“We have to find another basis to move…”
Aha, this may be what Vincent was anticipating. Looking again at Adams’ statement again, it looks like Sinn Fein is leaving open its option to break the deal… The relevant para:
“So the context has been changed completely. The DUP have refused to accept power sharing within the St. Andrews timeframe. The basis of the Ard Chomhairle motion has been removed. We have to find another basis to move forward. It will be very difficult but I see this as a challenge to be faced and overcome”.
The ball is with the ard comhairle, so we await to see some kind of outcome tomorrow. But Adams has certainly given them a nod that would enable them to collapse what’s left of Peter Hain’s fragile timetable.
Tags: Negotiations
Mick surely the relevant quote is:
“Despite these very profound difficulties I stand by my remarks of December 29th. I put the motion on policing to the Ard Chomhairle because it was the right thing to do. It is still the right thing to do.â€
I’d say it puts it nicely in the balance: or at the very least it keeps us watching…
so after 25 years of lying, manipulation, deception and ruthless shafting of his support base you are giving serious credibility to the notion that at this, the last moment of the journey, adams is going to fall shy over a sham dispute??!! – the peace process has exposed many depressing deficiencies in the observing classes, media, bloggers et al, but perhaps the most shameful has been sinn fein’s ability to make you people jump through their p.r. hoops with such consummate ease!
Wiseup.
Very good.
Saw this on the rev Ivan Foster’s website. Did any of you read his comments in the Belfast Tele last night? Haven’t a clue who Robert Wallace is.
Can’t be up to much when he’s sharing a platform with Willie Frazer
COME AND HEAR ABOUT THE IRA’S TACTICAL USE OF ARMED STRUGGLE. Special guests speakers to include, Mr. Robert Wallace on the subject of current IRA rearming and their ultimate aim : an united Ireland free of British and Protestant influence. Mr. William Frazer (FAIR) who will address the issue of the IRA’s war crimes and genocide against the Protestant people. TO BE HELD AT LURGAN TOWN HALL ON, THURSDAY 18th JANURAY 2007, AT 8PM SHARP.
anyone hear David Simpson on Radio Ulster tonight – after 6pm? asked whether policing would be not be devolved for a political generation he was absolutely unequivocal in his answer – “no. Sinn Fein are not up to it.” at least they are clear, no constructive ambiguity or back doors there.
the question for the provos tomorrow is whether they want to get policing right for their communities and their people, or whether it was all for the DUP.
it should be interesting.
Anyone know what a political generation is?
Lifetime of one parliament or until baby doc dies?
If as mick says adams has given the nod to the AC to collapse the SAA timetable then where does that leave sf? If stormont is collapsed on midnight of the 25? jan and no election isn’t that it? Thus if we have a troubled marching season sf won’t be supporting the police when ni would be crying out for it, or do sf support the police only when paisley gives them the nod. If this AC does not be positive tomorrow then sf is in a very compromising position. It will be blatantly clear theri support of the police is conditional upon paisleys/dup say so.
Gerry
Exactly the point I was making earlier – bad bargaining from SF – it now appears that their objection to policing is purely petulant.
They have in effect said “we do not particularily like this but we can thole it”
They need not say “it was in such and such context” as the context will be forgotten about and the promise to go to an AF to deliver will remain.
Bad move boys
The changed context that Gerry Adams was referring to, I believe, will merely impact on the motion that goes to an Ard-Fheis. He stated that the original motion was not written by him, but included language at the behest of the DUP (which was not reciprocated).
Best guess – they’ll go for an Ard-Fheis, but on a motion that is of their own making and free from the “deal” that they say the DUP retreated from.
Hopefully, it will still amount to the St Andrews requirements, but the DUPs may not like the wording too much.
Adams said “We have to find another basis to move forward.”
Note that’s a new ‘basis’, not a new ‘direction’. So it probably just means passing the motion, but not basing the justification on a particular deal hammered out with the DUP. As per the first comment on this thread.
The new basis almost certainly means a new motion for January’s Ard-Fheis. The big questions are whether that motion will now be conditional, or whether it will satisfy the DUP.
Gerry’s series of appearances on the evening news yesterday were clearly aimed at paving the way for the dropping of the “agreed” motion on the basis that the DUP had rolled back on a commitment to use the words that were on Gerry’s piece of paper.
Objectively, it does seem that the hardliners in the DUP may have scuppered the new year message. The DUP would have a big problem if Morrow, McCrea, Dodds, Simpson et al were to stand against party leadership policy in the forthcoming election.
The processâ„¢ still looks slightly shaky.