TOMORROW evening, in the pungently historic setting of the Ulster Hall, Sinn Fein will hold a major rally of its supporters to demand "real" all party talks. All 17 of its successful candidates will be there to proclaim the message that, once again, Sinn Fein is being victimised.
It's a dispiriting return to the politics of protest and posture. It's not difficult to predict the content of the speeches John Major forced this election on us and has now decided to ignore the clear message of the ballot box. The Irish Government is being lily livered, as usual, in failing to square up to the British. Our voters are discriminated against and excluded for daring to exercise their democratic rights.
Do Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness really believe this stuff? They both understood, as soon as the news came through that the IRA had bombed Canary Wharf, that Sinn Fein would be excluded from any negotiations until the ceasefire was reinstated. Mr McGuinness admitted in a recent television interview that he thought it was extremely unlikely his party would be admitted to the talks on June 10th. During the election campaign Mr Adams told his supporters not to become "fixated" with the date, which amounts to the same thing.
Quite apart from the opposition of the unionists and the British government, no Irish administration could afford to sanction Sinn Fein's admission to talks as long as the possibility of renewed violence hovers in the background. For Albert Reynolds to argue otherwise is eccentric. It was Mr Reynolds as Taoiseach who insisted that the IRA must call a permanent and unconditional cessation of violence.
At that time quite a lot of people, who were anxious to see any chink of light that might bring peace, argued that even a temporary ceasefire would represent a major breakthrough. Mr Reynolds replied that for him to bring Sinn Fein into the political process, and to sell that high risk strategy in the Republic, it had to be permanent.
That argument becomes stronger because of the circumstances which led to the breakdown of the ceasefire last February. It is true that the pace at which the British were prepared to move after the August 1994 ceasefire had been infuriatingly slow. But it was the IRA which decided, unilaterally, to bomb Canary Wharf. Against that background, it would be extraordinary if the two governments did not insist on a return to the ceasefire.
It might be better if, instead of complaining about how badly their voters have been treated, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were to say publicly what many republicans have been arguing in private for some time now.
This is something along these lines. "To reinstate the ceasefire now is an absolutely critical decision. The IRA can't go on chopping and changing its mind. If it calls a cessation this time it could amount to an irrevocable renunciation of violence. But that can only be done if we see a serious prospect of progress on the political front and, frankly, there's little evidence that the British government is willing to engage seriously with the problem.
John Major is to vulnerable. Trimble and Paisley have been in and out of 10 Downing Street like a couple of yo yos over the past few weeks. Major hasn't seen Hume once. We can't risk getting into a situation where there are more delays, more yielding to unionist pressure. That will only lead to anger and frustration among our own people which is what pushed the situation over the edge last time.
SUCH an argument has the virtue of being both comprehensible and, from Sinn Fein's point of view, reasonable. But democratic politics is about taking risks, often very considerable risks, to try and move a difficult situation forward.
Many other politicians have also taken risks in order to draw Sinn Fein into an inclusive peace process. The President, Mary Robinson, was vilified when she travelled to Ballymurphy and shook hands with Gerry Adams. John Bruton has often had to go against his deepest political instincts to defend Sinn Fein's interests and keep the nationalist consensus afloat.
Even among the voters who plumped for Sinn Fein in last week's election there were many who decided to abandon their usual political loyalties, simply because they believed it was important to give support to Gerry Adams on this occasion. They want Sinn Fein to be included in the talks and will be dismayed if the IRA does not take steps to allow this to happen.
Equally important in this reckoning are John Home and the SDLR Does it never occur to Gerry Adams that, given John Hume's role in bringing Sinn Fein into the peace process, his views merit serious consideration?
Leave aside the verbal abuse and physical threats which became commonplace once his discussions with the Sinn Fein leader first became public. The SDLP has all but broken under the intense strain of remaining loyal to an initiative about which many party members have had deep reservations.
The party lost out in the recent elections and a lot of people think that this was because the Hume Adams initiative did a lot more for Gerry Adams's credibility than for the SDLP. Eaten bread is soon forgotten, particularly in politics, but it was still depressing to see Sinn Fein supporters taunting a group of SDLP workers at the count in Belfast City Hall last week.
ON Tuesday night in Dublin Castle, at the launch of his book Personal Views Politics, Peace and Reconciliation in Ireland, Mr Home said he would be "very disappointed" if the IRA did not call a ceasefire before June lath. He gave the impression that he was extremely keen that Sinn Fein should be there, with the SDLP and all the other parties, from the very beginning of the talks.
Gerry Adams has spoken, again and again, of the need to build a nationalist consensus in order to achieve a lasting settlement in the North. Often, when he has talked in this way, it has been to criticise the perceived failure of politicians in the Republic to rise to this challenge.
But such a consensus also requires the active participation of Sinn Fein. It would be reassuring for the nationalist community in the North to see their elected leaders, Sinn Fein as well as the SDLP, enter the talks together. It would also greatly increase the general sense of confidence in both communities, but particularly among the loyalist fringe parties, that perhaps, after all, a negotiated settlement is possible.
I am not suggesting that Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein are unwilling to take risks for peace. In recent weeks Mr Adams has said that his party will sign up to the Mitchell principles. He has also gone a long way to reassure unionists by spelling out just how far Sinn Fein would be prepared to go in accepting a settlement which falls far short of its traditional aspirations to a united Ireland.
It is important that the Sinn Fein leader has said these things, albeit in the rarefied pages of newspapers such as the Financial Times. It would be much, much better if he led his party into talks and started saying them directly to the unionists.