The Taoiseach and Mr Tony Blair have left no doubt that the deadline of June 30th for the establishment of the new executive in Northern Ireland will be adhered to. It is unlikely that the axe would be brought down at midnight if there were to be clear signs of progress. But if there is no movement from entrenched positions it must be taken as certain that the Prime Minister will seek another way forward. According to the Taoiseach the assembly will be suspended and the two governments will seek to build on the other elements of the Belfast Agreement. It is a poor prospect against a background of insidious loyalist violence and the oncoming crisis of Drumcree. Moreover, it carries a great risk of losing the common ground which has been won. Little more than a year ago there was no dialogue between republicans and unionists, no understanding on the outline shape of a new administration, no programme of prisoner releases, no Patten commission. Things have been very much worse - and could be again.
The results of the European elections in Northern Ireland confirm that the political realities of the decommissioning deadlock remain fundamentally unchanged. Mr David Trimble has virtually no room to manoeuvre. His party's share of the vote has shrunk. His candidate for Europe, Mr Jim Nicholson, did well to hold his seat against Mr Mitchel McLaughlin of Sinn Fein. If Mr Trimble tries to bring the Ulster Unionist Party across the contested ground of the decommissioning issue he will be toppled and in all likelihood replaced by Mr John Taylor. Notwithstanding - and at considerable political risk - Mr Trimble has repeatedly declared his willingness to be flexible and imaginative. At the other end of the spectrum stand Mr Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein who are either unwilling or unable to persuade the IRA to make a token gesture on decommissioning or to make a full declaration that violence is at an end.
Mr Blair has again made it clear, while accepting that decommissioning is not a precondition of Sinn Fein's entry into government, that he expects an initiative from them. The Taoiseach has said the same thing more than once. President Clinton made it clear to Mr Adams in March that such movement was necessary. And Mr Adams, in fairness, declared at that point that he would "once again" seek to "stretch the Republican constituency". Regrettably, that has not happened. The Prime Minister put the focus firmly on Sinn Fein again yesterday. If Sinn Fein is unable to persuade the IRA to begin decommissioning, as it says, surely then it is not unreasonable to expect its leaders to come out and say that they themselves believe it should happen. It is precisely this failure - this insistence that they will have it both ways which makes it impossible for fully-committed democrats to have Sinn Fein in government. Sinn Fein says it has no guns, which may be true. But it is a subsidiary of an organisation which has a well-stocked war machine and which, as of last weekend, continues to exercise power of life and death, applying capital punishment for drugs-dealing.
The central edifice of the Belfast Agreement now stands in danger of collapse. If there is no settlement by June 30th, the Taoiseach says, there is unlikely to be one by December 30th. It may also be surmised that if Sinn Fein and the IRA believe they can prosper and extend their influence, while retaining both a paramilitary and a democratic incorporation, they will do so. The two governments cannot, above all else, allow that to become reality. Regrettable as it may be, the course now in contemplation may be the only one open. Better to have no executive than one in which Ministers are the surrogates of a private army which refuses either to guarantee the peace or put its weapons beyond use.