The fundamentalist appeal of a Border poll as proposed by David Trimble will do nothing for the cause of moderation on either side of the Northern divide, argues Senator Martin Mansergh
Two things have been axiomatic about the peace process from the beginning. A political settlement, to work, requires unionist as well as nationalist participation. Secondly, the institutions have to be democratically inclusive, except in so far as any political party might choose, or act in such a way as, to exclude themselves.
Unfortunately, the functioning of the Good Friday agreement, in whole and in part, has been a source of intense political competition between and even in one case within parties, in a way that has so far prevented it from settling down for the longer term, and providing the framework for peace, stability and reconciliation.
It is a legitimate expectation of democrats throughout Ireland that the agreement should lead over time to the establishment of a normal civil society freed both of a heavy security presence and of paramilitary organisations. Progress in that direction since 1998 has been real but slow, hampered by political footdragging, by a reluctance on the part of paramilitaries to renounce control or violence as a fallback option, by a fear of dissident organisations hostile to the new accommodation, and by street violence at certain interfaces.
The British and Irish governments, as well as the political parties, civil society and the churches, have all used their influence and powers of persuasion to urge swifter progress towards a clean break with the past. Such efforts need more convincingly to embrace loyalist as well as republican paramilitaries.
Given that the transition was never likely to be completed overnight, the question arises as to what the best tactics are for achieving the result over a reasonable period of time. It makes no sense to abandon the agreement, if this is likely to make completion of the democratic transformation immeasurably more difficult and improbable. It will be recalled how few people credited any likelihood that IRA decommissioning would ever occur, but now that it has taken place on two occasions the pressure has shifted elsewhere.
The republican movement has over recent years made a historic contribution to peace-making, which it would be ungenerous to ignore or belittle, whatever the abhorrence of what went on before. But, as the party that has gained most electorally out of the peace process, there is a particular onus on Sinn Féin to continue showing a leadership that may not come easily from its critics in the other community. There would be a fundamental inconsistency in the longer term about serving in government, while not being able to support a reformed policing service.
The attempt to use the issue as a political battering ram against the SDLP, which showed great political courage in supporting the new PSNI, and without which the institutions might have been unable to continue functioning, may come at too high a price, and it should be enough that the Weston Park commitments made by the British on policing reform are fulfilled. It is certainly no time to be unravelling Patten. Alternative "policing" in the community by paramilitaries involves so many gross violations of human rights and affronts to progressive penal thinking that its abandonment is imperative, notwithstanding vested interests and indeed a degree of encouragement from the communities concerned.
Pro-agreement unionism also has much that it can hold its head high over. It has given Northern Ireland a new lease of life, and a breadth of legitimacy within the overall dispensation of the Good Friday agreement that it never enjoyed before. It has been accepted that coercion of a majority in Northern Ireland, whether by violence or politically, directly or indirectly, would be wrong, and also at least that the type of violence which resulted in indiscriminate civilian deaths was fundamentally wrong. This is not to justify other loss of life or injury that occurred outside of the rule of law.
The future of the Union, like the prospects for a united Ireland, will depend on peaceful, democratic persuasion. Unionism has all the advantages of incumbency, and in practice the material support of any British government. But what no one seems able to stop are people sawing away at the plank which supports the position on which they are sitting.
Unionists, more than anyone, should have an interest in stability. Stability breeds confidence, and also encourages the investment that is essential if the Northern Ireland economy is to sustain or improve its competitiveness. Yet there have been determined efforts to overthrow the agreement, or at least the key parts of it.
There is every interest in removing - instead of putting up in lights - question marks over the Northern Ireland peace process.
Anti-agreement unionism gives the impression that it wants to exclude up to half or more of the chosen representatives of the nationalist community from government. That is obviously unworkable, and no section of nationalist Ireland will agree to it. But the people the suggestion most hurts are not Sinn Féin, but the SDLP, whom Ulster Unionists are in far too much of a hurry to write off. If unionists want to have to deal sooner rather than later with an even stronger Sinn Féin, there is nothing like a bit of crude political victimisation to achieve the result. A century ago, it was as much the high Tories and the "not an inch" unionists that broke the Union and led to the creation of an independent Ireland over the greater part of the island. If Northern Ireland's viability as a devolved political entity is continually frustrated, it could have a similar effect in eventually hastening a united Ireland.
An inclusive multicultural society is the ideal of Britain that David Trimble has more than once referred to, while caricaturing the society that exists here. Yet there is nothing inclusive about the society which some loyalists are trying to create, out of which Catholics would be driven. Nothing is better calculated to keep even the most moderate nationalists alienated from Northern Ireland and determined on constitutional change at the first available opportunity, than persistent sectarian hatred, consistent in-your-face reminders of crushing 17th century victories over Catholic Ireland, and futile attempts to re-establish some kind of unionist hegemony with pliant nationalist collaborators who do not exist.
It is obvious that a great deal of discussion and negotiation will take place over the next few months, so long as there is any glimmer of a prospect of preserving or building on the institutions and the gains of the agreement through a defusing of the situation. The two governments will be involved, and all the parties.
The suggestion was made (by David Trimble in recent months and by his adviser Steven King in this page on September 19th) that the Assembly elections next year should coincide with the holding of a Border poll. I am not persuaded that there is anything to be gained by continually leading political debate back towards fundamentals. The last Border poll was a unionist walkover with a nationalist boycott.
I fail to see how unionists could be particularly reassured by a large nationalist turn-out this time, even if this poll is won by a significant margin in favour of the Union. Anyway the nature of unionism, even when the old Stormont was at its zenith, has always been to rely on the rallying call of "the Union in danger". A poll held for an ulterior motive, viz. to bring out otherwise apathetic middle-class unionist voters, and to persuade them to vote UUP, may be too transparent a ploy to succeed.
By definition, a fundamentalist appeal will do nothing for the cause of moderation on either side of the divide. The question of constitutional change is best addressed when it is becoming a real prospect, and ideally it should beaccompanied by detailed proposals, negotiated in advance, as to how constitutional change would come into being and subsequently be able to function.
This would be a question as much for the people of the South as the people of the North, in conditions where there can be a realistic debate. It should not distract from the task of building peace now on the basis of durable institutions.