The best thing about the latest proposals for a political settlement in Northern Ireland is that they are imaginative. They are the second significant break by new British Prime Minister Tony Blair from a stale, deadlocked position held by the previous British Government under John Major. Whether they achieve peace in Northern Ireland is another matter.
The plan put by the British and Irish Governments would include a elected Assembly for Northern Ireland. It would be elected on proportional representation to ensure representation according to support across the province. There would also be a cross-border administration with ministers from the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Irish government, and it would be accountable to both. This should please republicans as it would make links with Ireland closer.
The plan also calls for a “”Council of the Isles,’ which would include representatives from all parts of Britain and Ireland, a measure designed to appeal to Protestants as it would ensure continued British involvement.
The Council of the Isles, whose powers have not been set out, would be made up of representatives from the Northern Ireland assembly, the British and Irish governments, and the regional assemblies in Scotland and Wales once they are elected. This should please unionists in Northern Ireland because it would require a continued role for the British Government in the governance of the province.
Also included in the document was a passage on human rights, guaranteeing equal rights for Protestants and the Catholic minority, a measure which they have repeatedly requested.
Left for discussion was the reform of the province’s police and the release of paramilitary prisoners.
The plan would require Ireland to drop its historic constitutional claim over Northern Ireland. Apparently this part of the plan was agreed to by the Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, only after long telephone discussions with the very persuasive Mr Blair.
An elected assembly for Northern Ireland is not a new idea. It has been tried several times in the past and has always ended in acrimonious disarray caused by the historic mistrust between the two communities. What is different this time is the overlay and underlay of the new assembly.
The underlay includes the bill of rights, which presumably will permit some form of enforcement by those who feel their rights have been denied. It was, after all, discrimination against Catholics in employment and housing that led to the cycle of violence in the province that began in 1969. The overlay is the cross-border administration and the Council of Isles. If the Northern Ireland Assembly degenerates to an impasse of acrimony, presumably its elected members will be told to grow up by people of greater political nous in other parliaments.
A further reason for hope is that after 25 years of significant violence and a further four years of fragile and often-broken ceasefires, the people of Northern Ireland are getting tired of it. They want peace and to be able to get on with their lives — that is, the huge majority of the people in Northern Ireland, as distinct from some of the violent, intransigent people that the British Government seems to select as key stakeholders in any so-called peace process.
According to a survey published by the Belfast Telegraph, 86 per cent of Protestants and 80 per cent of Catholics found the idea of a Northern Ireland assembly “”acceptable”.
The tragedy is that Britain has been dealing mostly with the other 14 to 20 per cent and has, at least until this set of talks, allowed them to veto peace very easily. The Major Government insisted on the IRA disarming itself before talks could begin and insisted that all parties must come to an agreement. That approach was always destined to fail because the IRA through its political wing Sinn Fein was excluded. Mr Blair broke through that by not insisting on disarmament and allowing Sinn Fein a seat at the talks.
Whatever cautious hope there might be with the new proposals, however, they are destined to fail in the long run because they do not address the fundamental problem. This was the British divide-and-rule policy of the 1920s that led to the partition of Ireland in the first place. The province was born as a constitutional artifice and no amount of new constitutional artifice will give it permanency.
Sinn Fein Party chairman Mitchell McLaughlin agreed to listen to the plan, saying, “”We are obliged to consider other people’s analysis if we want others to consider ours.” But he said, “”We said we will be arguing for a united Ireland . . . and that is what we are going to do.”
The unionist and the moderate republican leaders are more hopeful saying the plan is a good basis for negotiation. But the unionists say it has parts they do not like. That may cause them to torpedo the talks through the two usual methods: a walk out or a return to violence.
This time, though, there is a difference. These talks have a May deadline. If the organisations (both republican and unionist) are still deadlocked the British and Irish Governments will put a proposal direct to referendum without their support.
That presents an embarrassing prospect for these so-called leaders. The people of Northern Ireland may show their disgust with the men of violence by endorsing a settlement over their heads. Even so, that will be no guarantee of peace. Even a substantial majority in a referendum for a plan along the Blair lines will not convince the para-militaries.
The real breakthrough will come when Britain agrees to a referendum throughout Ireland (voting as one block) on the future of the whole island. It is far more likely that a Protestant minority would live peacefully in a united Ireland (now modernised and liberalised by the influence of Europe) than either Protestant or Catholic would live in the constitutional aberration of Northern Ireland.