Peace
in Our Time? The 1998 Agreement
by Steve Bruce
Scottish Affairs, No 25, Autumn 1998. (Published by Unit for the Study of
Government in Scotland at Edinburgh University)
The Referendum and Elections
The euphoria that greeted the signing of the agreement quickly subsided
as it became clear from opinion polling that a Yes vote was by no means
assured. Although the GFA was markedly more unionist than had seemed likely
two years earlier, the SDLP and SF endorsed it. As expected, Paisley's DUP
and Robert McCartney's UK Unionists rejected it out of hand.
There was also significant opposition within Trimble's UUP: immediately
after the signing Jeffrey Donaldson MP, a key figure in delivering the support
of the Orange Order, delivered an emotional denunciation of his party leader's
position. Here the problem was not so much the constitutional proposals
but two ancillary issues and the general assumption about what the future
really held.
An important concession to Sinn Fein was the agreement to introduce a phased
early release programme that would see all prisoners out within two years
and many out in the first six months. Although many prisoners would by than
have served their time, many people in Northern Ireland (and not just unionists)
felt it abhorrent to release murderers who in some cases would have served
less than three years. The second point that stuck in many throats was the
none-too subtle fudging of the decommissioning issue.
At the very start of the talks London and Dublin had made robust noises
about the need for terrorists to decommission their weapons before they
could be accepted into the political process. The unwillingness of the IRA,
UVF and UDA to hand over their weapons could have been a stumbling block
at various points but the government managed to find ways of sidelining
the issue.
Allowed it permitted a variety of interpretations, the Good Friday Agreement
made de-commissioning a long-term aspiration and a consequence of, rather
than a precondition for, access to political power. The referendum campaign
began badly for the parties which supported the agreement. Although the
executive of the UUP supported it by two to one, more than half of his Westminster
MPs opposed it and Trimble himself at times seemed unenthusiastic.
The main sentiment from the unionist camp seemed to be that there was no
alternative, a correct assessment but not one likely to win many votes.
In contrast Paisley and McCartney had had a year to prepare their campaign
and they were armed with the many statements made by the parties over the
course of the negotiations which showed that what had been confidently asserted
at one stage had been altered at another.
What became clear to me as I attended rallies and meetings over the province
was that specific objections to the GFA were less important than a general
fear for the future. That nationalists liked it was itself enough for many
unionists to dislike it. At one meeting in south Belfast, David Ervine of
the PUP was challenged by a member of the audience who concluded a long
list of objections with: 'Well if this is supposed to be so good for us,
why do they want it?'.
As well as the persisting view that Ulster politics was a zero-sum game,
there was an all-pervasive lack of confidence in the intentions of the pro-GFA
parties and in the power of unionists to operate the new systems. When the
supporters of the agreement cited its texts, the doubters responded that
the British, or the Irish, or the northern nationalists actually intended
something far worse. Opponents of the agreement seemed to assume a disparity
in how the provisions would actually work. Unionists would not get their
due; nationalists would get more than their due. Thus, whatever the agreement
actually said, the future was a united Ireland. |
