Nothing to bargain with

Tommy McKearney

This is the way the world ends                                                  Not with a bang but with a whimper..T.S. Eliot

There is an old maxim in trade union circles that you should never offer your resignation if you are unwilling to have it accepted and that you should never go on strike if you are afraid to lose your job. It’s an uncomplicated rule that simply boils down to – do what you are told unless you are willing to accept the consequences of defiance. It has its counterpart in the world of political negotiations and that is that you shouldn’t try to hold a position if you don’t have the stomach for the outcome.

There is the added factor in both arenas that if those on the other side of the table realise that you are unwilling or unable to ‘kick over the traces’ and walk away, then you will not only get what the other side wishes to offer but that you will meet whatever conditions they set for you.

This is very much the position that Sinn Fein and the IRA now find themselves caught in.  The party is desperately anxious to return to its Executive position in Stormont and refuses to contemplate withdrawing from the Assembly altogether and assuming a role of opposition to the Six County state. Unionism knows this, Britain knows this and the Dublin government knows this.

In other words, Sinn Fein is unwilling to go on strike and lose its job. Under such circumstances, it was entirely predictable that David Trimble and his advisors decided to smash the last vestiges of the Provisional IRA and by extension, publicly reduce Sinn Fein to the same status as the SDLP. It was also predictable that when London and Dublin identified the Sinn Fein hunger for office that they would back the Trimble call. Apart from punishing an old adversary, it was the pragmatic thing for them to do.  The point was that while Trimble was happy to rest indefinitely in a state of direct rule, Adams made it clear that he couldn’t endure such a situation. 

Sinn Fein now has two options. It can either persuade the IRA to acquiesce with the Blair conditions or it can turn its back on Good Friday style participation in the administration of British Northern Ireland.   A bag of greasy chips to the first person to guess correctly what the answer shall be.