Sources close to the Irish government have raised concerns about the violent clashes in nationalist Ardoyne last month that followed a contentious Orange parade. Nationalists ignored the pleading of senior republicans and attacked British soldiers and PSNI officers.
Observers have also pointed to a dispute between Sinn Fein headquarters and its Antrim Town cumann. The entire branch resigned from the party following a dispute over a drugs find on the Rathenraw estate. It’s been reported that local Sinn Fein figures asked a woman, whose partner was arrested with half a million pounds worth of ecstasy tablets, to leave the estate. However the Sinn Fein leadership reportedly intervened, demanding that the woman be allowed to stay.
It’s now believed that the political vacuum in the North, if left unchecked, could lead to rising anger among nationalists. Policing is deemed to be the make-or-break issue in next month’s political talks. While much attention has focused on the possibility of IRA disbandment, agreement on a new policing and justice regime is being seen as increasingly central to a successful round of negotiations.
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson have been making positive noises in recent days about the likelihood of such agreement. Writing in Monday’s Irish Times, Robinson said he saw a situation in which his party could share responsibility for policing with Sinn Fein. Robinson was responding to an article Adams had penned for the paper last week.
A new deal on policing, which would meet republican demands for devolved control, could bring the whole messy business of paramilitary disbandment to a definitive end. Adams said as much in his Irish Times article. He pointed out that republicans view an internal policing solution as a more difficult and painful compromise than that of “standing down” the IRA.
“If the outstanding issues around policing, which are mainly about achieving civic policing and democratic control of policing, are dealt with, as I believe they can be, then I would be prepared to go to our ard chomhairle to ask for a special ard fheis to discuss this matter,” Adams wrote.
In the meantime, however, republicans remain opposed to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the Policing Board and the District Policing Partnerships. The difficulty, as one experienced observer noted, “the Provos are on their best behavior and can no longer be seen to be policing? their own areas.”
Republican punishment attacks are down significantly on last year’s figures. Sinn Fein has opposed this particular brand of community policing for a number of years. The party acknowledges that such activity drives barriers through republican communities and feeds unionist resistance to sharing power.
PSNI did nothing to enhance its reputation among working-class Catholics last month. Nationalists, including North Belfast SDLP councilor Martin Morgan, whose party sits on the policing board, claimed that PSNI connived with the Northern Ireland Office, the Orange Order and unionist politicians to push boozy loyalist hangers-on through the Ardoyne.
If Sinn Fein is to convince its supporters to join such a police service it needs to be seen coming out of next month’s talks having secured devolved administration of policing and justice powers.
The DUP, or at least Robinson, has implicitly conceded that the day when a senior Sinn Fein figure (Gerry Kelly has been frequently suggested) becomes Northern justice minister may not be far off. The party made the prospect of such a scenario the central plank of its Assembly election campaign in a bid to frighten unionist voters into rejecting the Ulster Unionists Party.
“We do not need to like someone in order to work within the same structure for the people we represent,” Robinson wrote Monday.
He said it was “no big move for unionists today to embrace the principle of devolving such powers.”
Robinson said that confidence needed to be built by both sides in order for the successful transfer of such powers.
“[T]he community must have confidence in those who will exercise such power. At the present time I do not believe nationalists would have sufficient confidence in a DUP policing and justice minister and, as I see it, the unionist community would certainly not tolerate a Sinn Fein minister in that post,” he wrote.
While the mood music has improved, both sides retain serious reservations about each other’s commitment to doing a deal.
The problem for republicans is that they can ill afford another lengthy political impasse. Nationalists voted for the Good Friday agreement over six years ago. While the nationalist and republican constituencies have shown great patience and faith in the political process to date, it is inevitable that disaffection will grow if the DUP attempts to stall or block implementation.
The DUP, meanwhile, has time on its hands. It remains, at least on the surface, to be united. Robinson and other senior DUP figures make great play of the fact that their party is not riven by the internal schisms and splits that afflicted David Trimble’s UUP. The unionist constituency voted for the party in the belief that it would curb or curtail certain aspects of the agreement.
While the DUP said it will be actively seeking the return of devolved government next month, many observers maintain that direct rule from London is much more suited to unionists than nationalists.