Republican News · Thursday 25 July 2002

Trimble's tactics

"In order to save the process you have to look as though you're prepared to destroy it"

BY MITCHEL McLAUGHLIN (Sinn Féin National Chairperson)

The inter-unionist electoral battle is being fought out on political territory that has been marked out by anti-Agreement unionists. This is where Trimble has pitched his tent for the electoral battle

In many Irish republican minds, the jury is out on David Trimble's attitude to the Good Friday Agreement. At various times over the past four years, I have heard republicans state a belief that intellectually Trimble is with the Agreement but emotionally he is on Drumcree Hill in his Orange Regalia, hectoring his neighbours and fellow Orangemen in the RUC who are blocking his way from marching down Garvaghy Road. "Why is it that some people are determined to attack people who are walking down the road?" he recently growled.

People remember him going into the all-party negotiations in September 1997 saying that his objectives were variously to force Sinn Féin out, to have the party thrown out or to reach an agreement to which Sinn Féin could not sign up. Having failed in the latter his focus was then narrowed to the other two options. His behaviour in respect of the political institutions agreed on Good Friday fits in with that analysis. Likewise his Humpty-Dumpty strategy with the Executive. The compliance of the British government with his demands has been an indispensable element of that strategy. More than four years after Good Friday 1998 that is where he has returned to. Variously, he is insinuating that Sinn Féin must be thrown out of the Executive, at least for a while, and that he will resign if he doesn't get his way on this.

A recent Trimble interview in the Guardian, conducted by Jackie Ashley, demonstrates all of this in a fairly candid way while also illustrating Trimble's sometimes, perhaps oftimes, quixotic approach or view of some things. Or perhaps he simply says some things with tongue firmly in cheek.

For instance, the "prize", Trimble argued to the Guardian journalist, and with no evidence of irony, "is a real Northern Ireland democracy in which July 12 becomes just another affirmation of community", like Bastille Day in France or 4 July in the US.

Those who have lived the 'carnival of reaction', predicted by James Connolly, that flows from partition, are more likely to equate the Imperial Grand Master of the Orange Lodge with the Imperial Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan than with Robespierre or Thomas Paine. Trimble's "prize" is undoubtedly a vision seen through orange tinted glasses.

This sort of rubbish apart though, Trimble pointed to the real cause of the crisis he has painstakingly set out to create, with the help of others, since the UUP's AGM in March of this year. That is, the forthcoming Assembly elections and the electoral contest between the UUP and the DUP.

Of course, he did not describe it in those terms but rather in terms that might gain a wider sympathy. Instead, he projected a scenario in which "the dominant political parties" after the next Assembly elections "could be Sinn Féin and the DUP". This, he predicted, would result in the whole thing going pear shaped, taking another generation to fix. In other words, he wants to beat the DUP electorally and he does not want to share power with Sinn Féin, or at least not with Sinn Féin as the First or Deputy First Minister. And whatever about the actual potential for such an outcome this is the UUP leadership's politics for the forthcoming election.

The flaw in all of this, as Trimble admits, is the outworking of a strategy to give effect to these twin objectives. In words ominously close to those used 30 years previously in another conflict on another continent, he says: "In order to save the process you have to look as if you're prepared to destroy it".

That conjures up a strategy of sailing close to the wind and the need for a deftness of touch at the rudder that isn't immediately evident in someone who believes that Bastille Day can be compared with the Twelfth. In this situation, even if it is not his intention, Trimble may steer the whole Agreement onto the rocks. And the reason for that is evident both in the backdrop to this contrived crisis and in the playing out of his strategy as alluded to by Trimble in the Guardian interview.

The backdrop to all of this is an ongoing sectarian onslaught by the UDA. Guns, pipe bombs, knives and machetes have been used to injure, maim and kill by people intent on destroying the Agreement. This has recently been stepped up in Belfast. The UVF became involved in Short Strand and South Belfast. The UDA expanded their attacks in North Belfast to include Ligoniel and Skegoniel.

