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Analysis: Leeds talks put DUP’s ‘moderate’ image to test

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

It is thought that the republican movement has made a substantial offer on IRA weapons. According to sources, the move would see the IRA effectively stand down by the end of the year.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he believed the offer was “reasonable in substance and historic in meaning.”
The parties met with Northern Secretary Paul Murphy and Department of Foreign Affairs junior minister Tom Kitt at Stormont Tuesday in a further bid to break the logjam.
However, while it appears that the republican movement is prepared to go much further than ever before, the DUP still refuses to sign up to a package. Political sources have pinned the failure to reach agreement on the DUP’s insistence on radical changes to the Northern Assembly.
As outlined in its assembly election manifesto, the DUP is demanding that power-sharing cabinet ministers be held accountable to the Assembly. Sinn Fein, the SDLP, the Ulster Unionists and the Alliance Party have all rejected the possibility.
The parties believe that the DUP demand amounts to little more than majority rule. SDLP leader Mark Durkan said that if the change was implemented it would mean that the DUP, the largest party in the Assembly, could block every move by nationalist cabinet members.
The DUP claimed that the mechanism would not be used to obstruct the work of nationalist ministers and said it could conceivably be used against the DUP more than any other party.
The DUP now faces a serious credibility problem. For the last 10 months the party has painted itself as one that is reasonable and open to compromise. Former UUP man Jeffrey Donaldson has been dispatched to speak to Northern nationalist and Southern audiences in a bid to spread the word of apparent conciliation.
Donaldson has lined up with Sinn Feiners in West Belfast, Donegal and Wicklow.
Meanwhile, the deputy leader, Peter Robinson, has been making overtures toward Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams in the pages of the Irish Times. He has said the DUP will share power if the IRA goes away and has held out the prospect of a Sinn Fein minister for justice. He recently followed this up with an unprecedented address at Dublin Castle two weeks ago in which he goaded Adams to call the DUP’s “bluff” on IRA weapons.
The DUP’s newfound image of moderation has taken a beating following Leeds. In a strikingly unusual display of unity, nationalist and non-DUP unionists appear to agree that the republican movement stepped up to the mark but found the DUP wanting.
Nationalists and republicans can now say “told you so.” IRA weaponry, in the run up to the talks, was billed as the chief impediment to political progress. The DUP had made IRA disbandment a core demand for power sharing.
Warnings by nationalist commentators, the SDLP and Sinn Fein — that the DUP was not up for a deal but only buying time — now appear to have merit. The DUP has so far failed to refute Adams? judgment that unionism uses IRA weaponry as an “excuse” not to deal with nationalists.
The DUP claims that it cannot be held responsible for the failure to reach agreement. It points out that it was only given the two governments’ interpretation of what the IRA was offering to do and not a written statement from P. O’Neill.
This cannot disguise the fact that even had the IRA turned up en masse at Leeds Castle and destroyed its weapons before the world’s media, the DUP would still have refused to rubber stamp a return to Stormont. Changes to the Assembly, it seems, are now the core battleground for Ian Paisley’s party.
Optimistic musings about the possibility of a deal in the coming days are based on a significant degree of wishful thinking. The IRA is unlikely to make true on its Leeds Castle offer if it believes the DUP is unwilling to work power sharing on anything other than its own terms.
Robinson seemed to indicate Monday that the party may be open to other suggestions on how the power-sharing executive can be made more accountable.
Putting aside the possibility of a DUP change of heart, restored government seems unlikely in the short term. Even were the current difficulties sorted out to the DUP’s satisfaction, the party would still be demanding a “cooling off” period before going into Stormont or electing a first and deputy first minister.
Republicans fear that an indeterminate period between a declaration by the IRA of its intention to stand down and a proper power sharing government will allow intransigent unionists time to throw more roadblocks in the way of political progress.
Meanwhile, little light has been shone on the role of the British government in the current impasse. Republicans point out that they are prepared to accept Blair’s “acts of completion” criteria but only in a context where the British government lives up to its responsibilities on demilitarization.
The discovery of an electronic bug on Sinn Fein premises last week did little to assuage concerns by republicans and nationalists that the British secret services continue to engage in political espionage. The muted response to the discovery stood in stark contrast to the furor that engulfed the peace process when it was alleged the IRA was spying at Stormont.

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