Are we really moving away from the stale old conflicts?

David Trimble's speech yesterday should do much to assuage the views of those - including some in the nationalist community - who might have begun to doubt his capacity to offer imaginative and firm leadership. Mr Trimble is signalling nothing less than an "end" to the "internal" cold war on the island of Ireland.

Indeed, it was his use of such language in his March party conference speech which first indicated that a new deal for Northern Ireland was a real possibility. But, as with the international cold war which came to an end in 1989, there are still those who prefer the old certainties and who are slow to come to terms with the new order. They may even yet succeed in putting the clock back. Mr Trimble himself felt it necessary to vote in the House of Commons against legislation on prisoners which his party initially welcomed, an action which arguably - though he would deny it - infringes the spirit of his support for the agreement.

This issue has now been resolved to Mr Trimble's satisfaction, the Blair government has accepted new language which, at the least, intensified the moral imperatives in favour of decommissioning. Even so, it is legitimate to ask the questions: Are the ground rules of northern politics really being rewritten? Are we really moving away from the stale old conflicts?

In a Parliamentary Brief interview last December, Seamus Mallon made a very striking and prophetic announcement: "Unionism and nationalism have got to underpin each other. We have got to do it politically, socially, economically. We have got to do it in terms of our everyday lives, because our strength as a people in the North of Ireland will only derive from our generosity and compassion towards each other."

Acknowledging the depth of suffering caused by violence, Mr Mallon went on to say: "We have got to help each other into a new set of political structures. We have got to support each other in doing that. And these talks will become very potent when, in effect, they get to the point . . . that you have unionism actually supporting and reorganising the value of nationalism and of nationalism doing the same for unionism."

At the same time, David Trimble's language was much more prosaic and low key: "There is the possibility of progress being made. And insofar as there is a possibility, even if you think it is only a small one, it is our duty to explore that." Mr Trimble, it is said, is not so good at the statesmanlike "vision" thing: but he has been effective for all that.

In essence, of course, this was the issue which replayed itself in the last week of the talks. Then came the moment predicted by Seamus Mallon when the UUP and the SDLP had to help "each other into a new set of political structures". By talking again about the end of the internal Irish cold war, Mr Trimble is reminding us how much has changed. There is, for example, not the slightest hint that the Ulster unionists are having second thoughts about the North-South relationship they agreed, in principle, to establish at the time of the Belfast Agreement. On the contrary, the signs are that they are keen to get things started on a proper basis. There are other good omens. It may as yet be an understated phenomenon but the agreement between mainstream unionism and mainstream nationalism is forcing the other more turbulent parties within each community to moderate.

The republican movement, for so long shifty about the Framework Document, has now as its principal objective the revitalisation of some of its discarded perspectives. Sinn Fein now campaigns in favour of an all-island equity in income tax. According to Sinn Fein: "This is not just a challenge to the British government. It is a challenge to the Irish Government also - it is a priority for Sinn Fein."

Even if it is not quite clear what this means and there is no doubt that the practical difficulties are immense, not so long ago Sinn Fein had different priorities: priorities which were considerably more destabilising.

IT is important to recall how far we have come. In his Parnell Lecture, "Ireland - Race, Nation and State" at Magdalene College, Cambridge, delivered this spring, Prof Denis Donoghue lamented the fact that only Gerry Adams took the constitutional imperative to Irish unity seriously. Sadly, in Prof Donoghue's view, the Irish Government had already sold the pass on this one. Since then, however, even Mr Adams has decided that Articles 2 and 3 can be diluted: indeed, remarkably, they are simply not an issue on nationalist doorsteps in the North during the current election campaign.

The DUP is also clearly thinking along new lines: more moderate in style, in order to be able to exploit underlying fears. Peter Robinson is everywhere, while Ian Paisley is much less visible. The possibility that the DUP will before too long take up a ministerial seat is now openly discussed, to the evident horror of Sinn Fein.

Parnell's decision in 1881 to "test" the Land Act had a certain logic: the Parnellites were leaving behind some extremism in favour of constitutional moderation. The Paisleyite rhetoric of testing Blair and Trimble on the agreement has exactly the same logic. It remains the case, however, that a large popular vote would be used by the DUP to thwart the agreement. But what would Sinn Fein do without rejectionist unionism? From a republican point of view, a DUP minister would strip the Belfast Agreement of its last vestige of constitutional radicalism. There is as yet no sign of a surge in support for either the DUP of the McCartneyite UKUP - nothwithstanding the modest gains in the most recent Irish Times opinion poll. Most unionists do not like the government's legislative proposals on prisoners. Yet, there is a sense that the deal has been done and the people, or 71 per cent of them, have voted for it. Two sharp dangers to the Belfast Agreement remain. One is well known - electoral apathy; will those voters who voted in such large numbers to back the agreement return to the polls later this month?

But there is another less well acknowledged problem: does the SDLP/Ulster Unionist understanding about the future really exist? It certainly seemed to exist in the last days of the talks process: there has been less sign of it in recent days. But are both parties really prepared for the close co-operation and movement towards some kind of shared objectives which they will be required to adhere to as soon as this election is over: can they cope with the pressures generated by Sinn Fein? Until we have the answer to this question, we can not be sure the cold war is really over.

Last week, senior figures in the SDLP were beginning to grumble nervously: was Mr Trimble really going to offer firm leadership or was he going to be damagingly constrained by nervousness within his own community? Mr Trimble's speech yesterday is an attempt to meet these doubts. In essence, it offers, providing that the threat of violence is gone, a vision of a unionism which is tolerant, civil and pluralist which at last accepts the diversity of allegiance in the North.

It would not be David Trimble if he was not careful to cover his back by pointing out how Lord Molyneaux and Dr Paisley had made similar offers of compromise in the past - as Mr Trimble himself did in 1975. But it is a new David Trimble who is happy to embrace the poetic vision of a radical non-sectarian poet like John Hewitt. Hewitt suffered, as so many nationalists, at the hands of a petty "little Ulster" philistinism and parochialism. Yesterday's speech signals a determination on the part of the Unionist leader that such attitudes have had their day.

Paul Bew is Professor of Irish Politics at Queen's University Belfast.