Pressure has been mounting on the SDLP from several quarters to sign up to the new Police Service of Northern Ireland before the end of this month. The Northern Secretary of State, Mr Peter Mandelson, has suggested that "it would be more than a crying shame, it would be a calamity" if that central part of the Belfast Agreement were to stall. The First Minister and Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, has stated that it would be immoral for people to be in government and making laws and to withhold support from those who have to enforce them.
The indications are that the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, plan to intensify the pressure on the SDLP to take a lead on this issue next week if no progress is made at official level to end the current stand-off. Time is ticking on. The Policing Board is scheduled to be set up in shadow-form by the end of January, provided, of course, that the SDLP and Sinn Fein nominate members to it. That, in turn, would lead on to the first tranche of 50:50 recruitment of Protestants and Catholics for the new service by the end of March. The timetable for the formal change of title from the RUC to the PSNI is September. The phasing-out of the full-time RUC Reserve would follow thereafter.
Contrary to expectations at the time of President Clinton's visit last month, the implementation of the Patten Report - imperfectly though it may have been translated into legislation - is proving no less difficult than demilitarisation and decommissioning in the resumed negotiations. The signal irony now is that the full implementation of the Belfast Agreement could be thwarted by a failure to agree on the reform sought most by the nationalist/republican community and its leaders: the consignment of the RUC to the history books and the establishment of a new service to provide policing by consent for the first time.
The time has come for the Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, and Assembly member, Mr Alex Atwood, to take stock. It would be disastrous if the possibility of creating a new and acceptable police service in Northern Ireland were to be abandoned on the grounds of electoral expediency in the run-up to the British general election. There is a sense, right or wrong, that political game-playing is going on between the SDLP and Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein has sat back and let the SDLP do the running on the implementation of Patten. This situation, in turn, is fomenting legitimate fears in the SDLP that Sinn Fein could balk in the end, all the better to garner nationalist votes in the election.
The SDLP has real concerns about some elements of the implementation process for the new police force: the powers of the Policing Board, particularly relating to ordering inquiries; representation on the district police boards; the amalgamation of the Special Branch with the Crime Branch of the police force; the lack of a time-table for the phasing out of the full-time RUC Reserve. Mr Gerry Kelly of Sinn Fein wants Mr Mandelson to change the Police Act. Mr Mandelson has been a good deal less than adroit in his handling of the Patten reforms but the SDLP must know that there will be no second chance at police reform.
Mr Trimble has been urged, on many occasions, to do "the right thing" by the Belfast Agreement. But if the nationalist community cannot sign up to a new police service in Northern Ireland - at the conclusion of the current round of negotiations - the Agreement will be meaningless on the ground. And it will unravel. There is a special obligation on the SDLP, the constitutional nationalist party with a proud history, to square up to the consequences of a continuing stalemate. Mr Mandelson's version of Patten is not everything. But it is progress such as there never was before. It should be embraced.