On the Run From the Truth

On the surface the government’s U-turn today on legislation for IRA fugitives appears like a victory for the moderate nationalists of the Social Democratic and Labour party.

Since the so-called "on-the-run" bill came into public focus, the SDLP has led from the front, denouncing it as a sordid deal that abandoned terrorist victims and granted both the IRA and rogue members of the security forces immunity from prosecution or open scrutiny in a court of law.

Given the blows the SDLP was landing on Sinn Féin, accusing republicans of agreeing to a squalid arrangement with their British enemies, the IRA’s political wing beat its own retreat and just before Christmas announced it was withdrawing their support for the OTR legislation.

There is a second explanation, however, as to why Peter Hain revealed that the government was abandoning the OTR scheme, and behind it lies the key as to how the British state really approaches the Irish peace process.

Speaking in the House of Commons, the Northern Ireland secretary told MPs that once Sinn Féin rejected the bill there was no point carrying on as now all the Ulster parties opposed it.

The implication behind his statement was that if the IRA’s political allies had instead insisted on the OTR legislation going ahead (as, of course, yet another confidence-building measure for Irish republicans in the peace process) the government would have pressed ahead regardless of opposition in the Commons and the Lords.

The latter cause for the government U-turn indicates that Sinn Féin and the IRA remain the central concern of the British in the ongoing peace process.

The OTR bill was the product of a secret, side deal between Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and the rest of the republican leadership during all-party talks in Weston Park several years ago.

Tony Blair’s negotiators went behind the backs of the SDLP, Ulster Unionists and Democratic Unionists to strike a bargain with republicans aimed at allowing the IRA fugitives to return.

Even beyond Weston Park there has been ongoing secret contact, much of it involving the prime minister’s chief of staff at Downing Street, Jonathan Powell, the IRA and Sinn Féin high command.

At critical points in the process such as the run-up to the IRA’s historic statement that its "war" was over last summer, Powell was conducting his own form of shuttle diplomacy flying and back and forward on a weekly basis from London to Belfast International airport, where he was picked up by an IRA security team and driven in to the west of the city for talks.

That shuttle diplomacy, although less intense than before, still continues, and the suspicion among the other parties is that further secret promises have been made to the republican leadership.

The official line from Downing Street is that dumping this despised piece of legislation will clear the debris from the road towards a new settlement in Northern Ireland.

Indeed, during his speech to the Commons, Hain called on the parties to join talks in February aimed at restoring devolution.

But so long as the other parties, but principally the main force in Ulster politics, Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists, suspect that further side deals for Sinn Féin are in the offing, they will not take any chances in talks.

These side deals include a promise to Sinn Féin that the administration of justice and control of the police are devolved to the Northern Ireland assembly.

In that scenario it is possible that ex-IRA leaders could be directing justice or policing in Northern Ireland.

And that is something no unionist could support because otherwise they would suffer the same fate as Nobel laureate David Trimble and endure electoral annihilation.

Given the above, it seems more like the DUP will play a long game, waiting and hoping for Tony Blair to leave the pitch before they enter into any serious negotiations with either Prime Minister Brown or even hold out further in the event of a hung parliament following the next election.

• Henry McDonald is Ireland editor of the Observer