Between principles and progress, IRA’s language will have to be clear

WILL the IRA disarm, perhaps even disband, now that Gerry Adams has said it may be necessary? The answer is almost certainly yes.

When will they do it? The answer is at some time when none of us are expecting it. Will they do it in language that we can all understand and accept? The answer is probably no.

The reason Gerry Adams made his remarks last week is because there is a new process starting for Sinn Féin. Or rather, a new stage in the process.

Sinn Féin's strategy in recent years has been to seek political gain as a substitute for violence and that strategy has been accepted by the broad republican movement. The ultimate goal of the strategy is to turn Sinn Féin into the only political party capable of achieving and holding power in both jurisdictions on the island of Ireland a potent symbol, they will say, of the progress towards political unification and a major step on that road.

Unlike the rest of us in politics, who are always impatient for change, the republican movement is capable of a longer view.

These are the people, after all, who lived through 30 years of a violent and bloody conflict that they knew, from very early on, they couldn't win. These are the people who never flinched in the face of any atrocity, who never apologised and never explained. They do it their way.

And their way could well include the aspiration of power throughout the island in time to coincide with the centenary of 1916. In other words, another 12 years of incremental growth adding more TDs, MLAs, MPs, MEPs and councillors to the numbers they have already; developing policies that are more in tune with the needs of the society they live in and that resonate outside the alienated communities where theirs is the strongest vote of protest; exercising authority over a growing band of young political (as opposed to military) volunteers; managing media relations with ever more skill, so that every Sinn Féin utterance has the timbre of a sounding bell.

That's the plan, anyway. But a key part of the entire strategic approach has been, and has to be, to present Sinn Féin as the party that is willing to do business, the party that has an agenda full of nice-sounding phrases to pursue the equality agenda, the justice agenda.

And in this sense, success can be a problem.

The victory of Sinn Féin over the SDLP in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections has now confronted them with the need to find a way to do business with the DUP. From the moment that happened, Sinn Féin's response has been to seek to draw the DUP into dialogue, and that process will come to a head in the talks planned by the two governments next month.

There's no guarantee of success, at least in the immediate term. The DUP are different from any protagonist that Sinn Féin has dealt with before.

Different in how they measure success.

In the past, the British and Irish Governments, the SDLP, the Americans and the unionists under Trimble all had one thing in common they all sought stability.

Whatever they might have said publicly, all of Sinn Féin's other protagonists had long since given up on the idea of a military victory over the republican movement. All of them were looking for ways to include Sinn Féin in the process of institution-building. And they achieved remarkable results.

The first IRA ceasefire broke down because of John Major's insistence on elections to an assembly in Northern Ireland. Sinn Féin, the strongest opponents of those elections when they were first mooted, were the ones who took to the streets in protest when the Assembly was suspended. Sinn Féin, who wanted Brits out, became the staunchest defenders of institutions that reported ultimately to the Westminster parliament.

But the DUP are not as interested in institutions as everyone else is. Instead, they share one feature in common with Sinn Féin the need to avoid a sell-out. One of the reasons the peace process has been so painfully slow has always been the fact that the leadership of the republican movement will only move as fast as their most recalcitrant member. All the twists and turns over the years, all the republican U-turns have been achieved by a process of endless internal consultation.

The unity of the movement, in broad terms, was the ultimate point of principle. Unity within republicanism, for that reason, has always been more important than the peace process in the eyes of republicans. Unity was the thing they could never put at risk.

And similarly with the DUP.

The major principle for them, too, is the avoidance of a sell-out. They will live without institutions even though they are now in a position to be the major players in those institutions if it means compromising the principle that you don't sleep with the enemy. And Sinn Féin will remain the enemy they can't sleep with as long as there are guns and volunteers ready to use them.

SO the republican movement knows it has to move. The longer-term political strategy needs the image of Sinn Féin as the only people willing and able to do the business to be protected.

There is a chance of Sinn Féin having more MPs after the British general election, now only a matter of months away. There is a chance of them having more TDs after our own general election. The sight of Sinn Féin falling at the last hurdle didn't do them damage in the Assembly elections, but it could (almost certainly would) hurt them in elections here and for the Westminster parliament.

So the remarks by Gerry Adams, heralding the possibility of an IRA disbandment, were the first step towards the dancefloor. Really, it was him asking the DUP up to dance.

It will be a long and stately dance, this one, with each of them stepping on the others' toes more than once.

The IRA will not disband for ever: in their terms, they can't do that, since there remain two jurisdictions on the island. If they do decide to stand down the volunteers, it will be done in a way, and in language, that binds no future generation. It will be done in ways that remind people that the defence of their own people will remain a paramount objective. And it won't be done as part of a deal, but in their own time.

The IRA won't want to issue a unilateral statement, lest it be dismissed out of hand. And they won't want to be part of a negotiation, lest that be trumpeted by their enemies as a defeat. So the same complicated and arcane architecture that we have witnessed several times already will have to begin again.

Whatever about the timing, the language must be clear this time. No more fudges will work.

If the time has come to stand the volunteers down and please God it has let the governments go in with one demand over all others. Let the language be simple and clear, for the first time ever.

That would be a major breakthrough.