The problematical Northern situation

Interesting analysis of the current state of the peace process from the Irish Political review on the Athol Books website.

There was, it is said, a very big bank robbery in Belfast about a week after the Democratic Unionist Party scuppered an attempt to manoeuvre it into Coalition with Sinn Fein. The DUP leader had declared publicly that his object was to subject the Republicans, whose electoral support now constitutes a majority in the Catholic community, to public humiliation. Nobody can fault him for that. It has been his position consistently for about forty years If he had made a deal with Sinn Fein in December, he would have left himself open to Loyalist jeers from David Trimble and the Ulster Unionist Party at the British Election in a few months’ time.