"A TEMPORARY HITCH" was how local pundits described the situation on Tuesday 21 October when the current British settlement to the Irish question collapsed for the 4½th time. It would have been the fifth, but the scheme hadn't survived its launch.
Former SDLP leader, Brian Feeney, remarking on the Unionist demand for a listing of destroyed weapons to provide 'transparency', noted that the right to confidentiality and the role of John De Chastelaine, the Canadian General charged with overseeing the destruction of IRA weapons, were part of the agreement. This was signed up to not only by the two governments and the Republicans, butalso by Unionist leader Trimble himself.
Trimble was in effect demanding that. the Good Friday agreement be reshaped again at the eleventh hour! Feeney, however, concurred with all other commentators in seeing only one way out. The Provos must grovel and release an arms inventory at Trimble's behest.
After all, didn't Adams and Trimble agree about 99 per cent of the deal? Partition? The return of a local colonial administration at Stormont? Overall control by Britain? A rebadged police force based on the discredited RUC? Why should "transparency" hold things up? Not so transitional
Adams, who sold the Good Friday agreement as a 'transitional step' to a united Ireland, now accepts it as a final settlement within which he can lobby for Irish democracy in the by and by. Sinn Fein's programme is now completely identical with constitutional nationalism, based on dreams of progress through lobbying the imperial power.
From this perspective, it is easy to see that this is a process of surrender. The Provos have only one condition - that the details be kept secret from their supporters.
London, Dublin and the Unionists have the inventory of destroyed weapons. Blair said so. They would have been unlikely to agree the process without this. It is only Republican members and supporters who are in the dark.
The Unionists would have preferred the Provos to have been obliterated militarily rather than be allowed to surrender. they must do so, it is essential that it be as humiliating as possible to ensure that they fully accept second-class status.
The British have a central condition themselves: Moderate Unionism', the sectarian reactionaries led by David Trimblemust lead the process.
The IRA's military campaign has gone. Repression and open deployment of loyalist killers by the state has been reduced though both Trimble and the British support the loyalists as a counterweight to the Republicans.
An economic mini-boom resting on an influx of grants and bribes has created a feeling of relative prosperity. There has been a collapse of political consciousness. Many Nationalist workers who saw themselves as opponents of British imperialism now see themselves as rivals of Unionists in lobbying the British.
Are these factors alone enough to secure a settlement?
The British, who claim no selfish, strategic or economic interests in Ireland are preserving an agreement END that divides the country, sets
TRIMBLE up an unmistakably colonial structure, massively rein- NETO forces sectarianism and retains enormous powers of Republican protest coercion. What stability exists is based on exhaustion following 30 years of war and the widespread corruption of politics and civil society.
In the short term they face no challenge. All the parties supplicating for favours will be back following the election and can be accommodated - in a comic opera assembly without an executive, or through direct rule.
The problem is more long-term. The British have been victorious beyond their wildest dreams in the North, with their former enemies accepting their rule and looking to them to adjudicate in local disputes. Even in these favourable circumstances, they failed five times to find a stable solution.
It's all downhill from here. The objective situation gets worse. A September audit of the North's economy showed that the 'peace dividend' of inward investment by big corporations never materialised The economy remains a basket case. A sig nificant role (3 per cent) is played by charities and community groups. Government spending dominates massively, with a large proportion going to police and prisons. The traditional economy continues to decline. New investment in high-tech industries is subject to the ups and downs of the global economy and falls well short of providing enough jobs Meanwhile Trimble is likely to be a casualty of the election. His only hold on power is the incom petence of his opponents. Adams will look for a sympathy vote. While this might pay off electorally, the humiliation that Republicans have suffered will deal a bitter blow.
Much hangs on future developments in the South. The Republican collapse has been mediated by their capitulation to Fianna Fail, now seen by a majority of workers in an October poll as corrupt and self-serving
The collapse of Good Friday is not yet. Both Republican and socialist movements in Ireland have failed utterly when faced with the challenge of presenting a principled alternative to British rule. However the collapse of the British plan is inevitable and that we must face up to the challenge of finding a socialist alternative