Trimble under Major's umbrella

THE Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble, has been advocating an assembly in the North since last September. Mr Major wash thought to be enthusiastic, but until "this week he maintained a more or less neutral public line. To Mr Trimble's immense satisfaction, the Prime Minister crossed that line on Wednesday and adopted the assembly election idea when he delivered his Commons reply on the Mitchell decommissioning report.

Mr Major was eager to introduce the necessary legislation. It transpired his government had already squared the Labour Party. One front bench spokesman, caught up in the enthusiasm, thought it could even be in place to meet the end of February target for all party talks.

The end of February what? Mr Trimble's smile grew wider. Mr Major seemed to have forgotten that "firm aim" of the two governments, announced last November on the eve of President Clinton's arrival. Certainly, the Prime Minister had nothing to say about it on Wednesday afternoon. And the implication is that, if Mr Trimble doesn't get his election, Mr Major won't embarrass him by convening a round table conference. The Prime Minister raised a large umbrella under which Mr Trimble might comfortably shelter all the way to the British general election.

ON the face of it, then, nothing has changed. The parties and governments occupy the same positions, and face the same choices, as obtained pre Mitchell.

Realistically, Sinn Fein was going to face huge problems signing up for Mr Mitchell's six principles. Now it is being asked to go through the hoop of an election at Mr Trimble's behest on the dubious notion, as it and others see it, that a fresh electoral mandate will somehow make it a different creature. The party's inclination, like that of Mr Hume and the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, is an emphatic "no!" But the downside of that would seem to be a protracted stalemate which endangers the peace itself.

Might it then say "yes" - if not to Mr Trimble's "assembly", then to some other form of "elected body" or "electoral process"?

We here embark on a heavily theological exercise of the kind at which Mr Hume, in particular, has so often excelled. And there are the first hints that the SDLP might just be tempted to call Mr Trimble's bluff - if bluff it is.

The Trimble game plan presumes elections to a 90 member body, with MPs and MEPs enjoying exofficio membership. The UUP leader seems to envisage this as a body for dialogue in the first instance, with actual negotiations only taking place once decommissioning is under way. A series of committees would consider a variety of issues. Members would enjoy salaries and status - a new tier of elected representatives, presumably also engaging in constituency work. This suggests the reworking of previous experiments to which Mr Hume is so vehemently opposed.

But some believe it need not be like this at all. One possibility is for, elections to an assembly which, never sits, or at least, only formally - the election providing "a passport" directly into a round table conference. To achieve this some SDLP sources say only an index of party support is required - that is to say a plebiscite, in which people vote for parties rather than individuals. Operating a "list system", the parties meeting a prescribed threshold would then nominate their teams for talks. Those attending the talks (which need not even be held at Stormont) would be paid attendance and travel allowances, following the fashion of the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation.

There are endless variations of the theme. A smaller body than Mr Trimble proposes could be timelimited, and specifically tasked to produce reports by established deadlines on the first and second of the three stranded process. The context and the mandate are obviously crucial. But most crucial of all will be Mr Major's attempt to persuade nationalists that the electoral process, in whatever form, will be the precursor to a substantive negotiation. That attempt is now under way. The Prime Minister has offered the SDLP leader an early meeting. It may be the first of many, and they may fail to reach agreement. Protracted stalemate remains a serious possibility.

But the desire to avoid it might yet produce an electoral and talks process in the North very different from that originally, envisaged by the two unionist parties.