Sir, - In rejecting out of hand the idea of an elected negotiating body as a means of getting all Northern Ireland parties into talks, nationalist politicians constantly refer to the failure of previous assemblies and conventions in Northern Ireland. This blanket dismissal is accepted uncritically as proof that such an idea is doomed to failure and is therefore little better than a delaying tactic on behalf of the unionists and now John Major.
However if we look at the history of the three elected bodies which have followed the proroguing of the old Stormont by Ted Heath's government the evidence is not nearly so clear cut. These were the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Northern Ireland Convention and the so called Prior Assembly. Elections to the assemble preceded the successful talks to set up the power sharing executive and the Sunningdale Agreement. The Northern Ireland Convention did fail but was in fact very nearly a success when Bill Craig and the SDLP agreed to the idea of a voluntary coalition. The then existence of the UUUC bloc enabled Paisley to railroad the Official Unionists against Craig. The Prior assembly failed because the nationalists boycotted It. The had of course reason for doing this but that is why it failed and the chaotic scenes now repeated endlessly on TV which marked its closure were due to the Anglo Irish Agreement and not to a shouting match with nationalists inside the chamber.
There is no obvious pattern in automatic failure from these three examples. Indeed the pattern of elections followed by talks and agreement can be seen to have actually succeeded in the case of the first and very nearly to have succeeded in the second. These were both at times of horrendous violence.
I think that better reasons have to be advanced by nationalists for rejecting elections to some sort of body than previous failures. Might it not be worth exploring if an elected negotiating body could be wedded to the three strand process and if a weighted majority mechanism could be a safeguard to nationalists? Otherwise - one might be tempted to assume that the present fury and accusations of bad faith are because the unionists thought of it first. Now that was not supposed to happen!
Yours, etc.
Watch Hill,
Island Reagh,
Comber Co Down.