OPINION: Inevitable deal would be mix of clarity and vagueness
IF it is the last chapter then it will be in a book where subsequent appendices and revisions could take up as much space as the original text.
This should not be a surprise to those who have followed the ups-and-downs of political developments in the Province since the 1998 Agreement.
At the time those within unionism who are smiling now were wailing and gnashing their teeth, claiming it was a Trojan horse towards a united Ireland.
More than a decade later these prognostications can be seen for the campaigning rhetoric they were. Sinn Fein's project of using the structures and commitments of the Belfast Agreement as part of a transitional process to unity is in ruins and the party's southern support base is shrinking.
There is therefore a respectable case to be made in favour of the devolution of policing and justice and it is that Northern Ireland cannot be stable within the Union without the involvement of Sinn Fein and they badly need this agreement to justify their support for the police.
The strongly negative feelings that a substantial section of the unionist electorate understandably have about Adams and McGuinness should not blind them to the fact that in terms of Irish republicanism it is Adams and McGuinness who are the real 'dissidents' having consigned all their most sacred principles to the dustbin of history.
The DUP faces a formidable task in selling this package to the unionist electorate. This is because, apart from the sections dealing with the rapid devolution of justice powers and the financial deal, other central issues particularly that of parading have been handed over to no less than four review groups.
It will not be difficult for Jim Allister to depict this as a 5-1 victory for Sinn Fein conceded by a weakened DUP leader and an Assembly Party that hopes any electoral backlash will have dissipated itself by 2012.
It was inevitable that the deal would be a mixture of clarity and vagueness as the DUP identified 'community confidence' with the parading issue. It was always difficult to see how this would be achieved. Predictably hopes for the abolition of the Parades Commission and even for 'Orange feet' on some of the most contentious routes were raised in some sections of unionism. No such a clear outcome was ever likely.
If 'war-weariness' helped create a basis for republicans settling for a partitionist fudge in 1998 Peter Robinson must hope that a similar 'peace process' politicking weariness and a desire for the stabilising banalities of a functioning Stormont to act as a protective buffer against the post-election onslaught of Treasury cuts will win out in the unionist electorate.
Henry Patterson is the Professor of Politics at the University of Ulster
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Monday 28 May 2012
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