The confusion of the long-term strategy of the "Peace Process" to create a functionally united Ireland, with the transient tactics necessary to sustain its daily existence, is a mistake writ large in the political columns of some newspapers. The Joint Government Propositions on Heads of Agreement are no more than the Framework Documents in an emollient disguise.

Many unionists would be happy if they were something else, but they are not. Some republicans may be distressed by the disguise, since they have become so used to having all their requirements met that they demand form as well as substance. Substance may be sufficient for a politically astute leadership but the volunteers who pull the triggers and blow the Semtex are forever suspicious and require the constant reassurance of words as well, and therein lies the danger.

Since Christmas the carefully structured process has been in danger of collapse. David Trimble has spent much of his electoral support by remaining in the talks with Sinn Fein, while its alter ego, the IRA, remains fully armed. His continued refusal to engage with Sinn Fein threatens the process from within.

The murder of Billy Wright in the Maze Prison endangered the necessary presence of the loyalist fringe parties, without whom no unionist consensus could be delivered, rendering the collapse of the talks a consequence.

Mo Mowlam's humiliating pilgrimage to the loyalist shrines at the Maze was a measure of her desperation, which the continuing murders of Catholics has deepened, murders in which the collusion of terrorist groups represented by parties in the talks is strongly suspected. Concessions to keep Sinn Fein/IRA in the talks were, effectively, pushing the loyalist fringe parties out of them.

This situation demanded a counter-balance in the form of fudge to quell unionist discontent. The Heads of Agreement represent no more than a tactical necessity required, not to settle or change any of the issues, but simply to keep the process from collapse.

Mo Mowlam has since told the House of Commons that the Frameworks are there to be built upon and Tony Blair has confirmed to a United Kingdom Unionist Party delegation that the Frameworks are still on the table. So much for David Trimble's assertion that those documents have been consigned to history.

Almost certainly, last week's visit to Downing Street by the Sinn Fein leadership was to confirm that the overall strategy was still firmly in place. The Sinn Fein decision to remain in the talks will be confirmation that such reassurance was given.

Ephemeral tactical expedience must always be measured against the basic strategical principles of the process. The British wish to disengage from Northern Ireland. This is not only fundamental Labour Party policy, it was also thought necessary, in pragmatic terms, by the Conservatives in order to resolve the conflict with Sinn Fein and safeguard the City of London.

This policy required the separation of Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom in terms of sovereignty and the sedation of unionist opposition by a gradual process of reform and all-Ireland harmonisation in terms of institutional governance. A cessation of violence and the promise of social and economic benefit are essential if unionists are to be persuaded to accept the inevitable greening of their cultural and political identity.

The Irish Government seeks unity but, like Augustine, not yet awhile. Labour government policy recognises that precipitate withdrawal from Northern Ireland would be inimical to unification. Catapulting one million unreconstructed unionists into a united Ireland in a period of economic uncertainty would be a recipe for disaster.

Both governments, for their separate reasons, want a time-phased evolving scheme in which unionist acquiescence is obtained to a gradual replacement of their British identity with an Irish one. The Joint Declaration and the Framework Documents represent the medium for achieving this objective, and central to its success are all-Ireland institutions with a dynamic for expansion, coupled with an escalating harmonisation in all spheres of social, political, educational and economic activity.

This is the grand strategy to which the two governments, the United States and the SDLP have devoted enormous time and energy. It is the blueprint for a functionally and factually united Ireland which, if successful, will render ultimate consent to a transfer of de jure sovereignty inevitable.

Because the Frameworks represent the minimum which constitutional nationalism was able to sell to violent republicanism at the price of a suspension of violence, it is impossible to contemplate how there can be any real retreat from it by any section of pan-nationalism. Indeed, David Andrews has confirmed in this newspaper that "there is nothing in the propositions which is incompatible or inconsistent with the Framework Document or the Joint Declaration".

The respective joy and distress of David Trimble and Gerry Adams are largely a simulated charade for their supporters as they jockey for position, but the moment of truth will arrive for both of them. Adams has always been aware that a Northern Ireland assembly with its inevitable pro-union majority was part of the package. David Trimble equally knew that cross-Border bodies with executive powers was an essential element if nationalist agreement was to be obtained.

The Propositions have changed neither. An end to partition or an internal settlement are both unachievable in this phase, but a transitional structure to achieve Irish unity is the strategic aim of the process and is as much the essence of the Propositions as it is of the Frameworks.

The obscure language and indifferent syntax of the Propositions are deliberately designed to avoid certainty of analysis. What is clear, however, is the all-Ireland nature of the council of ministers and that policies agreed by it will be implemented by bodies and mechanisms in meaningful areas at an all-island level. Substitute executive bodies for "implementation bodies" and all-Ireland for "all-island" and the message is clear.

Even if the Northern Ireland assembly is allowed a veto, which is by no means certain, it may not be exercised in every case. The principle will be established by agreement on the relatively innocuous, which would never merit, in normal circumstances, an all-Ireland institution of any kind, let alone one with its attendant layer of bureaucracy.

From there, with its dynamic for expansion, the process of functional unity will grow and accelerate. A campaign of constitutional attrition with its ongoing instability will not make for social peace and, always, the goad of threatened violence will ensure movement which a neutral and passive Britain will do little to combat.

Nor should the intentions of paragraphs 46 and 47 of the Framework Documents be forgotten. The former provides that, if either government feels that any institution (including the assembly) is not properly functioning within the agreement, either government may make proposals for remedy and adequate measures to redress the situation shall be taken.

Might not the use of any unionist veto in the assembly considered to be injudicious form such a case? Article 46 goes even further and warns that, if the Northern Ireland assembly ceases to operate, the North-South co-operation would continue to function.

In paragraph 5 of the Joint Statement, the governments declare that constitutional change will include changes in Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution and in Section 75 of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. Section 75 asserts the supreme authority and sovereignty of the Westminster parliament over Northern Ireland as an integral part of the United Kingdom's sovereign territory.

This is an entirely different concept from the declaration in Section 1 of the Northern Ireland Constitution Act, 1973, that in no event will Northern Ireland cease to be part of the United Kingdom without the consent of the majority of the people of Northern Ireland. Had they meant the same, Section 75 would have been repealed at that time. The proposed repeal of Section 75 would be the clearest affirmation that the United Kingdom no longer claims absolute sovereignty over Northern Ireland.

David Trimble apparently chooses not to see the difference, a difference which fits neatly into current Irish theories of the nature of consent. To exchange a claim of single independent sovereignty over Northern Ireland for some ill-defined and only possible amendment of the wholly unjustified claim made in Articles 2 and 3 is the clearest affirmation of Britain's strategic aim to disengage from its commitment to maintaining Northern Ireland's place within the United Kingdom.

David Trimble's jubilation over the unionist virtues of his Council of the Isles has scarcely evoked a ripple of nationalist criticism. Doubtless, because they view this in much the same light as the Northern Ireland Forum, a piece of necessary nonsense which, if it keeps him happy, they won't quibble about.

Of far more significance is the final Head of Agreement dealing with measures relating to prisoners, security in all its aspects, policing and decommissioning of weapons. All of these are issues which, if resolved to Sinn Fein/IRA satisfaction, would make their passage from transitional phase to journey's end infinitely more comfortable. In such circumstances the dismounting of Irish nationalism from the tiger of violent republicanism may not prove equally so.

Far from changing things utterly, the Propositions have changed nothing at all.

Robert McCartney QC MP is leader of the United Kingdom Unionist Party