Sir, - Paul Bew ("Trimble wants to make historic compromise", July 19th) may be correct about 12 of 13 unionists voting for anti-compromise unionists in the EU election, but post hoc, ergo propter hoc is no more valid in politics than elsewhere, and in fact NI polls taken at the same time showed 35 per cent of unionists in favour of setting up inclusive devolved government without delay.
It is true that the Good Friday Agreement, as written, "offers a great deal to Irish nationalism", but twisting the deal to provide for Sinn Fein exclusion when decommissioning fails to meet the deadline is a very bad deal indeed for nationalists, and there is zero probability they will ever go for it.
There are facts which militate against successful devolution anytime soon. First, the sense of betrayal unionism has occasioned among Irish nationalists runs much deeper than unionists show any sign of understanding. Second, unionism has convinced nationalists it is comprehensively unprepared for the give and take of power sharing.
Third, republicans have stopped killing Protestants, unionists and policemen, but loyalists are still killing Catholics, and nationalists; IRA decommissioning grows less likely with every week of continuing loyalist terrorism and with every week of continuing non-implementation of the Agreement. Fourth, nationalists are more interested in reform than devolution because reform may ameliorate the oppression they suffer but devolution promises to stabilise the statelet they despise; since unionism has remained so obdurate, nationalism is not brokenhearted to discover it must pursue reform without devolution. - Yours, etc., Peter Brawley,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada.