In the third of a series of interviews with key figures in the peace process, ahead of Monday's planned return of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Peter Hain, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, talks to Frank Millar, London Editor.
Peter Hain has said that November 24th is an absolute deadline, and that either the Stormont Assembly forms a power-sharing government by that date or it closes down. Does he accept he might thus be inviting the Rev Ian Paisley to preside over the final death of the Belfast Agreement?
"No, what we're saying is the process can't continue and go on being an end in itself. I don't think the public in Northern Ireland will stand for this, and the Good Friday agreement remains the only show in town. I think there'll have to be some legislative amendment to it - in terms of Strands One to Three [ the Northern Ireland, North/South and British/Irish components], in the sort of territory there was in the comprehensive proposals of 2004 - for the DUP to take their seats in a power-sharing executive. But there's no other show, and if anybody thought they could bring the curtain down in the interests of burying the Good Friday agreement they couldn't be more wrong."
But can that be right? Mr Hain will recognise the proposition is that of Mark Durkan. The SDLP leader said that not the least of the risks in this British/Irish initiative is that if Dr Paisley sits tight, for whatever reason, that's the end of the Assembly and the end of the central piece of the agreement.
"The alternative is dragging this on year after year with the process becoming an end in itself, going on and on and on, and Assembly members not doing the jobs for which they were elected, drawing salaries and allowances, which the public won't stand for. The problem I think Assembly members have got themselves into is that they're not having an argument with me about this deadline, they're having an argument with their voters."
He says it can't go on and on. But the DUP doesn't believe him. If Dr Paisley or Peter Robinson declare in November "great progress made, not there yet, but getting there", they don't believe that Tony Blair would close it all down.
Mr Hain insists: "They couldn't be more wrong. Whether it's the DUP or the SDLP, they could not be more wrong. At midnight on November 24th the curtain comes down, the Assembly's put on ice, the salaries will stop. In the late summer - if they don't think we're going to get an agreement, or they're not willing, or don't have confidence we can reach an agreement - I'll be advising Assembly members then to tell their staff to find new jobs. They'll also need to do something else in the summer and advise the landlords of their advice centres that they're not going to be able to pay the rent. I don't say that as a threat, because they themselves will bring the curtain down, not me, and the public won't stand for millions and millions of pounds going to waste in this fashion."
Then comes an interesting caveat: "If they go to one minute past midnight in the expectation that we're going to blink, well we won't blink first. Now, if they then decide voluntarily to go on the dole, sack their staff, close down their advice centres, and then come back to me after one month, two months, three months, six months, and say, 'We think we got it wrong, now we're ready to run it again', well my door's always open. But I'm not going to be chasing after them."
A strange thought occurs. If Mr Hain is to be taken at face value about the deadline, in an odd way - and certainly in a way he would never have intended - this reflects just how far Northern Ireland actually has come. Because presumably, while he would like devolution, he is also calculating there will be no political or security crisis if the devolution project fails. And therefore we've arrived at a point where, whereas previously devolution was considered an essential part of ending the conflict, we can now have peace without it.
Mr Hain concedes: "You may be able to have peace without it, and I think you will have peace without it, because, you know, Northern Ireland is as night and day compared with what it was in past years, even in April 1998."
However, he also argues: "Actually you'll have a completely artificial situation because you will not have democracy there. You may have, we like to think, a very effective group of Direct Rule ministers who are making the decisions in the public interest. But we're not accountable, I'm not accountable to anybody in Northern Ireland, I don't have any voters who can kick me out."
Notwithstanding what Mr Hain says about a democratic deficit, doesn't this reinforce the suspicion that Dr Paisley has got the soft option here, compared to where David Trimble was in 1998? The Irish constitutional claim is gone and the IRA's "war" is over. As he says, Dr Paisley can have peace, albeit imperfect peace, without devolution. For all that Mr Hain talks tough, Direct Rule is relatively benign and will continue to be. With nine seats in the Commons, the likelihood of more electoral success to come, Mr Blair running out of time and the possibility of a hung parliament next time, a lot of people in the DUP might think their prospects rosy enough without the pain of having Martin McGuinness as deputy first minister.
Mr Hain is determinedly unimpressed by such lack of conventional political ambition. "It's one thing for Northern Ireland MPs to enjoy being at Westminster, but their power is very limited. And actually a lot of the policies we're implementing, not that they have that ambition, are fiercely opposed by the DUP in particular . . . the seven councils, the reform of education, the water charges, a long list of things. I'm not doing these to knock anybody on the nose. I'm doing these because I strongly believe - and have the support, I believe, of civil society, including the business community, the trade unions and the voluntary sector - in building a world class Northern Ireland. This is what this agenda's about. But they [ the DUP] say they don't like them. Well it's a profoundly dissatisfying and unsatisfactory position for democratically elected politicians to be in, where they're actually saying, 'Be my guest, make these decisions that I don't like'."
It was the accidental loss of meaningful local government alongside the suspension of the Stormont parliament in 1972 which created what has long-since been described as Northern Ireland's democratic deficit. And with the proposal for seven "super councils" Mr Hain might be said to be filling it. The DUP does not like the seven, but with proper levels of parliamentary representation, and their dominance of it, it might be democracy enough for the DUP.
"But you see that didn't work in Scotland and it didn't work in Wales," counters Mr Hain. "And you didn't have the bitter history in either of those two nations."
Yet it might work for Northern Ireland, and for the unionists in particular, precisely because the bitter history creates an aversion to sharing power above a certain level.
Mr Hain is unconvinced: "I don't think there is, I think there's a problem of trust and a failure of leadership, and too much followership and not enough leadership, by all the parties by the way."
What single act of leadership could Gerry Adams engage in between now and November 24th?
"I think Sinn Féin do need to put themselves on the road - and I think they have started off warily down this road - to co-operating with the police. I'm not saying, 'Join the policing board tomorrow'. But there is a commitment they have given, which I'll expect them to honour, that when we've got royal assent for the Bill devolving policing and justice, they then need to take positive moves to call a conference.They've promised that and I'm sure that they will."
That's the assent for the Bill, not the actual transfer of powers? "No, until you've got institutions to devolve to, you can't devolve." And the timetable for that? "Well it's due to get royal assent by the summer recess, by the end of July."
Mr Hain says he can't be certain of the timing of any Sinn Féin ardfheis, and declines to speculate as to whether the party might actually be ready to join the board and endorse the PSNI in time for a November deal. He also stresses: "There's a radical difference between trying to solve problems and difficult issues like policing, which is what we're doing, and using those difficult issues to erect a hurdle to power-sharing. . . I agree with what Dermot Ahern said in The Irish Times on Tuesday, that there's a danger here of continually shifting the goalposts."
Yet he is also confident: "Provided nobody's playing games, then it's in Sinn Fein's interest - since their declared objective is to get into government with the DUP and the others - to build trust and remove an excuse from unionists and everybody, because we all want them to co-operate with policing. It's in their interests to remove that excuse which could act as a final obstacle."
Finally, again on the subject of leadership, does he think Ian Paisley wants to end his days as first minister? "Well, I think Ian Paisley over his extraordinary political career has been incredibly courageous."
Courageous? "Yes, I think he has shown a lot of courage as an individual. You can agree or disagree with what he's done and I'm not going to go into that territory, but I think he's shown a lot of courage, and I think he would like to see his political career concluded with peace set in concrete in Northern Ireland, with democracy flourishing and with the party that he created leading that new democracy. So yes I do, I think that's where he wants to go."
Tomorrow, Frank Millar talks to the Rev Ian Paisley