The ante has been upped for all Northern parties contesting the British general election with the unexpected announcement by the First Minister, Mr David Trimble, that he will resign within weeks if there is no progress on the decommissioning of IRA arms. He gave a mere two minutes notice to Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, of his dramatic personal statement to the Northern Ireland Assembly. He gave no prior warning at all to the Government, even though he had talks with the Taoiseach for one-and-a-half hours last Friday.
As the long-awaited campaign gets formally under way, there is the most profound sense that history is repeating itself. Mr Trimble has uttered the rallying call for the Ulster Unionist Party, placing decommissioning fairly and squarely at the top of the political agenda for all parties. His opponents inside and outside the unionist family are caught off-balance. There is a renewed call to conform to his timetable. He will resign by July 1st if the republican movement does not begin decommissioning by that date. There is much speculation about Mr Trimble's motivation. Was it prompted by electoral expediency or political principle? Was it written in anticipation of a good or a bad result in the poll? Was it designed to help the Belfast Agreement as a whole or his own prospects? These are valid questions in their own right.
But there is no denying that decommissioning had to return to the top of the political agenda after the election. It is no coincidence, presumably, that the IRA made the unprecedented commitment to "completely and verifiably put arms beyond use" exactly one year ago. The republican movement also agreed to the regular inspection of its arms dumps by two independent inspectors. Mr Trimble is not the only constitutional leader waiting for the process to begin.
A great deal is also at stake in this election for the future of Britain, despite the seeming inevitability of a Labour victory on June 7th according to the opinion polls. Mr Blair yesterday promised to lay the foundations of a fresh mandate for radical change. These are brave words, which will require firm leadership to deliver upon if Mr Blair is indeed given a a second term. His great fear is apathy among Labour voters, which could so reduce turnout as to upset the electoral calculations.
Mr Blair said yesterday he wanted a second term to continue the process of transforming Britain across the span of social, economic and constitutional policies his party put in place over the last four years. He insists that such programmes have never been completed in one term. Mr Blair has not been as vocal on a central question facing whoever is elected next month - the future of the UK in Europe. The Conservative opposition wants to make that a crucial part of the campaign, defending sterling against the euro and proposing a re-negotiation of the Nice Treaty. Mr Blair's natural caution has tended to play down the issue - despite the crucial support he will need from the voters if he is to convince a hostile public opinion in a referendum on the euro, probably next year. He faces a choice during this campaign between warning the electorate against Conservative policies and articulating a coherent and convincing vision of Britain's domestic and European future. Ireland has a vital stake in the outcome of the election and the strategic choices to which it will give rise over the next five years.