February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Blair’s talks with Adams in Downing Street this Thursday will be his first with the Sinn Fein leader since the Westminster election and since the IRA embarked on an internal debate about permanently ending its 35-year-long campaign.
Talks have, however, been continuing between senior British officials and Adams and Martin McGuinness following Westminster and local council election results in which Sinn Fein gained one MP and the DUP won four seats.
Sinn Fein believes that Blair wants to finalize the peace process in Ireland during his final phase as prime minister. Adams said this presented a “unique opportunity” which must be grasped.
Blair had had a positive impact, said Adams on some core issues and it was his view that he “wants to bed them down. He wants it to be part of his legacy” but there was a relatively limited time span in which to get the job done.
When Paisley meets Blair tomorrow, it’s certain he will be demanding the exclusion of republicans from the political process. The DUP leader would like to form a devolved government at Stormont excluding Sinn Fein from all ministerial posts.
The DUP wants to form a voluntary coalition with the SDLP but its party leader, Mark Durkan, has refused to contemplate any changes to the system of devolved government set down in the Good Friday Agreement, which would include Sinn Fein.
At a speech given to the Derry Chamber of Commerce, in the heart of Durkan’s constituency, DUP negotiator Jeffrey Donaldson rebuked this position, asking when Durkan would “step out from the shadows of Sinn Fein and stop giving terrorists a veto?”
Tomorrow’s meetings follow a visit to Belfast by President George Bush’s special envoy to Northern Ireland, Ambassador Mitchell Reiss, during which he met all the major parties as well as the Taoiseach and the new Northern Secretary, Peter Hain.
Underlining the difficulties facing the process, Ian Paisley said this week that his party will “not be talking to the IRA now, tomorrow or ever” and that the election results represented the “burial” of the 1998 Agreement.
The DUP leader also warned Hain, that any intention by him to “confront the unionist people” would fail.
Paisley said his first priority would be to ensure fair DUP representation on all government authorities in the North.
This would include extra DUP representation on the Policing Board, to ensure the people had “independent Ulstermen representing them, not paid government lackeys,” he said.
The returned Sinn Fein MP for West Tyrone, Pat Doherty, accused Paisley of “his usual bluster” and said he should “remember he talks for the DUP, not anyone else”.
“His party got 34 percent of the people’s vote. We (Sinn Fein) got 25 percent. The SDLP and Ulster Unionists got about 17 percent. If he (Paisley) wants the Assembly back then he is going to have to work with all the parties.”
Durkan also criticized Paisley saying his party had “reverted to type after the elections and seem to believe that their mandate overrides everybody else’s. Ian Paisley’s arrogant language shows they believe only their mandate counts”.
“The DUP need to face the facts”, said Durkan. “They got half of the seats in the North on only one third of the votes. Just because they got a disproportionate amount of seats, it does not mean that they should have a disproportionate influence on our future.
“Above all, their mandate does not override or overrule the mandate given by the Irish people, North and South, nationalist and unionist, for the Good Friday Agreement”, he said.
“The two governments must not indulge the DUP in the belief that continued direct rule is an option or that the DUP alone will set the terms for political progress for the rest of us on the island.”
Meanwhile, the new UUP leader will be elected at a meeting of the party’s ruling council on 23 June. Until then three prominent members will be in charge – its president Lord Rogan, assembly member Sir Reg Empey and its only MP, Lady Sylvia Hermon.
The decision was made at a meeting of the UUP’s executive on Saturday after David Trimble resigned his leadership as a consequence of the party losing all but one of its Westminster seats.
Some UUP members wanted to postpone a contest until after the summer but the executive decided it could not wait. Potential candidates could include Empey, David McNarry or Lord Maginnis.
Hermon, is still considering whether to run. She wants the party to head in a more liberal direction but the former South Antrim MP David Burnside says she is not up to the job.
“She does not have the presence in the House of Commons, I believe, to be a leader of the Ulster Unionist Party,” Burnisde said. “If the party goes off on some sort of softy, wishy-washy, liberal route they’ll have a lot of other people stepping aside”.
Meanwhile, Sinn F