SDLP: Pro-Agreement parties must stand together

Pro-Good Friday Agreement parties need to stand up for the accord, a senior member of the SDLP claimed today.

As his party prepared to travel to Downing Street where British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern were due to meet Northern Ireland’s pro-Good Friday Agreement Parties, former Stormont finance minister Sean Farren called for a common approach to be adopted by supporters of the 1998 accord.

Mr Farren said: “If we are going to make a breakthrough, pro-Agreement parties need to live up to the Agreement and stand up for the Agreement.

“We need to adopt a common approach on this review.

“Mark Durkan [SDLP leader] has already written to all pro-Agreement parties on December 9 seeking to arrange bilateral talks leading to a meeting of all the leaders of the pro-Agreement parties.

“Our priority is to get this meeting of leaders in early January.”

Mr Blair’s series of meetings are part of a stock-taking exercise in the run up to a review of the Good Friday Agreement planned for the new year.

British and Irish governments have asked the party to come up with their own suggestions on how the review should be conducted and also on the issues it should cover.

The two prime ministers were due to meet David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists, Sinn Féin, the SDLP, the cross-community Alliance Party and the loyalist Progressive Unionists as part of today’s discussion.

It is their first round of meetings with the parties since last month’s Assembly election.

Mr Blair met the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists yesterday.

The DUP last month became the largest unionist party in the election, overtaking David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists.

Sinn Féin emerged as the largest nationalist party, overtaking the SDLP.

Mr Farren said today pro-Agreement parties needed to learn from their mistakes over the past five years.

The North’s Antrim Assembly member argued: “What’s damaged us all most in the last five years was not the destructive tactics of the DUP but the failure of the pro-Agreement parties to take a more constructive approach.

“We need to learn this lesson. We must not repeat our mistakes.”

Efforts to restore power sharing in Northern Ireland have twice stumbled over the past 14 months over unionist concerns about the IRA.

On both occasions the Ulster Unionists were the larger unionist party but with the DUP now the biggest voice in unionism, it is believed the two governments face an even tougher task to restore the Assembly and power sharing executive.

After his talks in Downing Street yesterday, Mr Paisley insisted his party had policies that could lead to stable government in Northern Ireland.

“We highlighted to Mr Blair what we felt our responsibility was now as the leading largest political party in northern Ireland,” he said.

Mr Paisley also appeared to rule out sharing power with Sinn Féin.

The DUP leader said there was “no way” that his party would serve in Government alongside another party “tied up with paramilitarism”.