Sinn Fein Grasps the Nettle

THE news that the Sinn Fein’s Ard Fheis (convention) on policing will go ahead at the end of January is welcome indeed.

The Ard Fheis was in jeopardy after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) led by the Reverend Ian Paisley reneged on an earlier agreement to issue a statement that they would enter into a power sharing government once the Ard Fheis decided to back policing in Northern Ireland.

Amazingly, it appears the Reverend Paisley is being outmaneuvered by his own hardliners, and a deep split has suddenly appeared in the DUP on this issue.

That suits Sinn Fein too. In one sense a split reveals that the monolith that was once Ulster Unionism has completely cracked and now has many differing shades of opinion.

For decades Paisley has had a hammerlock on the party, and no dissent was ever brooked. Now, it appears, that the lack of preparation of his own grassroots for the historic step into power sharing has cost him his unanimous backing.

Like his former Ulster Unionist Party counterpart David Trimble, who often promised but rarely delivered, Paisley will soon find himself in a bind, as the Ard Fheis looks set to pass a motion agreeing to work with policing and to join police boards and lend their support to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

That will be bad news for the DUP hardliners as they seek to somehow find a way to slow the momentum of the process as it reaches its most critical stage.

Sinn Fein were probably wrong in the first place to make approval from Paisley a condition of them joining the police boards. It is well recognized that if you give Unionism a stick big or small to beat you with then they will take the opportunity with relish.

Instead Adams and the Sinn Fein leadership have opted for an alternative strategy which involved close negotiations with British Prime Minster Tony Blair, who has proven himself to be a fair advocate on this issue.

Last week Sinn Fein won significant concessions on the role of MI5 in future policing in the North, denying them any role in local policing.

They have also made it clear that if the policing resolution is passed that it will be up to their governing body to implement it. The preferred scenario would be that they would do it in a power sharing framework.

If not, they two governments have made clear that a form of joint authority would be implemented. In that case then Sinn Fein have said they would also move ahead.

There is no hiding the fact that the lack of a Paisley guarantee makes the sale of the policing issue that much harder for Adams and the leadership. Already strong opposition has been voiced by former members on an issue that was always going to be the most emotional of all.

It is also the last opportunity for the dissidents to slow the path forward and to try and win back support at grassroots level. Dire warnings about the sky falling if normal relations between Sinn Fein and the police north and south are allowed are already flying around.

Many of those most bitter, however, have not been part of the Republican movement for some time, having dropped out at one stage or another. They are now demanding their voices be heard, but it is perfectly legitimate to ask where they were when the going was tough and the risks were high in the intervening years.

As usual, however, Adams and Martin McGuinness have laid the ground well. Passage of the Ard Fheis resolution will have to be by a very convincing margin.

If there is one thing that is apparent from studying Republican thought processes, it is that a narrow margin for is more dangerous than a resolution failing. A massive victory for the Adams resolution would be the best of all possible outcomes.