The latest fatality in their killing campaign was 19-year-old Gerard Lawlor, shot dead close to the Antrim Road on Sunday night. The PSNI and other securocrats have hyped the situation. Bogus allegations about republican intentions to create conflict and attempts to draw nationalist youths into street confrontations have been part and parcel of that. The fabricated myth of a tit-for-tat campaign of violence, which has largely gone unchallenged, has been part of the smokescreen.

At the political level, the inter-unionist electoral battle is being fought out on political territory that has been marked out by anti-Agreement unionists, that is, by the DUP and anti-Agreement unionists in the UUP. Anti-Agreement positions will win out regardless of the party banner under which this occurs, because the debate is being waged on their terms and on their political territory. This is where Trimble has pitched his tent for the electoral battle.

The UUP's publicly stated premise for the crisis they have contrived and their demand for British Prime Minister Tony Blair to take action is alleged activity by the IRA. Events, allegations and wholly fabricated stories have been combined to create a false picture of the IRA.

Against that, the British Secretary of State, John Reid, and the chief of his police force say the "IRA cessation is not under threat". British Prime Minister Tony Blair says "our belief is that the IRA have never been further away from the resumption of violence". And David Trimble says, in the Guardian interview, he doesn't think the IRA seriously intends "a full-scale resumption of violence". Instead, he says, for he has to justify looking as though he is "prepared to destroy" the Agreement, that the IRA have "a very definite strategy of tension and threat".

For Trimble, the logical extension of this strategy is the attempt to out-Paisley Paisley, to out-Donaldson wee Jeffrey. He will talk tough, act tough and expect the British and Irish governments to pander to his demands as in the past or at least acquiesce in them.

The Guardian's Jackie Ashley describes the logic put to her in these terms:

"Trimble says simply: 'I'm saying to the government to do something, to inject a bit more confidence into society.' But he does refer back to the time in February 1998 when Sinn Féin was suspended from the talks for a period because of IRA violence: 'And a couple of months later we got an agreement, so taking a firm line with the republican movement, far from threatening the process, actually improved the situation.'

"So what if Wednesday's strong words are not enough?... Is he prepared to resign again? 'Of course, if it is necessary to do so, I'm quite prepared to.' But he has already tried this tactic once and he readily admits there is a paradox: 'In order to save the process you have to look as though you're prepared to destroy it.'"

Trimble's strategy, reduced to its essence, looks like this:

• Ignore in real political terms the responsibility of political leadership to challenge a sectarian campaign by the UDA aimed at wrecking the Agreement, homes, lives and schooldays. Instead, make periodic remarks of alleged condemnation but do nothing.
• Ignore the threats this campaign poses to the peace process.
• Move onto you opponent's political territory to challenge him electorally. That is, in order to save the process you have to look as though you're prepared to destroy it.
• Contrive a crisis to serve these ends - one that makes you look more anti-Agreement than your electoral opponents. Seek to force the two governments down the road of breaching the Agreement or acquiescing in a breach of the Agreement to serve these ends. Seek to force the other parties to the Agreement into acquiescing in this.
• Encourage the governments and the other parties to breach their obligations and commitments in the terms demanded and in the timeframe demanded by threatening to deepen the crisis. Do this by making the foundation stone of the Agreement - the political institutions - inoperable. Resign if necessary.
• Hope that the protracted campaign of sectarian attacks will not terminally damage the peace process in the interim.
• Hope that some formula can be found after a few months that will bring Sinn Féin back into the executive or to resurrect the institutions.
• Hope that if all of this fails, even if this is not your intention, that unlike the Titanic there are enough lifeboats and life jackets available for all when you have steered this process onto the rocks.

This is what the British Prime Minister and the Taoiseach need to take on board in the coming months. For Tony Blair in particular, the time of reckoning will have arrived by the time this week's edition of An Phoblacht is printed. For his decision, the words he speaks in the British House of Commons on Wednesday 24 June, will set the course of everything that has been achieved over the past decade either in the direction of the rocks or away from them.

Blair may well ponder the possibility of pandering to Trimble now with a view to changing direction in the future. He would be foolish to do so. For if he talks the talk he is only guaranteeing that he will walk the walk.