JOHN MAJOR has replaced his much vaunted "double lock" guarantee to the unionists of Northern Ireland with a "triple lock" arrangement.
Faced with the prospect of alienating unionists by calling all party talks at the end of February, and risking retribution in the Commons, Mr Major shredded the findings of the Mitchell report and opted, instead, to confront nationalists.
By doing so he introduced a third unionist "lock" on the peace process and abrogated the terms of last November's Anglo Irish communiques.
At the signing of the Downing Street Declaration in 1993, Mr Major reassured unionists there would be no political settlement until it had been sanctioned by an elected assembly and by a referendum. It was his "double lock" guarantee. Last Wednesday, he added a third "lock" by endorsing the unionist demand for an election to a negotiating body.
It was a crude piece of political muscle flexing. Rather than accept the decommissioning proposals of the Mitchell body and drop his government's precondition for all party talks Mr Major chose instead to embrace an alternative precondition advanced by Mr Trimble. In doing so, he flew in the face of nationalist sentiment and obliterated the terms of the Anglo Irish communique agreed with John Bruton. He also implicitly rejected US pressure.
Sinn Fein's suspicions of the British government's treachery were immediately realised. And the more conspiratorially inclined believed this was a deliberate attempt to split Sinn Fein and divide the IRA. They recalled Michael Mates's words of last autumn that Sinn Fein's bluff should be called on arms decommissioning. Elements within British security wished to destroy the military capacity of the IRA as a precautionary measure, they said.
Sources within both the Government and Fianna Fail allege "bad faith" by Mr Major, not only in terms of his unilateral action but in the context of undertakings given in the Downing Street Declaration. In that document, he agreed with Albert Reynolds to make both governments "persuaders for agreement between the people of Ireland". (P)The Government here, the sources maintained, had done everything possible to encourage movement within Sinn Fein and the IRA in the interests of peace and an agreed political settlement. No such effort was evident, they said, in relations between Mr Major and the unionists.
Rather than call all party talks which might be boycotted by the unionists, with all the attendant responsibilities it would entail for his government, Mr Major decided to transfer all the pressure to the nationalists and to the Irish Government.
IT was a neat stroke. And, just as Albert Reynolds used the mantra "Who's afraid of peace?" to batter down the resistance of unionists to the Downing Street Declaration, Mr Major now appears set to ask nationalists "Who's afraid of elections?" and to take the high moral ground in the up coming propaganda war.
It's a powerful public relations position which already has nationalists squirming. Denis Haughey, of the SDLP, might cogently argue against an election, on the basis that it would be a pointless and time wasting exercise, because the negotiators are already known. But people don't listen carefully to detail. Elections are the life blood of a democracy and are regarded as "a good thing".
This was particularly obvious in the House of Commons during the week when John Hume and the SDLP were almost completely isolated in their opposition to the shift in British government policy.
For months, British officials have regarded a working relationship with David Trimble as indispensable to a political settlement. (They long ago gave up on Ian Paisley and the DUP.) Getting Ulster Unionists to negotiate with Sinn Fein has been the main obstacle to progress.
Even when Mr Major was calling for the decommissioning of IRA arms in advance of all party talks, there was no guarantee they would attend. All the Prime Minister could say was that he would try to bring them to the table.
But one David Trimble announced his support for an elected body, as a means of "sanitising" Sinn Fein, the situation changed. Mr Trimble wanted an 90 strong body with unspecified powers. He spoke of preliminary discussions with nationalists, lasting for up to two years, before all" party negotiations started.
And he favoured a two stranded approach to a settlement a Northern Ireland strand and a British Irish strand.
The original proposal was rejected out of hand by nationalists, who saw it as Stormont in another form. But the British did not give up. Even though the proposal was sub lined in the face of US pressure to deal with the arms decommissioning impasse, it was not forgotten. It emerged with renewed force during Mr Mitchell's hearings and, although it was not within that body's terms of reference, an election was mentioned as one of six steps which could build confidence.
Referring to an elected body, the Mitchell report stated "If it were broadly acceptable, with an appropriate mandate, and within the three strand structure, an elective process could contribute to the building of confidence." Mr Major's proposal did not meet with those requirements and was immediately rejected by nationalists.
In a damage limitation exercise, Mr Major immediately wrote to John Bruton indicating that his proposal could fit within the terms of the Mitchell report. And John Hume was invited to an early meeting. But, having been humiliated by Mr Major's unilateral action, they were not prepared to roll over. The formal commitment by both governments to all party talks by the end of February was their bottom line.
THAT said, neither government can tolerate a stalemate in the peace process, with nationalists or unionists exercising a veto. The Tanaiste, Mr Spring, meets Sir Patrick Mayhew in London on Wednesday. And four weeks remain in which bilateral and trilateral discussions within the twin track process can address these issues.
The British argue that the elected body need not be the kind envisaged by Mr Trimble. And they appear prepared to negotiate on the manner of its election, its composition, its terms of reference and its life span. More importantly, it would be a direct route for Sinn Fein into all party negotiations, rather than into preliminary discussions. In effect, its establishment could be used to short circuit unionist resistance to political progress.
Nationalists are not convinced. They see it as yet another roadblock being erected by perfidious Albion. But it has some potential. The various political parties have been nosing about the proposal for some time. And Mitchel McLaughlin of Sinn Fein went so far as to give an elected 45 person body a guarded welcome some weeks ago. That was before he was dumped on by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. But even Mr McGuinness did not say that Sinn Fein would boycott an election.
What is at issue is not a principle but a negotiating stratagem. The holding of elections at the end of a negotiating process would almost certainly skew the result in favour of nationalists at the beginning in favour of unionists. That is freely admitted by the British.
When the present dust settles, Mr Major will come under serious pressure from the US over this new, unionist, triple lock guarantee. A formula must be found to level the playing pitch.