féin in a attempt to compel them to move in that direction.

"It would be a waste of time," said one source close to Dublin’s thinking.

Instead, the Irish government would like to see the British government moving forward to implement those parts of the agreement that are not contingent upon the reestablishment of a devolved government in Northern Ireland. This would include the Patten commission’s recommendations, which the British have already accepted, and the still-to-be-published review of the North’s judicial system. The latter is certain to be contentious for Unionists, as it is expected that it will recommend reforming procedures, such as the selection of judges to make judicial structures more acceptable to the Nationalist community.

Such reforms, if pursued vigorously, would help to "normalize" the North and ensure that the IRA maintains its cease-fire. The implementation of the Patten commission’s recommendations especially would render the UUC’s latest resolution on preserving the RUC’s name pointless, since the new force, the Police Service of Northern Ireland, would become law, name and all.

In the meantime, the May 22 deadline looms. According to the agreement, this is the date by which "the total disarmament of all paramilitary organizations" will have taken place. Almost certainly, it will pass without that goal being realized. It is feared that rejectionist Unionists will attempt to use this as proof that the entire agreement has collapsed. Pressure will mount on Trimble to adapt that argument, which would be tantamount to leading his party out of the agreement once and for all. If he resists that course, it is likely that a more serious and effective challenge to his leadership will be launched, almost certainly by Jeffrey Donaldson, who, it is said, punched the air in triumph when he learned of last Saturday’s result.