The Democratic Unionist Party has put its proposals on the table and they could sit, tantalisingly, within the architecture of the Belfast Agreement. There is no Protestant parliament for a Protestant people.
After the autumn election which changed the political landscape in Northern Ireland, the DUP has taken up where Mr David Trimble, the two governments and constitutional nationalism left off: there can be an all-inclusive, cross-community, Executive if Sinn Féin and the IRA make the defining choice between paramilitarism and democratic politics. The DUP will share power at the highest level with Sinn Féin if all weapons are put beyond use and illegal activities end.
At first reading, it would appear that a rubicon has been crossed by Dr Ian Paisley's party. With a new confidence in its position as the largest unionist party since the Assembly elections, it has found an appetite for devolved government. The DUP has reversed its earlier policy and set out proposals where it is willing to share power with Sinn Féin.
There just may be common cause. For six years, since the signing of the Belfast Agreement, all pro-Agreement parties, along with the United States, have encouraged Sinn Féin and the republican movement to make a final break with paramilitarism. But while some weapons were put beyond use in carefully choreographed trust-building, political exercises, the IRA has not gone away as an active, paramilitary organisation. The DUP has now placed its policies in the context of statements by the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair and by the Irish Government in which they demanded that the shadow of violence should be removed from Northern Ireland politics.
Announcing details of his party's approach, Mr Peter Robinson said that, in the past, guns had been used to get concessions for Sinn Féin. Now, guns had to be seen as a bar to that party's participation in government. He offered three possible models of devolved government. A voluntary coalition model, requiring the assent of more than 70 per cent of Assembly members, that could include Sinn Féin, but only after the removal of weapons and the ending of paramilitary activity. A mandatory coalition model with an executive that could include the SDLP, but exclude Sinn Féin and a corporate assembly model where the Assembly would be responsible for all executive functions.
The Northern Secretary, Mr Paul Murphy, has welcomed the DUP's constructive approach and promised to explore it further. The Government is studying the proposals. The response was mixed elsewhere, with Sinn Féin rejecting it as an attempt to renegotiate the Belfast Agreement. Most parties, however, recognise a shift in the DUP's position. And the cruel irony for Mr Trimble is that, for the first time, all of the pro-Agreement parties and the anti-Agreement party are prepared to share a common political platform for a common cause. It is time for republicans to recognise a new reality.