Sinn Féin on policing - Vote an endorsement of Adams

The Sinn Féin leadership, by its crucial vote yesterday, has given the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) a clean bill of health.

It might appear that it took just six hours to reach that crucial decision, but the reality is it involved endless hours of negotiations to achieve it.

It now remains to be seen whether general members of the party will endorse that huge step at the special ard fheis next month, and open the door to eventual power-sharing.

The decision by the ard chomhairle of Sinn Féin to convene a special ard fheis on policing represents a very significant act which cannot be underestimated.

Apart from the peace process, the positive result from yesterday’s national executive meeting was an endorsement of President Gerry Adams and the party leadership.

By calling the meeting to set in motion the party’s policy shift on policing, Mr Adams had said it was the right thing to do and the right time to do it.

Undoubtedly it was, because its hesitation on this issue is a major hurdle in the peace process as Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is uncompromising that there will be no progress to power-sharing until that change happens.

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain was rather premature when, in advance of yesterday’s meeting, he described the move by Mr Adams as being of “enormous significance and is of seismic importance”.

It was certainly of enormous significance, but whether the development was of seismic proportions remains to be seen in the decision which the special ard fheis will take next month.

The significance lies in the fact that Sinn Féin is discussing a fundamental change in its traditional attitude towards the police — from one of total non-co-operation to one of supporting the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

After updating the national executive on the “considerable progress” which was made on the issue with the British Government, what Mr Adams did at the meeting yesterday was to successfully set in motion a process which may culminate in the party, hopefully, adopting a new policy on policing.

It is a likelihood that the ard fheis will follow the political mood of the party leadership, in which case the DUP will remain as the last stumbling block to power-sharing which the two governments have set for March 26 next, after Assembly elections have taken place earlier that month.

Mr Paisley will have to display the same tenacity shown by Mr Adams in convincing the hardliners that power-sharing will have to happen.

There is within the DUP a rump for whom sharing power with republicans is anathema, but Mr Paisley still remains the most influential figure in the party.