David Trimble may believe that IRA non-compliance with the spirit and letter of the Belfast Agreement means Sinn Féin should be punished, but he is not likely to find everyone else agrees with him when he meets Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair tomorrow, writes Frank Millar
Is there a genuine crisis in the peace process or is it really all about "the election, stupid"? These are among the questions taxing ministers and officials in London and Dublin as they prepare for tomorrow's summit of the pro-agreement parties at Hillsborough.
Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern will fly in once again at the behest of the First Minister and Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble. That should have been enough to dispel rumours that Mr Trimble might be planning to boycott the gathering.
Mr Trimble indignantly asserted this was hardly a characteristic of his approach to dealings with either government. He also appeared to dismiss suggestions that he would confine himself to a presentation of his party's concerns while avoiding multilateral discussions or the appearance of entering into any formal negotiations.
We shall see. At a recent meeting of his party officers, certainly, Mr Trimble was advised to avoid any repetition of last July's Weston Park summit. Almost a year ago, Mr Trimble went there insisting there was but one subject - IRA decommissioning - up for discussion. Predictably the other parties had very different ideas and inevitably, the pendulum swung.
The outcome was an agreed British/Irish package spanning familiar issues from decommissioning to a bill of rights and criminal justice reform, promised reviews of the Parades Commission and policing legislation, commitments to appoint an international judge to determine the form of inquiry into alleged security-force collusion with loyalist murders, and terrorists on the run who might have benefited from early prisoner releases.
Twelve months on, Mr Trimble similarly insists there is but one issue confronting the two governments and the pro-agreement parties - namely the collapse in public (that is to say, unionist) confidence resulting from the alleged continuing activities of the Provisional IRA from Colombia to Castlereagh.
As then, so tomorrow the UUP leader may expect a prompt Sinn Féin retort that "confidence-building" is a two-way street and, doubtless, a reminder that some of the changes signalled a year ago are still in a state of promise rather than delivery.
Likewise, Mr Trimble knows that even as he strikes a note of impatience with republican rioters who he says are playing into the hands of anti-agreement unionists, Gerry Adams will not meekly accept his take on events in Belfast's increasingly troubled interface areas. Nor, of course, will the Sinn Féin president countenance Mr Trimble's "big picture" charge that the IRA, at home and abroad, is in systematic breach of its ceasefire and plainly bent on destabilising Northern Ireland.
In familiar terms, Mr Adams will ascribe reports of foreign adventures, new weapons-testing and acquisition, not to mention murder, to the "securocrats" within the British establishment he maintains are bent on destabilising the peace process. Mr Trimble surely knows that to some extent at least, this Sinn Féin chorus will be heard with a measure of sympathy and shared concern on the Irish Government side.
Dublin ministers and officials are plainly distrustful of alleged IRA misdeeds - weapons from Moscow and the like - as reported in "the Tory press" and elsewhere in the British media. If they cannot deny the IRA's FARC connection, Irish sources clearly remain unconvinced about the St Patrick's Day break-in at the Castlereagh police complex.
Indeed, the Taoiseach has flatly contradicted the Acting Chief Constable of the PSNI, asserting there was no evidence of IRA involvement, so boosting the widely held belief that it must have been "an inside job".
This is not to say the Hillsborough summit is going to witness a significant or damaging divergence between Dublin and London. However, it is to suggest that Mr Trimble should not expect to find a ready consensus about the nature and source of the crisis he has called and which he says tomorrow's talks may represent a last chance to resolve.
While refusing to join the endless second-guessing of IRA intentions, Mr Ahern, after all, has acknowledged that doubt, fear and uncertainty will remain - with potentially destructive implications for the agreement - until it becomes clear that republicans accept the logic of the agreement - disbandment and total disarmament. Indeed, if all sides were agreed to play the situation along, "the Bertie test" might provide the essential architecture of a renewed push to resolve the ambiguity at the heart of this process.
Mr Blair certainly will be happy to repeat his view that a ceasefire is not enough and that continuing public belief in the process requires a termination of activities far beyond the narrow definition offered by the paramilitaries themselves. This is not to suggest the Prime Minister is happy merely to play with words. London shares Mr Trimble's view that there is an alarming seepage of unionist confidence because paramilitaries have not yet made the full transition from terror to democracy, and ministers and officials are plainly anxious that "Dublin doesn't fully perceive" the depth of the problem.
Beyond that, however, it is not clear that Mr Blair knows what he can do - or what Mr Trimble expects or even wants. The First Minister has shown impatience with the Northern Ireland Secretary, Dr John Reid, over his insistence that there is no threat to the IRA ceasefire. Even people well disposed to Mr Trimble wonder where he would stand if Dr Reid "obliged" and declared it shot through with contradictions.
"If the British government ever made such an adjudication," said one close observer, "there would surely have to be consequence, and it would be for David to decide that he could no longer sit in government with Sinn Féin." At a recent meeting with Dr Reid, it seems some UUP Assembly members suggested it should be for the British to take that decision.
Tomorrow Mr Trimble is expected to press Mr Blair to bypass the requirement for a cross-community vote in the Assembly and assume the power to exclude parties from office. At this writing, it seems unlikely that Mr Blair would do so without Dublin's agreement and highly improbable that Dublin's consent will be forthcoming. Moreover - as with the earlier request for an adjudication on the IRA ceasefire - some of Mr Trimble's own supporters wonder what might be achieved by such a move. The First Minister contends that the very act of taking the power to exclude would force a sea change in paramilitary attitudes.
However few seriously believe that if the institutions of government are to survive in their present form, there is any possibility of the Executive continuing without Sinn Féin. They and the IRA are as well able to calculate that as anybody. What practical benefit would it be to Mr Trimble on the ground if Mr Blair took a power nobody thinks he has the remotest intention of using?
The British government certainly agrees with Mr Trimble that there is a crisis coming - whether now, in the autumn or next May after the Assembly elections. However London seems no more in the exclusion business than Dublin or the SDLP, in which case the crisis will remain within unionism and for unionists ultimately to resolve.
Frank Millar is London Editor of The Irish Times