This is a week for strong nerves as Trimble says IRA war is over

One of the bizarre features of Northern Ireland politics - not to mention one or two other places - is the manner in which oddball issues and unrealistic demands come to dominate political discourse, ousting more serious and practical matters from consideration.

The police, its composition and future, should have been the subject of a raging debate in the North, before, during and after the Good Friday agreement. But while it has come into the spotlight from time to time, it has received perhaps a hundredth the space and attention given to decommissioning.

As the last fortnight showed, when they set their minds to it the unionists can win concessions on policing - to a point where some nationalists now believe the Patten report has been emasculated. But no matter how much they huffed and puffed they could probably never achieve IRA decommissioning.

Refusal to surrender weapons is a core-value of the republican movement which will almost certainly never be abandoned, whereas the composition, nomenclature and symbols of the police force are more complex but at the same time more manageable issues which can be negotiated and refined over a period of time.

Mr Trimble has wrested a number of "goodies" from the British government on the RUC name and related matters but there was still a question-mark over whether he had enough to overcome the condition imposed by the last meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council, which laid down that the party should not rejoin the Northern Ireland Executive unless the name of the RUC was retained.

That question-mark is a little fainter and less compelling today, in the wake of Mr Gerry Adams's assertion that Sinn Fein cannot recommend its supporters to don the green uniform to pound the beat in Andersonstown or the Bogside - or, indeed, the Newtownards Road - on the basis of the recently-published Police Bill.

Intelligent Trimble supporters will mouth a silent "Thank you, Gerry" as they listen to his words. The idea of scores or even hundreds of sons and daughters of the republican community queuing up to join the police was not likely to help your average delegate to the Ulster Unionist Council sleep easier at night. The thought that Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness will not, at least at this stage, be urging their supporters to take the wheel of a police jeep to cruise the streets of Lisburn is likely to have a stabilising effect on the uneasy UUC constituency.

As expected, Mr Trimble got the lion's share of media access over the weekend. He set out his stall in a long and detailed article for the Sunday Times. After last November's UUC meeting it was widely remarked that the UUP leader had put his fate in the hands of the IRA. The undertone in most commentaries was that this was a risky, if not foolhardy, course of action. But based on his recent pronouncements, Mr Trimble clearly feels the gamble has been successful.

One of the difficulties in the peace process, particularly though not exclusively from a unionist point of view, was the dual identity of the republican movement. Sinn Fein was committed under the Good Friday agreement to use its influence to bring about decommissioning. But whenever the heat became intense Sinn Fein could always respond: "We are not the IRA". No matter how much Downing Street and everyone else insisted that the political and military wings of republicanism were inextricably linked and two sides of the same coin, it was still very difficult to pin Sinn Fein down.

Now Mr Trimble's supporters would claim to have stripped away the seven veils of Sinn Fein, bringing the hitherto-discreet Kalashnikov-wielders and Semtex-planters blinking into the sunlight. Despite his distaste for the Provisionals, Mr Peter Mandelson has said that there is a "rugged honesty" about the IRA's commitment to put weapons "beyond use". Mr Trimble, too, places great store by the latest pronouncement from P. O'Neill and appears to be basing his campaign for victory in Saturday's vote on the IRA's May 6th declaration.

In the immediate aftermath of the Good Friday pact being agreed on April 10th, 1998, the UUP leader emerged into the unseasonal snow outside Castle Buildings to add a further demand, namely, that the IRA should declare that its "squalid" little war was over. I recall a senior republican who was standing beside me being seized with apoplexy at Mr Trimble's words. Now the UUP leader is claiming to have made substantial progress towards achieving that demand. As Trimble tells it, the IRA went into shock after the suspension of the Executive in February and, in an attempt to regain power, republicans have made "an unprecedented offer". He went so far as to claim yesterday that "the IRA campaign is finally over".

Republicans are not necessarily comfortable with Mr Trimble's analysis, but readers should not expect to hear them dispute it loudly between now and Saturday. By then, if not before, republicans will have bitten their lips right through, such will be the strain of keeping silent in the face of the UUP leader's assertions.

They know Trimble has to get through the UUC in one piece. So too, do the two governments, and while SDLP representatives have been almost evangelical in the zeal of their protestations about the need to save the Patten report, it will be surprising if they, too, do not take cognisance of the Irish saying, "Is binn beal ina thost (a silent mouth is a sweet one)".

The media battle is probably a lot less important than the word-of-mouth process of personal contact. UUP dissidents are beavering away at that level, conscious of the fact that direct public confrontation with the party leader is likely to lose them votes, whereas personal appeals and the sowing of doubt in delegates' minds is likely to be quite profitable.

The middle ground has narrowed. Previous estimates of one-third for Trimble, one-third against and one-third undecided have given way to 40 per cent for a restored Executive, 40 per cent against and 20 per cent don't-knows. Mr Taylor continues to keep everyone guessing. Members of the No lobby hint that they would find him an acceptable caretaker leader, in succession to Mr Trimble, but they add with an air of resignation that the Strangford MP will probably wait until he sees the balance of forces before he jumps. Mr Taylor was poking the deal with his barge-pole over the weekend, demanding "something more definite" on policing.

The nightmare view from a pro-agreement viewpoint is a slow build-up to a major crisis on Thursday or Friday, where so much is demanded on policing that the IRA feels obliged to withdraw its May 6th offer. More than a few Northern politicians will keep a dram or two of something bracing close to hand: this is a week for strong nerves.