Loyalists are unhappy. Smaller parties are being squeezed and the PUPis kicking up, writes Dan Keenan
The smoke signals for yesterday's declaration by loyalist paramilitaries and the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) were made some time ago, but it seemed no one was really taking notice
Therefore, as PUP leader Mr David Ervine said yesterday, sometimes you need to do dramatic things to be seen and heard.
The week before Christmas, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Northern Secretary hosted talks at Stormont. Mr David Trimble walked out, followed by Mr Ervine and others. Mr Trimble was angered by details in an accidentally-leaked Irish Government briefing document concerning IRA activity.
Later, Mr Ervine complained that the peace process was being compromised by the activities of the two governments in dealing directly with Mr Trimble and Mr Gerry Adams at the expense of a more collective approach.
He pointed out two weeks ago that efforts were being poured into the conclusion of a deal by "the four horsemen of the apocalypse", namely Mr Ahern, Mr Tony Blair, Mr Adams and Mr Trimble.
He added, by way of a sharp aside, that "Mark Durkan on a Shetland pony" could be added to the list.
What really gets under the fingernails of Mr Ervine and others is the perception that the real business of this political process is being conducted by "main players" and he isn't one of them.
There is no way he will tolerate a deal cobbled together in Downing Street designed to keep Mr Adams and Mr Trimble on board, and restore the Stormont institutions that he had no hand in fashioning.
It causes no end of grief to the PUP that, at the first hint of trouble in the peace process, Mr Trimble or Mr Adams head for London (or Dublin if it suits) to sound off. Mr Ervine reckons they should be penned in at the border and forced to confront problems in Belfast using the same collective approach that gave us the Belfast Agreement in the first place.
It's a position which gets a discreetly sympathetic hearing at Stormont. Well-placed British sources admit this current round of talks among the "four horsemen" is tough on the smaller parties. It's even tough on the bigger parties, like the SDLP.
The impression is allowed that SDLP involvement in talks with the Prime Minister is done for the optics as well as other reasons. But there can be little doubt that the tough talking is being conducted with the people seen to be closest to the problem - and that means Mr Trimble and Mr Adams.
The terms for those talks were laid out by Mr Blair last October in Belfast - just after suspension of the Stormont Assembly. He made it clear that unionist mistrust emanated from continued IRA activity and it had to stop. Republicans couldn't ride two horses at once, and the process couldn't work with some people "half in and half out".
Unionist or loyalist scepticism about the Belfast Agreement is rampant. The UDA's ceasefire, declared in 1994, was declared bogus in October 2001, and its political wing folded. Gary McMichael's is a voice now seldom heard.
The UUP remains split, with an uneasy calm among its pro- and anti-agreement factions for the moment. Now, with the UVF and Red Hand Commando to hang up on the decommissioning commission, and the PUP, admittedly with just two Assembly members, to end contact with Sinn Féin, the political crisis builds.
The PUP's action has added to the problem and highlights the need for it to be put right.