London hears of Agreement crisis
BY FERN LANE
The newly-formed British-based group, The Friends of Ireland, held its
first major event on Wednesday 19 May in the grandeur of the Palace of
Westminster's Committee Room 10, an invitation-only gathering to discuss
the current state of the peace process.
It was, perhaps, symbolic of a more general malaise at Westminster when it
comes to matters Irish that whilst the rest of the room was crowded to
capacity, most of the seats reserved for British Members of Parliament
remained empty until the meeting chair, John McDonnell MP, invited the
public to make use of them.
Representatives from all of the parties to the Good Friday Agreement, with
the exception of the Ulster Unionists, were present, John Taylor having
been called to an emergency meeting of his party. This absence, however,
only served to highlight further the UUP's isolation amongst the
pro-Agreement
parties in its insistence on prior decommissioning. Also notable was the
lack of rancour and personal insult which characterises much of the debate
when unionists of any shade take part in political discussions.
Various speakers indulged themselves in long and complicated metaphors to
describe the peace process, including assorted vehicles, architecture and
football, but the essential view amongst those present - Sinn Féin's Martin
Ferris and representatives of the SDLP, the Alliance Party, the PUP and the
Women's Coalition - was that decommissioning could not legitimately be used
as an obstacle to the setting up of institutions.
The PUP's David Ervine, amidst veiled threats about ``collapsing democracy
to defend democracy'' should things go further than he and his decree is
acceptable, nevertheless summed it up rather nicely when he said:
``The Good Friday Agreement does not include decommissioning; not in spirit,
not in letter, not in any way. I'll take on the world's top legal experts
to argue that.''
Gerry Adams, who together with Martin McGuinness came to the meeting
directly from another seemingly unproductive session in Downing Street,
pointed out the absolute necessity for the British government itself to
push forward with the fundamental changes required by the Good Friday
Agreement, saying:
``If Unionism - because its genuinely afraid, or malicious or uncertain, or
for whatever reason - is unable to move, then the government has to be the
engine. I'm not saying that the government should deliver unionism because,
after all, the unionists are the same as us; they don't like be ordered
about, especially by an English government. So it isn't possible to just
deliver them, but you have to put down a very clear message.
``There's no point in all of us saying `this is the way forward' - the
government has to insist that it is going to move in this direction. Unless
there is a volume of opinion of this island which wants to see the type of
changes which are required on our island, then it [the Agreement] is going
to fall somewhere in the middle.''
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