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Trimble wins decisively at UUC

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

Details of the Independent Monitoring Commission were announced just before a meeting of the Ulster Unionist Party’s ruling council, the UUC, at which its leader, David Trimble, inflicted a decisive defeat on the anti-agreement wing of his party, winning 55.2 percent of the votes.
It was a blow for the three anti-agreement MPs, Jeffrey Donaldson, David Burnside and Martin Smyth, and also for erstwhile Trimble supporter, Reg Empey, who was exposed on Friday as having plotted with Donaldson against his party leader.
Empey and Donaldson, it was revealed, had been meeting for weeks, not as thought to reconcile the anti-agreement MPs to Trimble, but to reach agreement on policy between them and emerge as a “dream ticket” with Empey as leader and Donaldson as his deputy.
The IMC bill, which the British government hopes will persuade Trimble to agree to return to power-sharing with Sinn Fein, paving the way for autumn Assembly elections, is due to be debated in London next week.
The Northern secretary will be given the powers to exclude ministers from the Assembly.
It sets a sliding scale of punishments for breaking the rules set down in the Good Friday agreement and gives the four-strong body, made up of nominees from Northern Ireland, Great Britain, the United States and the Republic, powers to monitor paramilitary activity.
After Ulster Unionist objections, however, only the two British commissioners will have any influence over whether sanctions are taken against any political party in Northern Ireland, thus removing Dublin’s influence.
The bill outlines a series of punishments, including docking politicians’ wages, cutting financial grants to parties and excluding ministers from office for periods between 3 and 12 months.
The IMC is intended to allow for punishments without the requirement for cross-community support in the Assembly. The bill makes it clear that if the IMC believes an individual or party should face a serious penalty (and the Assembly cannot reach a consensus), the northern secretary may exercise that power himself.
Republicans have rejected the proposal as outside the terms of the agreement. The SDLP believes it was a rush-job and will only lead to greater crises in the future. The four members of the IMC are: John Grieve, formerly national coordinator of the Metropolitan Police Service Anti-Terrorist Squad; John Alderdice, leader of the Alliance party from 1987-98 and, from 1998 until its suspension, speaker of the Assembly; Joseph Brosnan, former secretary of the Irish department of justice; and Richard Kerr, deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1989-92.
Sinn F

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