Northern Ireland. May the worst men win

Why everybody must hope that Northern Ireland's extremes come to power

IN ONE way, Northern Ireland's peace process is at a familiar stage. The powers that will determine the province's future - the governments of Britain and Ireland and Northern Ireland's main political parties - are on the brink of a deal. These talks, like so many previous ones, have faltered on the matter of how unionists can be sure that the IRA has given up its arms. Unionists want photographic evidence that the IRA has handed in its weapons. The IRA regards that as public humiliation (so do the unionists, which is why they want it). Television reporters appear every night in front of closed doors behind which they say last-minute talks are continuing. Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, Ireland's prime minister, make optimistic announcements and the province's politicians then undermine them.

But in two ways, things are very different this time around. First, all the parties to the talks are confident that a deal will eventually be done, and that Northern Ireland's democratic institutions will be restored - if not this week, then sometime soon. Second, it is generally assumed that when the province's devolved government is restored it will be run by two men who bear much of the responsibility for the bitterness and violence in the province over the 36 years since the Troubles began, and who have dedicated their lives to fighting each other's community and cause - the Reverend Ian Paisley (above, left), head of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), and Martin McGuinness (above, right), Sinn Fein's chief negotiator, who used to be Northern Ireland's education minister and is believed once to have been head of the IRA.

How is it that the province's worst men are reaping the benefits of the peace process? Because, sadly, the peace process has consumed the better ones. John Hume, the leader of the moderate nationalist SDLP, deserves much of the credit for getting the Good Friday Agreement signed, but his party has been overtaken by Sinn Fein, whose links to violence and hard-line stance against unionism appealed to those who suspected the moderates of selling out.

On the unionist side, David Trimble, head of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), which at the time was the biggest unionist party in the province, took the risk of signing the Good Friday Agreement and trying to take his community with him. It was a gamble that did not pay off for Mr Trimble personally. He became the first chief minister under the new dispensation for devolved government, but was defeated by Mr Paisley's DUP in elections in the province a year ago. And the main reasons for his defeat were Sinn Fein's failure to deliver on decommissioning IRA weapons and the constant stream of fire and brimstone Mr Paisley poured on him for dealing with the devil and betraying his community.

Nice stuff, power

Now Mr Paisley is doing just what he condemned Mr Trimble for. The reasons seem to be the usual cynical ones. Mr Paisley's party had jobs in the devolved government before it was suspended, and acquired a taste for power. The prospect of taking office as unionism's champion appears to be an appealing one. And so Northern Ireland's people face the unappealing prospect of being governed by its two most destructive extremes.

Yet this, ironically, is why it could work. A deal done between the DUP and Sinn Fein is more likely to stick than a deal done between the UUP and Sinn Fein: when Mr Trimble was trying to keep the government going, there were always more extreme people - dissenters within his own party as well as Mr Paisley - trying to undermine him. There is nobody more extreme than Mr Paisley. Nobody outdoes him in virulent passion. Nobody surpasses him in violent rhetoric. The reason why Mr Paisley seems a most unsuitable first minister for such a sensitive place is also the reason why a government run by him and Mr McGuinness is, bizarrely, and tragically, Northern Ireland's best chance.

Editorial says that 'everybody must hope that Northern Ireland's extremes comes to power'.

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