According to Gerry Adams the DUP is on its holidays (ie a senior delegation is currently having a round of high level meetings with opinion formers in the US). He hints that when they return they will have to deal with Sinn Fein in its rather than their own terms.
He argues:
“I have made it very clear that the terms as we know it that the DUP have publicly expressed are not acceptable. These ideas of being decontaminated or being tested or being verified, those have long since passed.
“What we need to do is to crunch in a comprehensive way all of the elements involved and then implement what we agree in a practical and an urgent and an expeditious way as is possible”.
The problem for Sinn Fein is that, for the first time since 1998, they are dealing with a party which remains substantially outside the consensus of the Belfast Agreement – which makes them less amenable to moral pressure from the two governments.
It’s a party, moreover, which is pragmatically wary of the consequences of this kind of imprecise crunching of elements, given the electoral crunching that their predecessor David Trimble received after agreeing to a similar deal last October.
In the meantime the party, which for many years made ample business out of making enemies at home and abroad, seems content to busy itself making new friends. And at home, despite Adams’ hopes to the contrary, this time round the Unionists are unlikely to move before Sinn Fein, even with the US insisting that they talk first.
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
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