How can May encourage the other parties to the Stormont talks without disclosing the DUP deal? ( new version)

So after a confusing day against a background of tragedy in which it was first reported that the DUP deal would be postponed until next week, Theresa May  is meeting the other  Assembly parties without them. Make  of that what you will. All of Westminster will be agog . The elephant will be in the room in non-corporeal form. May can hardly  afford  to answer question one, can she?

Mrs O’Neill has already made it clear she will raise the issue of the DUP deal when she meets the Prime Minister.

(Jeremy Corbyn would like to know too).

She hinted that she might demand the scrapping of the DUP deal if it “undermines” the Good Friday Agreement.

If she doesn’t then Gerry Adams  certainly will. Will he feel a pang of nostalgia at his  first visit to the Downing St sofas since – I don’t know – ages,   looking forward eagerly  to – as far as I know – his first encounter with Theresa May?

This meeting is brought to you by the team of  Brokenshire and the boss that gave as their excuse for  deciding  not to  mediate seriously from the start, that some issues  “were devolved”. As if there was any distinction between  devolved and not devolved as factors in breakdown. They also shared with the DUP the complaint that Troubles inquiries were focusing too much on the Army, ensuring Adams’ first rejection of Brokenback as a mediator as long ago as March.

So at this late stage,  the non unionist parties are all demanding an outside, neutral chair for the Stormont  talks, an option provided for in the GFA  which Brokenshire has rejected. Will he and May oblige Adams or threaten SF with direct rule after 29 June, if they refuse  the prime minister’s  appeal to return to Stormont, with  Dublin  currently preoccupied with a new Taoiseach?   What price will Adams try to exact to go back?  In their absence could the DUP accept it?

I have an uneasy feeling it won’t go well for May, who is  a novice in this business as in so much else.

F

Brian Walker

Former BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London